How to Fit Push and Pull Marketing, Social Networks and CRM Together

Like it or not, the way consumers engage with vendors as well as with each other is changing.

And the traditional push and pull marketing methods of the past 50 years are also changing thanks to the rise of social networking. And CRM (customer relationship management) is more important than ever in bridging the gap between the old and the new worlds of marketing.

It used to be that people got most of their information about a particular product from the manufacturer. But with the advent of the Internet, information is everywhere. Everything we need to know is just a URL away. And thanks to social media sites like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook customers are able to have their voices heard, Dynamics CRM consultant Leon Tribe told members of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM User Group recently. 

But although the change may feel sudden, it's really not all that new.

Traditionally, marketing has been divided into two categories: a push strategy and a pull strategy. Push marketing is convincing a buyer through outward marketing messages. In the pull strategy, is trying to convince a consumer to go to the seller and demand the product from them.

(Editor's note: for a free on-demand version of a similar session from Tribe, visit Decisions Spring 2012 on-demand.)

But there is a big problem with defining advertising strategies as "push" or "pull": it assumes an intermediary. In the case of Microsoft, the model is still valid because there's a partner network, Tribe said.  But for many products, the distance ...