Igniting Customer Engagement: The Art of Push and Pull Marketing Strategies for CMOs

As a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) or marketing manager, you understand the importance of customer engagement in driving business growth and success. In today's competitive landscape, it's crucial to leverage effective marketing strategies that can captivate your audience and create meaningful interactions. One such approach is the dynamic combination of push and pull marketing strategies. In this blog post, we'll explore the art of igniting customer engagement through the strategic use of push and pull marketing tactics.

The Power of Push and Pull Marketing

Push and pull marketing strategies are like two sides of the same coin, each playing a vital role in attracting and retaining customers. While push marketing involves proactively pushing your products or services to potential customers, pull marketing focuses on creating an enticing environment that attracts customers to seek out your offerings. By combining these two strategies, CMOs can maximize customer engagement and drive business growth.

Let's delve into the details of each strategy and how they can work together synergistically:

Push Marketing: Driving Immediate Awareness and Action

Push marketing is all about taking a proactive approach to reach your target audience and generate immediate interest and action. It involves pushing your marketing messages and offerings directly to potential customers through various channels. Here are some key push marketing tactics:

• Traditional Advertising: Utilize television, radio, print, and outdoor advertisements to create brand awareness and deliver compelling messages to a wide audience.
• Email Marketing: Leverage targeted email campaigns to deliver personalized messages, promotions, and updates directly to your customers' inboxes.
• Telemarketing: Engage with potential customers over the phone to present your offerings, address their queries, and generate sales leads.
• Sales Promotions: Offer time-limited discounts, special offers, or incentives to encourage immediate purchases and create a sense of urgency.
• Direct Mail: Utilize well-crafted direct mail campaigns to deliver promotional materials, catalogs, or samples to potential customers' physical mailboxes.

Push marketing strategies are effective in creating awareness, driving sales, and ensuring your brand stays top of mind for potential customers. However, it's important to strike a balance and avoid overwhelming customers with excessive messaging, which could lead to disengagement or annoyance.

Pull Marketing: Creating a Magnetic Customer Experience

Pull marketing focuses on creating an environment that entices customers to voluntarily seek out your brand, products, or services. It's about attracting customers by providing valuable content, addressing their needs, and establishing a strong brand presence. Here are some pull marketing strategies to consider:

• Content Marketing: Create informative and engaging content such as blog posts, videos, and infographics that provide value to your target audience. Share this content through your website, social media platforms, and email newsletters.
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Optimize your website and content to rank higher in search engine results, making it easier for customers to find you organically when they are actively searching for related information.
• Social Media Engagement: Build a strong social media presence by sharing engaging content, interacting with your audience, and fostering meaningful conversations. Leverage social media platforms to create a community around your brand.
• Influencer Collaborations: Partner with influencers or industry experts who align with your brand values to promote your products or services. Their endorsement can help generate trust and drive customer engagement.
• Referral Programs: Encourage your satisfied customers to refer your brand to their network by offering incentives or rewards. Word-of-mouth referrals can be a powerful pull marketing tool.

Pull marketing strategies focus on building long-term customer relationships and establishing your brand as a trusted authority in your industry. By providing value and engaging your customers, you can create a loyal customer base that actively seeks out your brand.

Sometimes Its Easy to Forget

With all of the day to day problems in the world, it is easy to forget the beauty of earth and the intricate ways we are connected to each other.  As a social marketer, we deal with social communities and social networks as a way to building relationships with our customers and prospects.  This video from the space station show just how connected we are in the world and how stunningly beautiful our world is.  Take a minute to watch this great video  http://bit.ly/tz7Y0Q

Social Media Week - Get Involved

On September 19 - September 23, 10 cities throughout the world will be celebrating Social Media Week.  These cities will be hosting seminars, parties, major social events, educational sessions, parties and other events celebrating how social media is changing the way we interact, market, and develop relationships with other people.

