Definition of Push Marketing
Let’s define push marketing. Again, this is from my experience and being taught some components of this in a mastermind I attended years ago. There are different levels of push marketing, and this is what it says: it’s more of – what I think of as – a funnel where someone is dropped into the open end – the wider end of a funnel – and because of the nature of a funnel, they slip slide down to the narrow bottom without necessarily a way to get up or out. That’s kind of how it feels to me where somehow I might have tripped into someone’s world, or it’s more of a colder style of reach out.
For example, just yesterday, someone ended up in my Facebook messenger, not in the general messenger that I can automatically see the messages, but in I guess the junk or spam box that Facebook now has, because I’ve never had any interaction with their world. I’ve never jumped on their website. I didn’t even know that they existed, never interacted with them ever on Facebook. I don’t even know if we have any friends or group or Instagram, no contact ever with this person in their world. So it’s completely cold. And they liked a bunch of my posts. They sent me one Facebook message inviting me to their Facebook group. They invited me to a consult call. And because I’ve never expressed interest in their world, I’m not actively looking for what they’re offering. I didn’t respond to the message. How could they even know what I’m actively looking for if I’ve never raised my hand to express interest?
A few hours later, they sent me another message re-inviting me, inquiring as to why I’m not taking them up on this enticing offer. And I said, “No, thank you. I’ve never expressed interest in this. I don’t have a desire for this right now,” something of that nature. And they sent me another message back, “What’s your objections?” That is more of the push marketing. You see, they’re pushing, and they’re trying to push me towards their offer. The problem in my mind with this is it felt awful. I don’t want to be harassed with multiple messages or I’ve experienced this where a company has called me multiple times in one day when I’ve never raised my hand or expressed interest in a product or a program that they’re offering. Yes, I might have taken part in their programs in the past, but that doesn’t mean that I want to be part of the program that they’re offering right now. I’ve never expressed interest. I’ve never raised my hand. I’ve never clicked on a button of theirs. I’ve never responded to an e-mail. I never engaged with any of the posts regarding this specific program. And they called me multiple times a day. See how they’re trying to guide me into the funnel?
Pros and Cons of Push Marketing
Now, I’m not saying it doesn’t work because sometimes it does. It’s more of a number situation. The more people you reach out with, whether it be calls, messages, text, the higher likelihood that you’ll get someone that is actively seeking what you’re looking for or was about to reach out to you. But you have to go through a lot of people that never raised their hand or expressed interest to try to get to that one person.
So while trying to reach that one person that was actively seeking out your help or was on the fence of taking that next step to work with you, they were considering it, and you reached out just at the right moment, and they’re like, “Oh, that was really helpful for you to reach out to me.” You also turn off a lot of people in not the best way. There’s another way to go about it, I think personally.
Some other components of push style marketing is you can put out great, valuable content, free content in a podcast in Facebook groups, through social media channels, YouTube, all of that. There’s great, valuable content. However, it’s mixed with white lies. So for example, I’ve heard of coaches who do videos for social media, whether that be Facebook live, where they were just starting out, so they didn’t necessarily have rooms full of people or a lot of people clamoring to work with them, or sold out events.
They hadn’t built to that level. Yet, the content that they were posting on social media shows them standing in front of a large group of people or a sold-out experience.
Style of Push Marketing: Strategizing To Get More People Curious About You And Your Product
Here’s the thing. If you look quickly on Facebook, it could appear like that group of people behind them was for their event. Yet it wasn’t. They were standing in a big group of people for someone else’s event or for a group’s event. Like a PTA. It wasn’t a group that they pulled together. Yet, with how they kind of tweaked the situation, it could make you believe that, “Oh, that’s their sold-out workshop. Look how popular they are.” And then you experienced FOMO, fear of missing out. “Maybe I should follow that guy or gal because they must have some good things going because they have that sold-out event.”
