Push is about PROMOTION. Pull is about creating HUNGER.

While there are many different Push and Pull approaches to get people connected into a small group, I want to share seven ideas to help you get started: 1. Sign-Up Systems - Put the systems in place to capture sign-ups when people are ready. If people are pushed to sign-up or feel the pull to sign-up, but cannot easily do so, they will not. Online sign-up capabilities, bulletin response cards, and sign-up opportunities in the foyer make it easy for people to get connected to a group when theyre ready. 2. Promotional Resources - These are marketing tools that help you push and promote small groups such as a small group brochure, campaign materials, email updates, social media, banners, and invite cards. Exhaust your tools to help you get the word out. About the time youre sick of talking about groups is when most people will have heard of groups at least once. Remember, many people in church attend services on average once every three weeks. That means you have to talk about groups for three straight weeks just to reach everybody in your church. 3. Vision Casting - Leverage inspiring vision to not only push small groups, but to pull the heart of members toward small group opportunities. Vision casting can be used through sermon series, testimonies of life change, and stories captured on video. When vision casting, be sure to include both inspiration (something that grabs the heart) and information (practical next steps to get signed up for a group). Heres a recent testimony video we used to pull people toward our small groups at Christ Church. 4. Leader Involvement - Pull people into small groups with the active involvement of key church leaders. When key influencers are involved in groups, others tend to follow suit. Ask yourself three questions:

How many of your key leaders in the church are leading a group? How many of your key leaders in the church are in a group? How can you increase leadership involvement and visibility?

5. Leader Invitations - Pull people into small groups by having small group leaders take the initiative to invite people to join their group. This takes the burden off of the potential group member and removes fear or hesitations they might have about joining a group. Leaders can create a solid invite list by thinking about their circles of life (family, friends, church, neighborhood, hobbies, work) and lists of life (cell phone list, Social Media List, Email List, Christmas Card List). When leaders extend an invitation, people feel pulled into a group rather than pushed to join a group. 6. Connection Events - Push various on-ramp events for people to learn about and sign-up for small groups. North Points popular Group Link event is a great example. We also conducted an event called The Living Room Experience in which we turned our Sunday morning service into a large group/small group experience. Everybody sat at round tables facilitated by small group leaders. Worship and a small group leader testimony/interview took

place on the stage (which was decorated like a Living Room) and an icebreaker, prayer, and group sign-ups took place at the tables. It was a unique experience that we conducted in both of our Sunday morning services. 7. Small Group Culture - Pull people toward small groups by creating a culture that makes small groups the place to be. To develop such a culture, Osborne recommends cutting the competition (so that small groups are not competing with other programs and ministries), providing a preview (a weekly bulletin insert with small group questions so that people can see what happens in small groups), and consistently referencing the small group experience in sermons (testimonies, stories, deeper discussion of the sermons topic in groups).
Accounting and Finance Economics (GCSE) Economics (AS/A2) EBusiness / ECommerce English History ICT Law Marketing People & Organisations Politics Production & Operations Religious Studies Sociology Strategy

promotion- push and pull strategies

"Push or Pull"? Marketing theory distinguishes between two main kinds of promotional strategy - "push" and "pull". Push A push promotional strategy makes use of a company's sales force and trade promotion activities to create consumer demand for a product. The producer promotes the product to wholesalers, the wholesalers promote it to retailers, and the retailers promote it to consumers. A good example of "push" selling is mobile phones, where the major handset manufacturers such as Nokia promote their products via retailers such as Carphone Warehouse. Personal selling and trade promotions are often the most effective promotional tools for companies such as Nokia - for example offering subsidies on the handsets to encourage retailers to sell higher volumes.

A "push" strategy tries to sell directly to the consumer, bypassing other distribution channels (e.g. selling insurance or holidays directly). With this type of strategy, consumer promotions and advertising are the most likely promotional tools. Pull A pull selling strategy is one that requires high spending on advertising and consumer promotion to build up consumer demand for a product. If the strategy is successful, consumers will ask their retailers for the product, the retailers will ask the wholesalers, and the wholesalers will ask the producers. A good example of a pull is the heavy advertising and promotion of children's toys mainly on television. Consider the recent BBC promotional campaign for its new pre-school programme the Fimbles. Aimed at two to four-year-olds, 130 episodes of Fimbles have been made and are featured everyday on digital children's channel CBeebies and BBC2. As part of the promotional campaign, the BBC has agreed a deal with toy maker Fisher-Price to market products based on the show, which it hopes will emulate the popularity of the Tweenies. Under the terms of the deal, Fisher-Price will develop, manufacture and distribute a range of Fimbles products including soft, plastic and electronic learning toys for the UK and Ireland. In 2001, BBC Worldwide (the commercial division of the BBC) achieved sales of 90m from its children's brands and properties last year. The demand created from broadcasting of the Fimbles and a major advertising campaign is likely to pull demand from children and encourage retailers to stock Fimbles toys in the stores for Christmas 2002.

Stages and promotion strategies employed. Introduction When a product is new the organisations objective will be to inform the target audience of its entry. Television, radio, magazine, coupons etc may be used to push the product through the introduction stage of the lifecycle. Push and Pull Strategies will be used at this crucial stage. Growth As the product becomes accepted by the target market the organisation at this stage of the lifecycle the organisation works on the strategy of further increasing brand awareness to encourage loyalty. Maturity At this stage with increased competition the organisation take persuasive tactics to encourage the consumers to purchase their product over their rivals. Any differential

advantage will be clearly communicated to the target audience to inform of their benefit over their competitors. Decline As the product reaches the decline stage the organisation will use the strategy of reminding people of the product to slow the inevitable

Internet Promotion The development of the world wide web has changed the business environment forever. Dot com fever has taken the industry and stock markets by storm. The e-commerce revolution promises to deliver a more efficient way of conducting business. Shoppers can now purchase from the comfort of their home 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Owning a website is a now a crucial ingredient to the marketing mix strategy of an organisation. Consumers can now obtain instant information on products or services to aid them in their crucial purchase decision. Sony Japan took pre-orders of their popular Playstaion 2 console over the net, which topped a 1 million after a few days, European football stars are now issuing press releases over the web with the sites registered under their own names. Hit rates are phenomenal. Advertisers have now moved their money over to the internet as customers are on average spending more time online then watching TV. Popular ways to advertise seem to be with banners and pop ups.