Why you need both "push" & "pull" communications
Ok, humor me for a minute: think about your phone, because it’s a great example of a place where you receive both push and pull communications…
Let’s pretend you’re blissfully lying on your couch, just doing your regular wind-down routine—texting friends, scrolling the socials, checking out an article that someone sent you.
That alert you just got from your exercise app? Push.
You Googling the cookie recipe you need for tomorrow? Pull.
The text from a friend that just came in? Push.
You scrolling options for that anniversary present from Etsy? Pull.
“Push” communications are those things that you send (err, push) into the world unrequested—so a press release, tweet or radio advertisement. These are all examples of push communications because you “pushed” them to your target audiences. I like to imagine someone standing on the street handing out fliers—literally pushing them into people’s hands.
Pull communications, on the flip side, include the content that is available when someone goes looking for it (or, pulls). Examples of pull communications include your website, an informational brochure or an explainer video. Think of someone standing among the shelves in a library looking for a reference book.
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As communicators, our job is to get really great at both push and pull communications, because our audiences need and deserve both. As we know, our audiences need to hear things at least 7 times to finally remember them, and a mix of push and pull helps us get to that magic number.
Imagine a parent who needs to know the new school lunch schedule. You need to serve them a mix of push and pull communications to ensure they hear the message. You can post the schedule on your website and make a graphic of it for your Facebook album. Sure—that’s a great start. But that’s not going to be enough for most people or enough amplification for messages.
You also need to make sure you’re proactively sending it out—so sharing the graphic as part of a post on Twitter, and sending it to your local reporter to put in Sunday’s education section.
So the next time you make an announcement, ask yourself: do my tactics include both pull AND push communications? Go the extra mile to make sure your answer can be “yes”!
PS - Want more push and pull goodness? I talk about this concept in last year’s “Your Countdown to Reopening” blog post.