You see, it’s kind of a manipulative type of marketing. Personally, it doesn’t resonate with me because I’m not into white lying or not telling my most authentic truth right from the beginning. I don’t want to set someone up on a journey with me like that, that being the foundation, but it’s not to say that it doesn’t work. So people do it.
Styles of Push Marketing: Fake Urgency
Another example of a push style marketing in terms of little white lies, I guess you could call it, is something called fake urgency. So you see this a lot in e-mails or again, in social media, most of the time in Facebook groups, where you’re seeing a call to action for a program or event or a workshop, and they’re saying last chance, one seat left. When clearly, it’s not. There isn’t one seat left because the program is offered virtually. So there’s endless infinite amount of seats or the program is really set up as an on-demand program, meaning that you can sign-up potentially at any time, unless there is a clear reason as to why the cart or the program will close its doors for a period of time. It’s not really the truth. It’s just a style, and I think it is an older school style of marketing to create urgency because truthfully, myself included, a lot of people procrastinate to sign-up for things. They wait to the very last moment when they can sign-up, whether it be free or paying.
So to help them to take that next step, they create a deadline. However, sometimes these deadlines are fake. Truthfully, it’s not a real deadline. That’s not authentic. And I’ve actually done that myself where a few years ago, I used to pitch consults in my newsletter and I say, “Oh, I only have two spots left in my schedule,” when in reality, I was still booking my client load. So I had a lot of space in my schedule, and I began to realize that it didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel authentic. And so I stopped doing it. So now, if you join my newsletter list and I actually say, “Okay, right now I’m offering the free audit of your business.” And just this week, I said, “I’m only offering two of these a week.” And that is because my schedule is fuller and it’s limited. And I’m getting a lot of requests of these. And I don’t want to do more than two a week because of the number requests that I could possibly do five of these a week. That’s not sustainable for me. So it’s a real urgency that I created or a deadline, because really there’s only room for two.
You see, you can choose how to create urgency, which is more of a post style marketing, which we’ll get to in a moment, but it’s defined by what is the truth. And what’s the experience that you want your people to feel. Now, if you find yourself resonating with some of this push style marketing that you’re doing unconsciously, or even consciously, don’t beat yourself up. Again, I’ve been there. I’ve done these practices. I was taught these practices years ago, and I thought it was the way to do it. I thought that that is being a marketer. That’s marketing your business. That’s just how it’s done. I’m here to open your eyes and create awareness and let you choose and decide because you’ll now be educated. That there’s another way.
Style of Push Marketing: Unconscious and Attachment-Based Marketing
So another style of push style marketing is – this is more of unconscious, typically you’re not aware of. So really tune in here: it’s based on being attached. So let me give you a practical example. It’s going into a consult, or writing an e-mail, or doing a Facebook live with the expectation that you must get a client, that you need to sign a client. It’s like there’s an invisible cord from whatever action you’re doing to your potential clients, where again, you are trying to push them towards that next step of compelling, possibly to work with you.
I was just watching and listening to something from my own coach, and she was defining the word attachment, meaning you’re making an offer that is not invited. It feels kind of icky for both you and them. It also comes from a place unconsciously and unintentionally I find from practitioners of entitlement. And what does that mean? It means because you’re doing all this, “free work,” that you are entitled to clients, and that’s just not necessarily true or the case. And you might be thinking, “Well, if I’m not entitled to these clients, or if I’m not going to get clients off of all this free work and energy and info I’m putting out in the world, why am I doing it in the first place? What’s the goal then?”
In my mind, or from my perspective, the goal is more pull type marketing, where I’m putting value out in the world and my value keeps improving and getting more and more valuable over time as I improve as a practitioner, and that will compel people to self-select, to want to work with me. They will reach out to me when they’re ready. It’s more of a welcoming energy. There’s a difference. I’m not saying don’t send messages ever, but let’s examine the different types of Facebook messages.