As a member of the advisory board for Chicago's Social Media Week celebrations, I am impressed with the expertise hosting and developing the sessions.  We have some of the best social and blog experts in the world who will be hosting FREE seminars and sessions.  Our city is also hosting key seminars for different vertical industries and for educators.  It is a week worth of events you should not miss!

If you are a marketer or interested in social networking, these are must see events.  If you are not in the key cities, I know we are planning to live stream most of our events throughout the week. 

Here is the link to the main page of Social Media Week  Social Media Week organization

For my students at Northwestern's IMC program and other people interested in volunteering in Chicago, here is the volunteer link  In Chicago, you can volunteer to host a day, a session or assist in other ways for us to put on the event.  We have sessions from the morning through to evening events every day so there is probably something you can do.

If you are in journalism or have professional camera equipment, we also are looking for people to help us live stream key events.  If you are interested, go to the city site you desire and volunteer.

This is a great event.  Don't miss it

What type of Social do you Need? - Part 1

Today, there are two social networking strategies companies are using to grow their businesses.  While both of these strategies use the social network to attract business or consumer individuals to the company, they are radially different ways to use social to brow your business.  As I work with more and more companies to deploy a social marketing strategy, I find there is a great deal of confusion in how to best use social networking.  In this blog entry, I will outline these two strategies and show how they are supports and developed by companies.  If you are considering using social, you need to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of these two strategies to pick the best way to use the amazing power of social networking to profitably grow your business.

Socializing Strategy

Go out to Facebook and look at the wall of McDonalds, or Discover Card, or Pepsi and you will see companies who are building relationships with prospects and customers using social networking.  Their approach is based on the premise that if you talk one-to-one with people and get them involved with your company, they will be more likely to consider you when the need or want a product.  When I first talk to companies considering or doing social media, this is most likely their strategy of choice.

Strategic Objectives

• The Goal of a Socializing strategy is to create conversations with individual's attracted to the company
• Generally, the company develops this strategy by building Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn sites and then promote to get individuals to these sites
• The measures of importance are the number of friends on each site, the number of postings or comments being made, number of new versus existing people on the site, and other similar measures
• In many of the companies I consult with, Socializing Strategies are managed by the PR department as they are talking directly to the people

Strengths of the Socializing Strategy

The Socializing Strategy is the one most used by businesses today for the following reason:

• Socializing strategy allows you to widely broadcast your specials and address topics which interest a wide variety of individuals
• It is relatively easy to deploy because you can hire young people skilled in social networks to interact with your "friends"
• Entry costs are low and you need to do it because all of your competitors are there
• It engages people to talk with you [and each other] through comments to your posts

Weaknesses of the Socializing Strategy

While this strategy is useful for a company, it is difficult to "sell" to senior management because of the following weaknesses

• Untargeted - While you can create Facebook tabs and other elements to talk to unique markets, most companies engage all of their target markets on a single page.  This is like attempting to write an advertisement or email letter to commicate to all types of people.  It can't be done
• Unmeasurable - While we can measure behaviors within each of these social networks, it is impossible to link activities on these sites to bottom-line purchases.  This is especially true if your company requires multiple channels or uses a sales force to close the deal.  While it is intuitive that talking with people will enhance their perceptions of you, it is difficult to justify growing expenditures in social marketing without a link to bottom-line sales.
• Untestable - In a traditional marketing strategy, we test communication strategies and offers to find the ones most responsive to the individual.  We cannot do this with these social networks.  This is because it is Untargeted - we don't know exactly who we are talking to.

Summary of Part 1

While companies should look to deploy a Socializing Strategy to talk to people, it is important to think of it as socializing and not marketing.  The weaknesses of the Socializing Strategy are the exact strengths of a targeted marketering effort.  To really grow in the markets of highest value to your company and build stronger relationships with your best customers, you need to use social networks in a different way...as a part of a Social IMC Strategy.  In the next installment, we will examine Social IMC and see how it differs from a Socializing Strategy.

