When a Principles of Marketing class arrives at the chapter on distribution channels, a discussion of "push vs. pull" is likely to ensue. One can use a push strategy for moving merchandise through the distribution channel or one can use a pull strategy of advertising directly to the consumer and having them pull your brand towards the home.
Communications channels exhibit the same distinction. Broadcast television is certainly a push medium, where marketers use the brute force of advertising dollars to shove their messages in front of eyeballs, while the classic corporate Web site tends to function in "pull mode", waiting on the consumer to alight on the page like a flower waiting for a honey bee to happen by.
It would be an oversimplification to simply categorize all the mass media as pure push and the newer electronic media as primarily pull. On the one hand, in recent years the basic television set has been enhanced with added intelligence (for example, Tivo) and is slowly acquiring an upstream channel (as is the case with IPTV or video on demand). On the other hand, electronic media are built from software components that can be programmed to function any way we want: push, pull or in-between. Some of the more interesting developments in the online world involve new services that function more in pushing communications towards the reader. In this column I will talk about three Internet push services in the general context of how these might be useful to marketing instructors, but specifically in light of AMA offerings and resources. The three push services are: Email newsletters, RSS Feeds, and Software Agents
1. Email Newsletters. Customers have been able to sign up for email newsletters from firms for more than a decade already. Your reading of this newsletter column shows that this process can work well. In addition to offering this newsletter, called MarketingAcademics@AMA, the AMA also offers:
Marketing Matters Newsletter - This twice monthly e-newsletter updates readers on the latest happenings in the marketing profession through news briefs, in-depth features, and interviews.
Marketing Thought Leaders Newsletter - This monthly e-newsletter helps you explore the cutting edge of marketing knowledge, using short articles adapted from all the AMA's journals and magazines.
To read more about the above AMA newsletter, and to find out how to subscribe, go to http://www.marketingpower.com/Community/ARC/Pages/Connections/Newsletters
In addition, the AMA offers the following:
Marketing Power Newsletter - AMA members and MarketingPower.com registered users are eligible to receive this weekly update of the latest news, research and trends in the marketing industry and allied fields.
2. RSS (Really Simple Syndication)
. This e-service has recently emerged as a broadcast-like alternative to email. Numerous media companies offer RSS services to help their readers stay in touch with the latest news. Blog platforms also frequently allow bloggers to automatically broadcast RSS messages announcing a new blog entry. Marketing instructors can use RSS subscriptions to stay informed of current events or their favorite bloggers in a topic area. If you go to the ARC page http://www.marketingpower.com/Community/ARC/Pages/Teaching/News you will see a menu of marketing topics that leads to a variety of trade press outlets. Many of these outlets offer RSS services that will keep you up to date with these topics.
There is also a set of marketing blogs located at http://www.marketingpower.com/Community/ARC/Pages/Connections/Blogs
You can set up an RSS reader on your Yahoo! or Google home pages. Thunderbird and other email clients can also be used to read RSS messages. Other options are explained at http://www.whatisrss.com/
Using this approach you will always have a steady stream of current marketing examples. Of course, if you wish to share these, please send them to arc@ama.org!
3. Agents. Shopping agents were once predicted to make online consumers even more price sensitive. That is because a shopping agent goes off on the Internet in an autonomous way and returns with a list of bargains. But shopping is not the only use of agents. Google, for example, uses agents (in this context frequently called spiders) to alert the firm to new or changed Web content. Since Google already has thousands and thousands of these software agents poring over all the blogs, Web pages and news stories on the Internet, you can harness them yourself to deliver customized alerts to your inbox. Yahoo! also offers such a service. These agents' reports can be forwarded to a mobile device if you want. Here are two addresses where you can sign up for alerts:
http://www.google.com/alerts
http://alerts.yahoo.com
I use these services to keep up with companies that I follow. You might put such a service to a more creative use in your classes. Let me know what you come up with at arc@ama.org.
Charlie Hofacker
AMA Academic Resource Center (ARC)