Pull Marketing: What It Is And Why It Matters Online

Today, the instability of business environments brought about by COVID-19 has changed everything from consumer behavior to how teams work together. People's consumption patterns have also changed; they make grocery and household supply deliveries, learn how to homeschool their children, and upgrade their skills online.

People are busy with many concerns, and they might not be interested in disruptive advertisements that take them away from their busy schedules. So, branding and content marketing are more critical than ever before. Also, audiences might not appreciate push strategies, so companies must invest in pull marketing.

What Is Pull Marketing?

Attracting customers to your brand is at the heart of pull marketing. It counts on people voluntarily setting aside time to read or listen to what you have to say. For a human to learn something and incorporate it in their schema, they need to opt-in—they must be interested and care about the topic. Pull or inbound marketing succeeds when the people you are selling to enjoy consuming the media you produce. This consumption might or might not bring in a sale, but it does build their image of what your brand can deliver. As a result, consuming that media becomes enjoyable, and it is no longer just a task to complete.

Should Brands Still Rely On Push Marketing?

Even if pull marketing is valuable, push marketing should still be part of your strategy. PPC ads, traditional advertising, social media posts, and landing pages are great examples of push marketing. Brands will perform better if they use these in conjunction with pull tactics; ads and social media posts work well towards the bottom of the funnel since the audience already knows your brand and what you can do.

Meanwhile, pull marketing works excellently towards the start, at the top of the funnel, since it introduces the brand and provides value at once. Pull marketing, when done right, makes your push marketing more efficient since it makes your target audience more receptive. Cross-channel campaigns that implement both strategies will help you build a better relationship with customers and turn casual readers into brand advocates. Here are examples of content you can use in pull marketing.

Search-Optimized Content Designed For Discovery

Producing long-form blog posts, informational guides, and free e-books allows you to attract new customers. These types of content can revolve around topics relevant to your brand. For example, if you own a dental practice, you can create a guide for parents interested in braces for their children. You might also want to produce a free downloadable e-book on dental and oral health, especially if you have young patients. SEO content lets you attract consumers looking for answers to very specific queries.

Guest Posts Or Blogs On Related Websites

Writing for another website or being the subject of a feature article can help you get your brand in front of a new audience. When you have opportunities to guest post or sit down for an interview, keep in mind that pull marketing isn't about securing sales or conversions. Instead, focus on getting new followers for your blog or subscribers to your newsletter. When your new audience members get to know your brand more, they will become customers.

Collaborations With Other Content Creators

You could co-author or co-produce webinars, e-books, videos, or other engaging materials online. When choosing collaborators, go for brands or personalities who have target markets that overlap with yours. For example, the dental practice from the previous item can team up with a toothbrush manufacturer and create a series of YouTube videos that teach elementary-age kids how to brush their teeth. One of the benefits of partnering up with a related company is that both of you gain access to each other's audiences.

Question And Answer Or FAQ Sections Or Content

Consumers appreciate brands that provide authoritative, informational content that answer their questions. When you use social listening through BuzzSumo, Ahrefs, Hootsuite, or other similar tools, you can learn what your target market wants to know about topics related to your offerings. When you can generate a list of questions from these insights, you can create content optimized for voice search and queries incorporating long-tail keywords.

Content On Social Media

While social platforms like Facebook and Instagram are great for push marketing, they can also be great for pull tactics. Original, high-quality posts on your official page can be effective at getting audiences interested in your brand. Ensure that you use hashtags and keywords in your captions so that you can maximize your presence. If you have new articles on your blog, you can also post links to them on your social media pages.

Focus On Value And Utility When Writing Pull Content

A strong pull strategy provides value to the reader or viewer, and you'll only succeed in that if you know your customers and their concerns. Aside from entertaining people or providing interesting content, you have to know how to help them. Once you have their attention, you can move to the middle of your funnel. Technically, most marketing funnels enter the second phase once the article moves to the CTA or the call-to-action at the end of the piece. The CTA should drive the audience member to take the next step. 

Besides encouraging conversions, the funnel's middle should answer even more specific questions or go into deep dives on relevant topics. If the customer reaches this point, they already have some trust in your brand, so it's vital to cultivate that goodwill and move them to the bottom. This part of the funnel should deliver exceptional and fully optimized content. It should bring the brand or the owner's unique point of view or experiences into the articles. 

Taking our dental practice from earlier, it won't do to keep delivering how-to articles and features on different services at this point. Pull marketing at the middle of the funnel will focus on deeper issues or concerns. Primers on different oral or dental ailments or a feature about how dental practices can protect their employees or clients from infectious disease are suitable for this stage. When you deliver beyond what customers expect, you show that you are truly knowledgeable about your field, which encourages them and moves them closer to a purchase.

Conclusion

Pull marketing is about establishing your company and its reputation, especially among people who don't know much about your brand. You don't walk up to a person and ask them to purchase your goods; similarly, you cannot rely on push techniques that disrupt people's day. A brand needs to show people why it matters; long-form, thoughtful content allows it to do just that.

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