In case your children don't wear seat belts

My two daughters were driving with a friend yesterday.  After an afternoon of mini golf and getting an ice cream cone, they were stopped at a stop light on a major 4 lane road.  A kid came over the hill in his SUV, driving 40 - 50 MPH and not paying attention.  Without even hitting his brakes [text messaging???] he hit our car.  Here are the photos:

They took our youngest to the hospital with a concussion and she is doing well.  It took another 20 minutes for fire fighters to use the jaws of life to extract our oldest.  The key is:

1.  ALL THREE WALKED AWAY FROM THE ACCIDENT AND ARE FINE!!!
2.  ALL THREE WERE WEARING SEAT BELTS
3.  FIRE FIGHTERS AND THE CAR EXPERTS TOLD US 2 - 3 WOULD HAVE DIED WITHOUT THE SEAT BELTS.

Show these images to your kids.  It could have been them!

Six Things I Told Pawn Queens

I was recently asked to be the Marketing Expert on TLC's Pawn Queens show  Pawn Queens.  As a start-up, they wanted to know my recommendations on how they could increase brand awareness, grow market share, and build stronger relationships with their customers.  To discuss their marketing needs, I identified five areas of focus.  These areas are critical to most start-up so I thought you might be interested as well.  They are:

1. Think Community - Today, you need to talk to communities of individuals who use social and web technologies to link together.  To quickly reach a target market, you need to reach them in the communities where they "reside".  Social community based marketing is the quickest way to grow your market share and your bottom line profits.
2. Think Relationships - Pawn Queens has visitors - web and in person - who come into their show and leave anonymously.  Invite them to join your email program - even if it is just to learn about specials and special events.  You "paid" to get them to your company so why "pay" to get to them again.  Build relationships starting with the first visit.
3. Think Brand Essence - Who are you?  What do you stand for?  Pawn Queens wants to be known as a part of the Naperville community.  They should build marketing programs to reinforce that brand essence and communicate it continually to solidify their brand position in the marketplace.
4. Think Networking - The new math of social marketing is 1 exceptional program + 1 individual = 100 visitors to your company.  Companies - especially start ups - need to use social programs like we develop to quickly grow their prospect and customer bases.  We advocate Social IMC which creates social marketing programs with a focus on bottom line results.
5. Think Global - While Pawn Queens is targeting the Naperville markets, their brand essence and their products have the potential for global reach.  They should think local but market global.

Discussing these points resulted in the development of a social marketing plan for Pawn Queens.  I will discuss the plan in more detail in future articles.

PS - The program is tonight http://bit.ly/mTrnK2

Building Better Web Communities and Social Media Programs using Persona Segmentation

In integrated marketing, we use past purchases and descriptive data to target prospects to move them to action. On the web, prospects already know what they want and are actively seeking solutions for their needs and they are willing to interact with us if we provide them with faster, more exact solutions. As marketers creating web communities and social media programs, we can use this willingness to interact to better understand what is driving visitors and to create communities and social media sites that provide them with the information, tools, and products they need. Given that we’re talking about social media, it may seem unnecessary to say this, but…I really should: The best way to find out what people want or what motivates them is to ask. Survey them. Here are some tips on what to ask, how to build, and how to use persona segments to improve your web, social and direct marketing programs.


Think Beyond RFM & P for Web & Social Marketing

To best define your web and social media prospects and customers, you need to better understand five dimensions of their personality which determine the nature & extent of their social interactions. They are:

• Drivers - the strength and sources of motivation that move you to action. Drivers are critical in determining the amount of effort an individual will use to address their needs and the way they interact with a web community (and the frequency of those interactions). What we want to discover about an individual’s motivational drivers are (1) are they internally or externally driven to action, (2) what is the source and (3) how strong is their drive.