Different Types of Facebook Messages
If we went back to that first example, someone cold DMd me or cold messaged me. I never raised my hand or interacted with them in any type of way. And they sent me a message a few times, and it felt kind of pushy, kind of forcey, versus someone where I joined their free Facebook group where I actively raised my hand and entered their world by accepting an invitation into their Facebook group. Or in some cases, some of you tell me that you were searching for a Facebook group like mine, and you requested to join. In those cases, you’re taking the first step or the second step by accepting an invitation. So you’ve entered that person’s world, or if I’m the one joining the group, I’ve entered their world.
In this case, I’ve received welcome messages from a Facebook group, and I send these out on occasion, depending on my time, inviting the Facebook members into your world. And when I’m welcoming my Facebook community, my members into the world, I’m doing this from the place of wanting to get to know them, helping to establish a stronger foundation for the community because I’m learning about their business, I’m learning about their goals, I’m learning about their struggles. It also opens the door to conversation.
Now, sometimes, these conversations, as they get to know me and we have deeper conversations on what’s really going on in their business, sometimes it’s just appropriate for me to say, “Okay, this is really a difficult conversation over Facebook messenger. If you want to talk more about this, how about you sign-up for a consult call?” So some people do take that next step to sign-up for a consult call. It’s just the natural organic best step. And some of those people off the consult call will be compelled to sign-up and work with my program.
But again, on that consult call, I’m not necessarily pushing or forcing them to say yes to me. Again, it’s more of a pull. We go over what exactly is going on in their business and determining if one of my programs is a good fit or not. And you can learn more about that in the consult call blog (link here).
To recap, it’s an entirely different experience to receive a message from someone you’ve interacted with in some way where you’ve done the work to enter their world. Maybe you signed up for a free resource, and they send you a welcome email. The energy is very different. It’s unattached and inviting versus attached, and possibly just trying to push someone to take that next step.
The Pull Type Marketing
Let’s talk a little bit more about pull type marketing. In the beginning, it might seem like this style of marketing requires a lot more energy and effort, and work because you really have to learn who your ideal client is. Who do you get the best results for? Who do you really want to work with? Who really wants to work with you? Lots of different types of information, and you want to learn this because it helps your content, whatever you’re putting out in the world to be more compelling for those ideal clients to raise their hands and say, “Oh, yes, that resonates with me. I want to learn more. I want to work with this person more.”
It’s more of a magnetic style of marketing I like to think of. But I feel it’s more authentic to me because I am speaking to those who I serve the best, and I’m allowing people to self-select themselves. I’m not just blindly going out there, sending mass numbers of messages to people that probably aren’t even a great fit for my program to begin with. Kind of just seems like I’m adding to the noise and message pollution in a way.
Pull Type Marketing: Vulnerability Component
With this style of marketing, there is more than just knowing who that person is that you want to work with. And it’s not saying that you have to have a dialed-in niche. You can just decide. You work with adults. You work with people. You don’t have to have a niche. But in your head, having an idea of how you will serve them, what their struggles are, what their goals are, and then refining your message in a way that speaks to that person and also tells them why you are the best fit for them.
So learning how to describe your story, your own transformations, and with this authenticity comes a level of vulnerability because you are sharing your story. You are taking the time to put out messages that may or may not resonate with people. And you can feel somewhat exposed with that. That’s the vulnerability component.
Sometimes this style of marketing doesn’t feel good in the beginning, or it might feel a little uncomfortable because of the energy, the time you’re putting these messages out, unattached in an inviting way, and you’re not sure if it is compelling. In fact, it might not be compelling in the beginning. You might fail, but you have to keep going because you will get better. It’s just learning how to support yourself during this process of vulnerability. And that’s the work I do with my clients in the Awakened Container I really excel at. From my 20 years of experience of working with one-to-one people and all sorts of different ways and helping them to get transformations in their lives.
Some of it is learning how to work with your nervous system, how to down regulate, how to become aware of your habits and thinkings and patterns, how to restore and replenish, how to shift the energy in your body from worry, which actually can be a decision to belief. How do you do all that? How do you support yourself?
