You’re Not Still Push-Marketing, Are You?
Marketing has been turned on its head in recent years, and if you’ve done traditional marketing for a long time, you may still be struggling to make the switch from traditional marketing ‘push’ to content marketing ‘pull’ techniques. Today’s savvy marketers know that customers are turned off and tuned out from invasive push-marketing tactics, and they’re demanding more control over when and where they pay attention to branded content.
The key to successful marketing is shifting away from traditional push strategies, recognizable in language such as:
- Target your market
- Advertise your product benefits
- Convince your prospects to buy
…to a new set of pull strategies, with language such as:
- Be available in the right places
- Build connection and trust
- Provide value before expecting a purchase
I’m not suggesting you abandon all push-marketing activities; most companies find that a mix of both works best. But don’t underestimate the change in mindset required by the pull approach. Here are some tell-tale signs you’re successfully making the switch:
1. Your blog posts, tweets, and social media comments don’t all start with “I” or “we.”
2. Your customers are finding you more often than you are finding them.
3. You’re more excited to address your customers’ challenges than to talk about your product’s new features.
4. Your online persona has an individual personality and voice, rather than just a corporate brand image.
5. People are sharing your comments and content across social media channels because it has intrinsic value to them.
6. You feel more like a publisher than a marketer or sales person.
7. You worry less about building your prospect or email list, and more about building your editorial calendar.
8. You’re hyper-aware of your most valuable keyword terms, and you actively weave them into what you write for online consumption.
9. Your website is optimized to attract the audience you are targeting, and offers clear next steps for your qualified visitors.
10. You track and measure all online engagements so you can clearly refine the elements that are most successful at pulling visitors to your site, then converting them to qualified leads and buyers.
