The push to pull marketing transition

Editor's Notes

1. Welcome\nI am\nthanks to CB\nTwitter\nAgenda\n30 minutes\nwhat is p and p\nwhy it takes time\n6-stage process\nQ&A\n\n
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3. the traditional “promotional” marketing techniques we’re all familiar with\n
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10. mix of new and traditional methods, but all are educational\n
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16. push and pull are also commonly referred to as outbound and inbound marketing, respectively\n
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20. wouldn’t be difficult for a company grossing 2.5 to spend 50k on an active marketing campaign\n
21. whereas with push, you actually have a decent chance of making money from your marketing\nin both cases, I’m assuming you’re going to pay to have a website built every 3-5 years, so that cost is not figured into either estimate\nthe cost differential between building a brochure site that would be typical of a push marketer and a business-generating site that is essential for pull marketing is minimal, if there is a differential at all.\nyou’ll notice in the list of pull marketing platforms above that only half are dependent on the website.\nthis is why we refer to the lead-generating website as the cradle of your pull marketing strategy, but not the entirety of it.\n\n
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23. given that we had over 200 people register for this webinar, this probably isn’t a surprise to any of you, but just to back it up lets review a few stats\naccording to a study from Voltier Digital:\n 44% of direct mail is never opened\n 84% of 25-34 year olds have left a favorite website because of an intrusive ad\n 86% of people skip TV ads\nThe web--particularly search and social media--have changed the way we make decisions\nchanged to sales cycle to the buying cycle, shifting the power to the consumer\nmost mid-sized b2b firms can no longer sell anybody into hiring them\nthey can, however, educate people into hiring them\nconversely, the web has allowed us to be marketed to by everyone from seemingly every direction\nbecause of that, trust has a more important role in the buying cycle than ever has\ntrust is initially conveyed primarily through referrals.\npull marketing is all about referrals\n on your site, people discover your blog, newsletter, and webinar content through search and social media--the two largest referral sources we’ve ever known. \n when you speak at an event, write a magazine article, or publish a book, the event host, magazine editor, and book publisher, respectively are endorsing you as an expert, which is a very clear referral\npush marketing is primarily about a business talking about itself--and everybody knows anybody can make unsubstantiated claims of greatness. \n push marketing techniques have allowed companies to push themselves in front of us, and instead of helping us by educating and enriching us, they are obstacles which get in our way. Push marketing has been abused by too many, for too long. Push marketing has pushed itself out of being relevant. \nPull marketing meets us at the intersection of our interests and a firms expertise, and then it guides us along the way until WE decide that it’s worth our time to get to know this firm better, or if they aren’t the right fit for us. \nA lot of this probably resonates with you, and much of it is evident in our own purchasing behaviors. So, why isn’t everyone a great pull marketer now?\nIt’s difficult. And it takes time!\n
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28. most anyone can buy their way into any call list, magazine ad, or trade show booth\nwhich is part of the reason these methods aren’t trusted\npull marketing, on the other hand...\n
29. this is why it takes 3-5 years\nthere are no shortcuts\nbeyond that, there isn’t even a very clear path\nwhich is why we’re hosting this webinar\nwhat we want to look at now is a potential path you can take to slowly and safely transition from being a push marketer to being a push marketer\nyou probably won’t implement this plan step by step (although you could), but this will give you a sense of the stages which are involved, and what you can expect to encounter through this transitional journey\nI can’t say exactly how long it will take until you’re able to safely eliminate your reliance upon pull marketing, but 3-5 years is a very good estimate. For the reasons I’ve just described, you can’t rush this. So, you better start before you’re either so sick of making cold calls that you can’t go on or, more poignantly, your push marketing techniques finally go from not working very well to not working at all and you’re stuck with an extinct marketing program and no current or future leads to speak of. \nIf you are an agency principal and you aren’t aggressively pursuing a long-term pull marketing strategic approach, you are irresponsibly running your firm. \n
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31. stage 1: blogging\nwe’ve listed this first because, all things considered, it is the most approachable pull marketing technique that you have at your disposal. Let’s take a look at the details:\n