If you want to learn more, just reach out to me because that is the work. So then you can keep showing up. It makes this whole pull type marketing sustainable instead of just going out there in a husstly type energy and essentially spamming people. That doesn’t feel so good.
Pull Type Marketing: Trusting Yourself Component
The other component is learning how to trust yourself and trust your work. That helps to take the entitlement off of doing marketing, to get clients. It’s doing marketing to put value out in the world. That’s my take on it. It’s doing marketing, yes, to help your business become more visible. So those that are actively seeking out help for their problems are able to find you, it helps them. Their work becomes a lot easier because you’re right there. They’re able to find out more about you, find out how you help people, what it is that you specifically do. It makes their Google searching, their Facebook searching, so much easier.
The Role of An Wellness Entrepreneur
Truthfully, that’s the gig of being an wellness entrepreneur, yoga teacher, health coach and physical therapist. When you’re an employee, someone else is doing the marketing for their own business, all that behind the scenes work to get the clients, the patients that you’re working with, someone’s got to do some type of marketing to get all those people through the door. So you don’t have to worry about it. So in an employee situation, you just have to show up, and you’re doing the practitioner work, and The gig of being an entrepreneur is still doing the practitioner work and learning how to manage your schedule to do the marketing and selling work as well.
There are the three main components of most businesses, I even could probably say any business of marketing, making your business visible, selling, helping to convert the appropriate people into a paying program and delivering, fulfilling on your promise, doing the practitioner work. That’s the role of an entrepreneur.
So if you feel like you’re not having time for the marketing, then the real problem is figuring out your schedule. Why not? What are the thoughts that are impeding your marketing? So you can take the pressure off. You can take that entitlement off that just because you have a doctorate, just because you have numerous certifications that people should work with you right now. It’s just not the case.
Pull Type Marketing Is Like Inviting People To A Party
In the beginning, it didn’t really resonate too much with me because I’m an introvert, and actually throwing parties is quite stressful for me. So I did understand how that could apply to being a fun type of marketing, but I will describe it to you.
When my daughter started going to camps for this summer, she began to meet new friends or run into old friends that she met in other camps that weren’t in her class at school. So then we made new invitations for those friends. We just told everyone naturally, because we were planning a fun birthday. We had Allen the Bubble Man come. And we were getting these mini vegan cupcakes that are just super yummy and delicious. It was going to be at the beach, which our family just loves. So we are hopefully planning a fun time that everyone enjoys. And why not? Why shouldn’t they want to come?
That’s how you want to feel about your marketing. That’s how I approach it when I’m doing podcasts or Facebook lives or my e-mails, is that this is the information that can help to serve you right now. You can get wins. You can get clients. You can make more money right now. And those of you that want to make even more money, get results even faster, will reach out and want to work with me. Or I’m making my business more visible, more well-known. I’m creating that no like and trust factor in the community. So then when people are ready or if someone is actively searching out for a business mentor, a business coach, someone who helps with healing patterns, thoughts, and behaviors, not serving them as an entrepreneur, they know that I’m there for them. So when they’re ready, they can just reach out and take that next step.
Pull Type Marketing: Creating The Safety Component
The other component to this, this inviting nature, without attachment, without expectation or entitled that they should become your client, that kind of pushy forceful type feeling, is it creates safety. And the more and more I learn about the nervous system, the more and more how I see that people are showing up in the world triggered. And it doesn’t mean necessarily by big traumatic events, it could be because there’s a lot of stuff going on in the world. But, a lot of times it’s through micro traumas, smaller traumas that people might not recognize because they thought the scenario was safe because maybe it was at school or maybe it was with a caregiver or a loved one or a scenario that just left a lingering sensation in their nervous system of what they perceive as safe or unsafe.
So in my mind, from my perspective, if I’m going to work with someone, to help to heal some of these patterns, to help them with their nervous system become calmer, grounded, have more trust within themselves, trust their intuition more, I want to start off with them feeling safe whenever they enter my world. I want them to come in feeling welcome, feeling invited.
