What Is an Example of a Situation in Which an Organization Would Use a Pull Strategy?
A pull marketing strategy is best represented by traditional advertising that uses television, radio, newspaper, print, and other forms of paid communication to raise consumer awareness about products and services. This type of marketing is used most effectively by marketers wishing to reach a very broad audience by generating awareness and preference through a highly visible brand. The idea is that mass media marketing will stimulate interest and cause consumers to ask retailers for the product.
Advertisers using a pull marketing strategy must invest money on advertising and consumer promotion. For example, the pharmaceutical industry spends about 20 percent of its sales on advertising utilizing a pull strategy. Contrast that with the car industry that spends an estimated 1 percent on advertising.
A pull marketing strategy generates demand among consumers, who then demand the product from retailers, who in turn make demands from wholesalers, who then attain the products from the producers. A good example of this is the toy industry, which creates high demand during the holidays by advertising certain products that consumers then request from local retailers. Demand is created through advertising designed to use high-impact media, such as television, with creative, costly techniques to ensure that the message is delivered.
The creation of effective and compelling advertising messages in critical for organizations using a pull marketing strategy to sell their products. The goal is to raise demand so that retailers start offering the product. This type of advertising relies heavily on the skills of advertising agency professionals to use communication such as television commercials or celebrity endorsements along with multiple impressions to raise demand.
New products in particular can benefit from a pull marketing strategy. As wholesalers are unlikely to begin offering products that are untested in terms of consumer demand, producers can create awareness of a new product and generate demand through high-visibility methods such as television advertising. Consumers learn about the new product and then decide they want it.
In addition to traditional advertising methods used with a pull marketing strategy, social media is becoming a popular and very cost-effective method to raise awareness and contribute to demand, quickly and inexpensively. An effective social-networking campaign can reach hundreds of thousands of potential consumers.