Unconventional marketing strategies can be a start-up’s best friend
In today’s cut-throat competition, below-the-line promotions have become indispensable tools for both start-ups and large organizations, thanks to the low cost factor. “At least 70% of the decisions on whether to buy something or not is made at the shop floor,” says Vijay Singh, MD & CEO of 141 Sercon, a below-the-line (BTL) promotion agency. DARE explores the possibilities and limitations of this powerful tool.
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What is BTL?
It is everywhere and almost everyone is doing it yet to define the scope of BTL is quite a difficult task. While some include everything that is not mass media advertising in BTL promotions, others include only activities that are done for a certain class of consumers or target audience. It helps marketers establish one-to-one relationship with consumers while mass promotions, by definition, make it difficult to gauge consumer-response, except at the time of sales. Examples include tele-marketing, road shows, promotions, in- shop and shop-front activities, display units and entertainment events.
Purists like Singh insist all micro promotions, in which a narrow group is targeted, do not qualify as BTL marketing. “All agencies that were small startups, event companies, promotion companies etc. have suddenly become big BTL houses. But that’s not all what BTL is,” he says, emphasizing the two-way nature of the process. “BTL is about ensuring interaction. You need to define new consumers and do activities where there is an experience of interaction. BTL, by definition, has to be a long interaction and it has to be told. You need to tell the consumer something and the consumer needs to experience it and ask you question”.
BTL and the Start Up
“Given the proliferation of media and brands using them, the media market has become extremely cluttered,” says Pankajj Chaturvedi, Executive Director (South Asia), Baskin Robbins. “This has made addressing your core target audience a difficult and expensive task. As a result, BTL advertising is increasing its share in marketing budgets. Even the larger brands are spending a fair share on BTL,” he points out.
| DARE/versus | |
| Above-the-Line Media… | Below-the-Line Media… |
| Are tailored to reach a mass audience | Are targeted at individual consumers, based on their expressed needs and preferences |
| Establish brand identity or reinforce emotional concept surrounding a product or brand | Issue a “call-to-action,” inspiring specific customer activity or tailored messages about a product or a brand |
| May or may not drive customer response | Drive individual responses |
| Are difficult – if not impossible – to measure with any accuracy | Are highly measurable, allowing marketers insight into their return-on-investment, as well as those tactics that are (and are not) working |
| Cater to the mass market | Establish one-to-one relationships between consumers and marketers |
| Source: V12 Group | |
While most big consumer brands like LG, Samsung and Nokia have a range of BTL activities; this method of promotion is especially suited to newer companies and products. For a new product, consumer interaction and feedback during a BTL campaign helps in fine-tuning the offering and positioning of the brand.
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written by marketing strategy, June 14, 2010
written by marketing strategy, May 18, 2010
written by Quantama, January 31, 2010
-Ability to connect to previously unknown/unreachable customer base.
-Targeted touch points and reciprocation with each individual consumer.
-Ability to add a hip new mobility channel to the existing marketing portfolio increasing brand recall.
-Drive up Same Store Sales through Increasing Conversion.
-Insight and Real Time Intelligence of current Footfall.
-Single Loyalty Program across Formats.
written by niraj shah, April 18, 2009
why telecom look at footwear,apparela or even retail the answer is in favour of btl.
to reach to the consumer its eveident to take path thru btl.
written by Vijay Singh, November 06, 2008
A short recession is of great advantage to below the line marketing services for a few basic reasons ;
1. Brands move away from typical brand building strategies and start to focus more on marketing services which ensure a sales uplift and that is where BTL scores.
2. As spends go down, brands look at focussing spending on targetted TG and hence turn to BTL strategies like direct and one on one experiential marketing.
3. Retention becomes more critical than new customers and hence focus on CRM.
US leads the world in terms of BTL spend percentages, where-in the promotional spends are higher than the ATL spends. I have a collection of reports and research on my blog www.thebtllife.blogspot.com and would suggest you take a look at thoes.
Cheers
written by Anil Malik, October 27, 2008
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