And when they take me up on that invitation, that they’re always safe, that they will never feel forced or manipulated to do more than what they’re ready. So even in my consults, if someone comes to me, and in my marketing too, there is a balance. It is an art of learning how to help someone through a growth edge for pointing out, maybe thought errors in the way that they’re thinking, or even just in this blog, for example. I might have agitated you some by pointing out that, “Hey, you might be doing some push marketing unconsciously, and that might not feel so great.” And then you can decide to continue to read more of my blogs where you can learn how to do something different. It’s a decision you have control.
That’s the safety. And at the same time, if you really want to grow and work through that discomfort, move through that growth edge, I will be here to help you through. So you can create so much safety at times where people are very comfortable in your world.
However, they’re not necessarily getting results because you’re not helping them to move past that growth edge. That kind of reminds me when I was first a yoga teacher. I didn’t have students hold. For example, plank pose very long because I’m such an empath and I’m very sensitive that I could feel their discomfort and plank pose, or even just sometimes a hamstring stretch. I wouldn’t have them hold very long because I could feel that they just wanted to get out of the pose because they were so physically uncomfortable. Yet, that was the work of holding plank pose or holding that hamstring in the appropriate length without injuring themselves more to gain. But when they hold plank pose, they’re going to get longer, they’re going to get stronger when they’re holding hamstring or moving through uncomfortable stretches. That’s how they’re going to get more flexible. So I gradually build up my tolerance of being able to hold the space of discomfort for those I was teaching.
The same is true for marketing. And when I’m on consult calls, it is holding the space to help someone where I’m able to point out a growth edge possibly and coach them through it, whether it be through my marketing or selling and hold the container for them to be uncomfortable and allow them to make the best decision for themselves, but with the most information, with awareness of their thinking and their patterns.
Conclusion
That’s the difference, instead of just forcing and pushing someone to blindly take the next step. But it does take practice to learn the boundary just like when you are inviting people into your world and sending those welcoming and inviting messages. There are boundaries and lines there, too. And you have to learn the messaging that’s going to resonate with them.
You have to learn, “Oh, that was a little too forceful” by making a mistake and failing. Or “That was a little too safe because no one took me up on that next step.” So it is an art. There is a lot of failure in more of a pull type marketing. But if you stick with it, the value that you put into the world will keep getting more and more valuable and your business will continue to get more and more visible. So you’ll reach more and more of those ideal and potential clients that you can help.
So we’ll wrap it up in terms of more of the energy. For me personally, through my experiences, push type marketing has more of from when I’m the one doing it, It feels more husttly in nature. It has the “get clients fast” mentality. It doesn’t really feel sustainable. It doesn’t feel in the client’s best interest at times. And from a client’s perspective, it feels a little pressure. Sometimes it doesn’t feel authentic.
Sometimes it feels like something’s just off, but you don’t really know why. Or at times it’s just plain downright annoying and invasive to your world because you never raised your hand or expressed interest yet someone is calling or messaging you multiple times a day. It just doesn’t feel good.
Where a pull type marketing has more of a calm, grounded energy. For me, it feels a lot more sustainable. It feels more authentic. At times it does feel more vulnerable, but I feel like I always have the client’s, whether they’re paying me or not, best interest, and their experience first in my mind. It’s also about the big picture for your business. Pull marketing is definitely the big picture. And it’s also creating an element of safety for your people. Again, whether paying you or not.
So there you have it. You can get clients either way. Both ways work, but you can decide what really feels best for you. What would be in your client’s best interest, whether they’re paying you or not? What is the big picture of your business? Can you learn these tactics knowing that you might fail, but in the end it’ll compound? And when you do get it, you’ll get clients faster, quicker, and in a more aligned way. But you get to decide. But now you can make the best decision and create your own style of marketing that’s authentic and aligned to you. You can embody it. And in this way you will attract your best client to you.
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