When budget and marketing get together, it can sometimes feel like playing tug-a-war. This only has one outcome - no increased revenue. Isn't it time to stop tugging, and start playing games with more strategy and higher returns? When sales are down, marketing should increase in order to attract new customers and generate income. Take a risk, so to speak. Marketing should be a priority everyday of the year. There are two types of marketing that will help you to categorize your strategy and organize your clientele: push marketing and pull marketing. Think of these as forces on your prospective customers while they stand in your doorway. You can either push them or pull them through the door.

When to PUSH: Push marketing is where you develop strategies to reach out to existing marketing or distribution channels to promote your products and services. In other words, a company will market its brand to a wholesaler who will then market the product to a retailer who will sell it to consumers. Or it can be affiliate marketing where you reach out to their clientele as a recommended vendor. This type of marketing might include incentives such as discounts, bonuses, commissions, "invite a friend and receive special" offers, etc. It is a more social networking form of marketing.

How to PULL: Pull marketing is more attention-grabbing because it shows consumers instant savings such as "buy one get one free" or "half off." The idea here is to create a sense of urgency so that the customer will come and buy now. Both are needed for successful marketing, because each strategy attracts a different type of consumer. Push marketing will attract buyers who consider peer opinions and social response whereas bargain shoppers will be more likely to buy from pull marketing tactics. You and your marketing team can decide whether or not you want to overlap these strategies or interchange them throughout the course of the year.

Web Incentives: Now that we know the basics, how can we implement them over the web? In web marketing, the more emails and contact information you can capture from prospective clients, the better. Therefore opt-in buttons are an easy and successful means to acquire consumer information. Use push or pull marketing for ideas for incentives. For example, push marketing could be "Sign up a friend NOW and receive a FREE newsletter." Once information is captured, you can then use it to send out other offers, newsletters, press releases, etc. that will add a degree of interest and hype to customers and even drive traffic to your site.

There are many reasons how and why people buy or select your products and services over the competition. Employing both push and pull marketing strategies will get more people through the door and buy. Using a combination of both will reach the harder to convince buyer. Remember, everybody buys; it is just a matter of from which company!