In the age of extreme customization ensuring customer experience is personalized to the nth degree, it makes me wonder, if ‘push marketing’ is dead? ‘Push marketing’ by definition pushes products and services towards customers by use of ads and attention-grabbing claims. Also pushing the products or services in front of the customers to make them more aware of it, whether they need it or not.
Isn’t this exactly what we as marketers are doing today, via different marketing channels using big images and bold hashtags? I believe that our ways of pushing have evolved and become sophisticated enough to not appear so, but in essence are very much pushing customers to take notice.
Customer journeys are studied in detail to understand the various touch points at which a customer may be vulnerable enough to make a purchase as long as a need is identified. Email automation allows marketers to put customers into different data pots taking them on separate journeys, which ultimately end up in enticing them to make a purchase.
It is interesting how audiences are marketed to as long as a need exists even when they don’t even know they have a problem? Often finding a solution in this case is far fetched. Or if there is a solution, it is so new that the prospects don’t even know how to research it. Push marketing plays a key role in getting all this business and hence is certainly not dead in my opinion.
Marketing strategies involved in taking prospects from the need identified to making a purchase go a long way in keeping them engaged and coming back for more, which is why ‘push’ marketing in today’s day and age does not quite appear like it is pushing customers into make a purchase. It is much more subtle yet extremely persistent.
* Incorporating interaction on websites, suggesting ‘related’ products and services to those that were recently purchased, making the entire process of browsing, finding, and actually buying it fun and easy, enticing reviews and ‘urgency creating’ price drops are ways in which push marketing continues to be a success.
* Driving value via social media interactions, increasing credibility via influencer marketing, being present at events relevant to the audience on-ground while being connected ‘live’ online via video marketing, conducting surveys with apt ‘give away’s’ engaging audiences to participate, hosting webinars and vlogs to really drive the benefits of the offerings – all add to the need created for the customers to make a purchase without appearing as a ‘push marketing’ technique.
This reminds me of my most recent experience, where as I stood at a self-checkout in a leading superstore, I saw a pack of Easter eggs being displayed very conveniently, at an arms length on an early January morning, while I was still humming on the 12th day of Christmas my true love gave to me…..!!!