Survey hint: Most people cannot tell you their drivers. Ask a series of opinion questions they can quickly respond to with a strongly agree to a strongly disagree [called a 5 or 7 level Likert scale question]. Example: “I eat out mainly for the speed and convenience” “The most important part of dining out is being with friends and family”. Because you want them to simply react to each statement, ask 20 to 30 questions - one after another. Then use factor analysis to determine the underlying drivers.

• Triggers – life and special events, occasions or stimuli that force, entice or encourage an individual to action. In most companies, trigger events or triggers combined with drivers are useful in determining what communities to build on your website or in your social media programs.

Survey hint: When asking trigger questions, give them specific questions about where they go for expertise and information. Include competitor sites, blogs, TV shows, social sites, magazines, etc. and be sure to give them ample space for “other”. The other comments are often key insights into how individuals search for solutions.

• Search Strategies – the media, channels, and tools we use to find the expertise to address our needs. In understanding search strategies, focus on all the media they might use to get expert opinions and information about your products and services. Ask questions about the media sources they use and then “drill down” on each one to learn the specific magazines, TV, websites, blogs, social, and other sources of expertise they like to use.



• The Purchase Experience – the process and methods we use to make a purchase – from initial impulse to final purchase and use. We have found it extremely useful to focus on the time from start of search to the purchase decision, where and how the purchase is made, and the frequency and amount of purchases in recent years. In developing the survey, we focus on understanding their last purchase as we have found it most relevant to predicting future actions.



• Household/Business Situation – information describing the individual and his/her household. If you develop your surveys using database customers or prospects or a national panel, you can overlay this data and avoid asking these ‘personal’ questions.

Survey hint: If you do ask about their income, family composition, etc…keep it short and relevant. We generally never ask more than 5 demographic or lifestyle questions. And we try to avoid them if possible in our surveys.

Executing the Survey

Once your web survey is ready, consider surveying web and social visitors and database customers. Also, you might consider building a national panel and surveying its members. Web and social media visitors will give you the insights of the active searcher, your database customers will provide past purchase behaviors and valuation measures to the analysis and the national panel can show you markets you may be missing with your current marketing strategies.

Once the data is collected, your analytical team will develop the persona segments. A persona segment is a group of individuals with similar triggers, needs, and drive elements. Use the survey data and database purchase history to describe and value each segment. You are looking to see similarities and differences between the persona segments and understand their lifetime value.

Building Better Web Communities and Social Media Programs using Persona Segmentation

Look for the “Persona Gaps” – Each persona segment has different information, product, and support needs. Examine your current web and social sites and evaluate their “fit” with the needs of your highest value persona segments. Where there are “gaps”, develop the information they need, invest in creating special tools to find the “best fit” products quickly, and tailor customer service to acknowledge the trigger event and respond accordingly. It is the “gaps” between your sites and their needs that drives visitors to competitors’ sites.

Create Communities for the Highest Value Persona Segments – Start with your highest value persona segment as a pilot project and create a special community site for these prospects. Examine their profile and determine their needs and wants which become the foundation for your persona-based web community. Add blogs, articles, special tools, special access to customer support, and even forums to promote interactions between the persona visitors and you. Then adjust your Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay per Click (PPC), and banner marketing programs to take likely persona members directly to their community site.

Develop Touch Points to Gather Persona Information and Take Visitors to the Right Community – Most visitors are anonymous but, if you ask them, they will allow you to “classify them” if you give them something special in return. Review the driver, trigger, and social responses for each of your persona segments and develop 3 to 5 questions to obtain the information you need to classify them into the persona segments. Add these questions to your prospect profile pages and make them required to access the tools and information you created for each persona community. Visitors will answer the questions and give you their email addresses if they see a real and immediate benefit. When they give you the information, take them immediately to the best community to address their needs.

Summary

In summary, knowing the drivers, triggers, search strategies, purchase experiences, and household situation gives you important knowledge to improve and better target your web and social media programs. Ask your web visitors about themselves and let them guide you to greater market share and improved profits.



Randy Hlavac is the CEO of Marketing Synergy, a web and database analytics firm in Naperville, IL.