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47. even though blogging is in many ways the easiest initial pull marketing platform to embrace, there are many tough lessons to learn here.\nfinding your voice, identifying the key writers in your firm, making writing a habit among key people in your firm, and learning how to properly promote your content through social channels are significant challenges. This is a very steep hill indeed. \nthe good news is that once you do that, you’ll be able to (and you’ll need to) call on all of those skills for all of the subsequent pull marketing platforms you choose to pursue. \nthis may very well be the most difficult step you take in the entire transition form push to pull.\nunfortunately, most start here, and most fail here\none of the reasons pull marketing is so effective is that so few firms do it well, if they even do it at all\nif you ace this first step, you will be able to succeed in most if not all subsequent steps. there are new and extreme challenges ahead, for sure, but if you’re able to rise up and meet the challenges at this stage, you’ll most likely be able to have the perseverance to meet those challenges too.\nThe other thing you’ll have going for you after you’ve conquered stage 1 is that by the time you consider moving to stage 2, you’ve already gotten a taste of the impact a strong pull marketing strategy can have on your firm and your firms new business development efforts\nwith that in mind, let’s move on\n\n
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49. the next platform you may want to consider adding to your pull marketing strategy is newsletters. \nthe order I chose to present these in doesn’t imply any real hierarchy, I’d be hard pressed to say that any platform is better than the others. These are primarily laid out in a way we feel that people will be most comfortable approaching them in. They all have their own unique challenges, and benefits.\nlet’s take a look at the newsletter details\n
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78. the next step is to get out and actually speak in public\nto your prospects, not your peers!\n\n
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85. this is the first platform that is offsite, and as a result this is the first platform that has a high barrier to entry\none of the reasons I put all of the on-site platforms first is because that on-site content helps to make a case for both your expertise and your ability to convey your expertise through writing and speaking. \nit is much easier to land that choice speaking gig if you can point the conference organizer to a series of high quality newsletters, blog posts, and webinars you’ve created which speak specifically to your (and their) prospects’ needs. \nIn fact, you might accidentally get your first opportunity to write an offsite article or speak at an event because someone high up in one of those organizations noticed what you’ve been doing on your site, and thought your voice would be a great addition to their platform. \n
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90. when you’re starting out, it’s not uncommon to earn $500 (plus flight and hotel) when you give a talk. \nnow, you’re not going to retire off this just yet, but compare getting paid to speak at an event as an expert, to the push equivalent of this which is paying a large sum to attend the event as an exhibitor. \n\nwith push you’re paying a lot of money instead of getting paid and when it comes to your interaction with the attendees you’re trying to reach by being at the event you’re mostly avoided as a salesperson instead of being sought out as an expert. \n
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104. here too, let’s compare this to the push equivalent, which would be paying for an ad in the same magazine you could instead be writing an article for. \nwhen you read an industry magazine, who get’s more of your attention, the expert who wrote teh article or one of the 150 businesses who have their ads plastered all over the pages you leaf through on your way to the article?\nthere’s also the issue of permanence. That ad is a one-time buy. after that issue comes out you won’t get any more value from that single investment ever. \nthe article will live on--on your website, on their website, and through search and social channels--for many years to come.\n
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119. well, that’s all we have time to cover today\nthank you very much for attending this webinar, and I hope this gave you some strong insight into how you can improve your own pull marketing strategy.\n\nif you’re interested, I’d encourage you to sign up for our monthly educational newsletter or check out the book I published through RockBench last june.\n\nIn other news, I’m very excited to announce that our next webinar will be held on August 8th and will be titled “The State of Digital Marketing for Small Agencies.”\n\nNewfangled is partnering with ReCourses and WinWithoutPitching to conduct an extensive worldwide survey of small agencies in the coming month. This webinar will be the first love review of our findings and will consist of a panel featuring myself, David Baker from ReCourses, and Blair Enns from WinWIthoutPitching. This will be a very exciting and unique event, and I hope you can join us. Please register on our site now by going to newfangled.com/webinar.\n\nOnce again, I’m mark o’brien, my twitter handle is @newfnagledmark and the hastag for this and most of my events is #agencywebplan. \n\nnow, let’s get to Q&A!\n