A company can establish a push marketing strategy that focuses on delivering products to retailers, convincing retailers to place its products on their shelves and other efforts that focus on supporting retail stores. The company can also create a pull marketing strategy, purchasing ads in newspapers, buying ad space on billboards, mailing out coupons and using other tools to convince consumers to ask retailers to stock its products.
Unique Products
If the product is new or exotic, a pull marketing strategy is more effective. A fish farm that grows tilapia fish must convince supermarkets to stock tilapia, which is difficult if the supermarket shoppers never ask for tilapia. If the supermarket is selling salmon or trout, shoppers are used to buying these fish, so the store can probably sell these fish if it has them in stock.
Commodities
Push marketing is useful when the company competes mainly on price and the market for the product is well established. If one farm can sell green apples for 50 cents each and another farm offers green apples for 75 cents, the farm with the cheaper product has an advantage. The farm should focus on telling supermarkets that it has cheap green apples because supermarket shoppers are already looking for green apples.
Trade Shows
Push marketing often involves trade shows. Representatives from retailers, such as electronics stores, supermarkets, and department stores, visit trade shows to see what products are available for their stores to sell. A trade show usually focuses on a specific market, for example decorative plants. A company's competitors set up displays at the trade show and there may be hundreds of companies hosting trade booths at a large trade show.
Customer Relationship
Pull marketing focuses on the relationship with the customer. Pull marketing can create brand loyalty, which leads to future purchases. Customers who can't find the clothing brands they like at a department store may decide to purchase the clothing directly from the manufacturer at the manufacturer's website.
Cost
Push marketing is cheaper than pull marketing, according to the University of Arizona. The company only has to deal with a few retail buyers when it conducts push marketing, instead of many individual customers with different backgrounds and interests. With push marketing, the supermarket spends its own money to place ads for apples in the newspaper, saving the apple farm advertising money.
Tags: green apples, marketing strategy, push marketing, trade show, apples cents