Internet Marketing
Are You Pushing or Pulling?

Online marketing can be confusing. Nothing offline prepares us to work online, and terms like "autoresponder" or "solo ad" are foreign at best.

Let me help simplify things a bit.

There really are only two methods of marketing online.

Push marketing and pull marketing.

Once you see the difference you will better know where to spend your time and money, and that knowledge alone will help you save both.

PUSH MARKETING is that type of marketing where you push your message out to your audience.

PULL MARKETING is the type of marketing where you place ads you hope will pull people to your website.

Push Marketing

Push marketing is proactive. You are taking your message to your market, usually interrupting what they are doing (it's sometimes called interruption marketing) and hoping you get their attention long enough to create interest.

Most "guerrilla marketing" (a term coined by Jay Conrad Levinson and used loosely by many marketers) is push marketing. Some forms of Push Marketing include:

Ezine Advertising

Email Marketing

Pop Up Or Pop Under Ads

Slide In Ads

Endorsed Mailings (Joint Ventures)

When using push advertising there are four things that you MUST do right.

1. Know your target market
2. Create a great headline
3. Sell the click to the website
4. Create urgency

Push marketing usually creates results faster than pull marketing because you are proactively sending your message. You choose how, when, and how often prospective customers see your selling message.

Pull Marketing

Pull marketing is that type of marketing where your ad lives in one spot and is seen by many people.

The ad is never "sent" to anyone but rather placed on sites where you hope your audience is searching.

One of the advantages of pull marketing is that you can set it and forget it.

A great Pay Per Click campaign is a good example. Once your ads are converting your main concern becomes not getting outbid for your selected keywords.

Some forms of Pull Marketing include:

Banner Ads

Pay Per Click

Ads on Directories

Online Yellow Pages

Classified Ad Sites

Search Engine Paid Listings

Testimonials on other peoples' sites

When using pull advertising there are four things that you MUST do right.

1. Know the right keywords to use (if using PPC)
2. Choose the sites your ad will appear on carefully
3. Use a great headline
4. Create curiosity

Now it must be said that selling benefits is an important part of any ad, but with pull advertising the goal is to make them curious enough to visit your site.

Push or Pull?

Is push or pull right for you? Ultimately, you must decide based on your budget, audience, offer, how much time you can invest, and more.

One very important factor is this: almost all great marketing campaigns consist of both push and pull marketing.

Generally, push marketing works best for products that meet a specific need of a specific market.

Writing an eBook about how to make money at home is one example.

Such books are very effectively marketed with push marketing methods because the target market is so easy to identify and find.

You can email a group of people who want to work at home very easily.

Pull marketing generally works best for products and services that are broader in nature.

Health is a good example. People who want better health are very active searchers, which means you will have many options when it comes to placing ads they might see.

Almost any product can be marketed effectively with either technique, or a combination of both.

Whether you choose pull, push, or a mix, the most important thing is to remain in control of the process and take action immediately.

Whether you push or pull, let the entrepreneur's motto be your guide ...

"Late to bed, early to rise, work like heck and ADVERTISE!"