The Push, Pull and Pricing Of Go-To-Market Investments

For finding new consumers and giving your brand acompetitive advantage.

- Tom Klein

I like to use a simple shorthand for thinking about go-to-market investments, something I call the three P’s: push, pull and pricing. Push investments are those that grow the channel or distribution. Pull investments literally pull in customers so they’re the ones focused on acquisition and retention of existing customers. Pricing is really anything that has to do with your pricing model, including everyone’s favorite: discounts.

So, if those are the buckets that you pour marketing investments into, how do you figure out how much you should be pouring in? This is one of the most elusive questions in marketing. Just ask any CMO why you invest this much or that much in that category of marketing investment.

Ideally, it’s because they know why a particular investment is going to work based on experience, anecdote or historical data about what works and what doesn’t. At the very least, every marketing dollar should be helping you get smarter about where the next dollar goes.