Niche Marketing Matters

What promotion strategy should you use: push or pull? The answer might be both.

A pull strategy is defined as managing your promotional mix to encourage your customer to demand the product from the distribution channel such as a store or a distributor. The pull is driven by things such as advertising, coupons, or even publicity; thus, the customer is persuaded to buy the product.

An alternative to pulling is “pushing”. Push strategies are used when your target is the market channel itself. In this case, you direct your promotional mix toward the channel to encourage them to order and stock your product. Thus, a push strategy helps the channel “push” the product to the customer. This is achieved through a variety of techniques including personal selling, discounting, or special inventory incentives.

You may wish to reach both your customer and your distribution channel with a combination of push and pull promotion strategies. For example, Coca-Cola advertises to the consumer about the many benefits of Coke using television advertising. They also will push the retailers to stock Coke on the best shelves with special wholesale pricing. With both push and pull strategies at play, a lot of Diet Coke gets sold.

Promotion strategies have a common goal—to sell more products.

John Bradley Jackson
© Copyright 2009 All rights reserved.

Unlike advertising and public relations which create publicity and awareness, product promotion delivers a call to action for a product, service, or event. Typically, the call to action is for the customer to buy now; often there is an incentive offered to encourage the customer to do so.

The goal of product promotion is get the product in front of the customer or channel of distribution. While customer knows the product promotion is overtly sponsored by the offering firm, the call to action can be compelling. Or, at least that is what the sponsoring firm hopes.

Here are some common product promotion techniques:

• Give it away- If the lifetime value of the customer purchases is greater than the cost of the giveaway, then it can make economic sense to give the product away. For example, in the pharmaceutical industry free drugs samples are given to physicians to dispense to patients to demonstrate their benefits. If successful, the patient may be prescribed the drugs.
• Trial- Similar to giving it away, a trial gives the customer a chance to use the product for a short duration of time. If satisfied the customer can keep the product and continue usage. A good example would be trial software; this a common approach for anti-virus software makers.
• Event marketing- Everybody loves a party. Event marketing uses the power of the crowd to entice people to buy now. This could be a sidewalk sale in the retail store or a grand opening for a business.
• Discounting- Offering a special price which is only available for a limited time is a time proven product promotion technique. This discount is frequently offered via a coupon. Delay and the price will go up (i.e. you snooze, you lose).
• Bundling- This means offering a second complimentary product as a part of package. Buy the PC and the printer is free. Or, it could be two for the price of one.
• Contests- Try your luck and you might be a winner. Another tried and true method to get the customer to take action. This is a commonly used by the retail giants.
• White papers- The technology crowd loves the soft sell of the third party authored white paper which tells all about their product versus the competition. Everybody knows that this research is bought and paid for, but it works.
• Chotchkas- Yiddish for a small gift, these branded items demand attention and are the gold standard of trade shows. The best giveaways are evergreen and remain on the customer’s desk or shelf as memorabilia of past shows.

Product promotion works because customers need a reason to buy now. It is up to you give them that reason.

John Bradley Jackson
© Copyright 2008 All rights reserved.

Unlike advertising and public relations which create publicity and awareness, product promotion delivers a call to action. Typically, the call to action is for the customer to buy now; often there is an incentive offered to encourage the customer to do so.

The goal of product promotion is get the product in front of the customer or channel of distribution. While customer knows the product promotion is overtly sponsored by the offering firm, the call to action can be compelling. Or, at least that is what the sponsoring firm hopes.

Here are some common product promotion techniques:

• Give it away- If the lifetime value of the customer purchases is greater than the cost of the giveaway, then it can make economic sense to give the product away. For example, in the pharmaceutical industry free drugs samples are given to physicians to dispense to patients to demonstrate their benefits. If successful, the patient may be prescribed the drugs.
• Trial- Similar to giving it away, a trial gives the customer a chance to use the product for a short duration of time. If satisfied the customer can keep the product and continue usage. A good example would be trial software; this a common approach for anti-virus software makers.
• Event marketing- Everybody loves a party. Event marketing uses the power of the crowd to entice people to buy now. This could be a sidewalk sale in the retail store or a grand opening for a business.
• Discounting- Offering a special price which is only available for a limited time is a time proven product promotion technique. This discount is frequently offered via a coupon. Delay and the price will go up (i.e. you snooze, you lose).
• Bundling- This means offering a second complimentary product as a part of package. Buy the PC and the printer is free. Or, it could be two for the price of one.
• Contests- Try your luck and you might be a winner. Another tried and true method to get the customer to take action. This is a commonly used by the retail giants.
• White papers- The technology crowd loves the soft sell of the third party authored white paper which tells all about their product versus the competition. Everybody knows that this research is bought and paid for, but it works.
• Chotchkas- Yiddish for a small gift, these branded items demand attention and are the gold standard of trade shows. The best giveaways are evergreen and remain on the customer’s desk or shelf as memorabilia of past shows.

Product promotion works because customers need a reason to buy now. It is up to you give them that reason.

John Bradley Jackson
© Copyright 2007 All rights reserved.