by Tanveer Faruq

Since a lot of consumers spend time in digital media, there is opportunity for brands to reach out to them through this media. Initiatives or actions taken to reach out consumers in digital media can be termed as ‘marketing through digital media’. There are two different forms of marketing through digital media:

• Pull marketing involves the user having to seek out and directly grab (or pull the content)

• Push Marketing involves both the marketer and recipients, the marketer having to push the messages to users in order for the message to be received.

Some key characteristics of pull and push marketing are outlined below:

Few examples of pull marketing are following.

• Blog Marketing refers to a content which consumers reach out of their interest, thoughts and knowledge seeking tendency. That can depend heavily on the visibility of the blog in search engines like Google, which can be optimized with the help of an seo agency in bolton or any other place. The blog can be written by amateurs or experience people but are expected to serve the interest of the reader to a large extent. Branded message and pictures can be put through blogs as well, for reaching out to consumers.
• Pay per Click/View based advertisements have increased the scope of pull marketing. Consumers click once they want to reach out for more information or actions. There is a pull from the consumer for such advertisements which has made this a popular form among the advertisers. Unfortunately this has also meant that this marketing field also sees a lot of fraudulent behaviour, whether it be businesses trying to ramp up clicks or something else, a business running PPC ads may want to think about a clickguard tool to allow for monitoring and disablement of fraudulent processes won PPC ads.
• Online video on demand is growing popularly in the country. As access and speed of internet has increased significantly, consumers are reaching out for drama, music video, reality shows etc. as per their choice.
• Search advertisements come to play when people search for some topic of interest, knowledge, information online. Such contextual placement of advertisement helps brands to create more relevance in consumer mind.

On the other hand, following are some examples of push marking in digital media:

• Push SMS, MMS or Calls:This method is used sometimes to communicate brand messages and campaigns. For instance, several healthcare providers often use HeyMarket SMS Healthcare Solutions to build strong relationships with customers. Heymarket’s SMS healthcare solution can improve appointment show rate, boost payment speeds, streamline patient communication, and enhance patient-practice relationships.
• Impression based Banner advertisements: are ones which are placed in a digital platform for any type of audience to view the banner. This is not very target focused and is an easy entry for a digital marketer in the platform.
• Unsolicited (i.e. “Spam”) and Solicited Commercial E-mail Advertising: a great number of business-to-business or business-to-consumers use e-mail advertisements routinely for advising consumers of product changes, availability, delivery dates etc.

Traditionally push marketing was a key characteristic in digital and other media (television, press, radio etc.). However trend is shifting fast towards a pull communication. One of the most popular activity for online is search. Google, Yahoo and other search platforms have created opportunity for marketers to be present with their products and services when consumers pull information or topics of their area of interest.

‘Pran-RFL Group’ is one of the largest FMCG companies in the country. In different websites such as www.jagonews24.com they have positions for fixed banner advertisements. Regardless of the visitor the banner is displayed and is an example of push marketing. The same company uses their brand Facebook pages where users first like their page and can get contents according to the area of their interest. Thus the company is using a pull marketing tool to reach its audience.

In the recent development of advertisements in digital media, the line between push and pull marketing is getting blur. This is particularly visible in social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) platforms. In these platforms, marketers are constantly engaging with their potential customers by publishing content on a timely basis. They might even use a social media scheduler
to plan their posts ahead of time. Currently if a marketer pushes a content in social media, audience can show their active interest by like, share and comment options in the platform. Dove, one of the largest haircare brands in Bangladesh, recently pushed a content with their proposition, ‘For softer, smoother, more glowing skin, use Dove! Now at Taka 35 only’. It was then promoted to a target audience which is considered to be a consumer group of the brand. Within a short time it received approximately 16,000 likes, 25 shares and 81 comments. Therefore, although it was a push marketing from the company the interaction of the users makes it a pull content in nature.

These trend in pull-push marketing is holding the marketers responsible to take some new approach:

• There is a tendency to avoid being too direct with the proposition or core communication message. Rather, there is a lot of message/ communication which is delivered according to the interest of the audience. For example, during start of the month of Ramadan, Closeup Bangladesh sent out a post in their Facebook, ‘Start the day fresh and with a smile and 12hr of fresh breath confidence. Ramadan Mubarak!’ If we look at the content staying with fresh breath confidence for 12 hours is a challenge during Ramadan and is a topic of interest for the audience. They also prepared a customized Facebook post reference following. The content received approx. 93,000 likes, 552 shares and 280 comments.

• There is an increase in the number of creative work required for digital media. Typically, for television, press and radio one set of creative works for a long period of time. However, sweating of creative assets in digital is much faster and marketers are frequently brining in new assets to capture attention of the digital media consumers.

• Pretest and mid-evaluation of campaigns as a measure of taking corrective actions. Typically for a campaign, a number of creatives get developed. Not all of them are likely to deliver the desired results. Therefore, marketers are having to pretest and mid-evaluation of campaigns to take corrective actions during the campaign. This helps to deliver better results through pull-push marketing initiatives.