BTL THE NEW FACE OF MARKETING COMMUNICATION

BTL( Below The Line Communication) is the intensive penetration strategy used for catering to a specific niche. It is opted by the companies for many reasons but out of them the first and the most important is brand recall via personal engagement. The basic purpose of doing BTL is creating a personalized touch and feel of the products. The customer attention is grabbed for a prolonged time and in the meantime you help them understand the specification about the product and this is how you spread awareness at a minimum cost. BTL plus point is that it is highly measurable. In a radio industry the money spent by them on Street Level Marketing is measured by comparing it with how many cumes have increased (Cumes here refer to the no of listeners who tune in to any particular radio station). BTL is the key to consumer ethnocentrism, it helps in resolving the problem of demographic segmentation.

BTL is the new face of marketing communication for many industries and these are the following examples to support the same: -

BIG FM doing road shows

Pepsi organizing and sponsoring events of various colleges.

MTS sponsoring the whole college fest paying worth 12 lakhs


Brands like Toyota and Ford doing on ground activation for their new models like ETIOS and FIESTA

Make My Trip going for BTL Communication at Select City Walk.

Zapak sponsoring Gaming events, also comes under BTL Communication

This is a research conducted by me to prove that BTL Communication has a superior consumer connect: -

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Is your Marketing Communication Effective?

From the past few decades, ATL Communication has been a blessing in disguise for marketers who wanted their brand to be the odd one out. Its funny how these brands who were once an acknowledged establishment, now are a mere puppet of the numbers game. If your numbers are up you are there in the market and if not , you always have an exit door waiting for you.
Communication sole purpose is awareness and conversions. Communication is not just letting the customer know about the product but also finding if the customer wants your product. Its about what people want and you give it to them.

As, I define those mediums which help us cater the mass audience Mediums are not limited to TV, Radio, Movies, Internet and Outdoor Advertising. This type of communication is good as it helps the customer remember about the product but for only those who see it. Convenience matters and to care of that, customers don’t have to worry, it is the organization who has to figure out how to reach its target group and in what way.

Why do you think Surf Excel a detergent brand didn’t just do a simple promo of a detergent being effective, rather opted for an emotional ad where a child jumps into dirt just to make someone happy. It is not some brilliant concept that they have come up with. It is plain perception marketing, you scan your audience for what they want and how they will act to the environment around them and you strategize accordingly.

In today’s scenario, in order to understand the customer, personal engagement is very important. You need to understand the market vibe, get down on the floor and act accordingly. You have to take yourself to the customer, if he is not coming to you. The one who does that has a better recall for his brand at a low cost as compared to a person who spend 1 crore worth money on advertising and is still not able to achieve results.

These are few examples to support the same: -

Most of the educational institutes like career forum, career launcher, Time and PT are holding informative workshops and free tests for students which give a direct interaction of these institutes with the target customer and hence a suitable platform to sell themselves.

Ring tones and music videos on cell phones are helping the entertainment industry to promote for a music video or a movie for dirt-cheap rate as compared to media promotion.

Various companies sponsor sport events to promote their brand, but nowadays media companies like Hindustan Times are holding weekly events through out the country in which companies can put up their stalls, display banners and posters and arrange for some fun activities. These events give the companies a platform at very low price to promote their brand and increase visibility among target consumer. These companies also give discount coupons to winners in the games, which in turn boost the sales of the products and ensure that first time users try these products as well.

Pepsi organized an inter school cricket event for 425 schools across 14 cities which did wonders for the company by promoting the brand amongst the right target customer for almost no cost.
Most of the pharmacy companies do BTL promotion by getting shelf space through doctors to display their products or by giving away free calcium tablets again through doctors, knowing that for a patient a personal advise from a doctor would hold more value as compared to a commercial advertisement.

Another interesting BTL promotion was by NIKE. An athlete dressed up in Nike sportswear could be seen jogging on an elevated treadmill for the whole day on National Highway 8, Delhi.

Tata Shaktee is a strong rural brand from Tata Steel, for roofing products, has BTL activity in the form of Haat participation. By having a stall at Haat, Tata Shaktee engages potential consumers in interactive games around differentiating attributes of the product. Also, discount coupons are given for interested buyers, with details of nearby retailers.

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Communicating and Promoting the Right Way!!

Imagine this.. You’re hungry and have two restaurants to choose from. One of them looks chic and classy while the other one looks decrepit and almost ready to bite the dust with the next gust of wind. Which restaurant do you think you’ll go to?

This part of marketing is called communication. It could be planned or unplanned. Everything from the architecture of a building to the work atmosphere at a company communicates with a prospect client. Companies need to be wary of what messages are received by its audience in order to create a lasting impression.

Different from Communication is the concept of promotion, where the marketers make an effort to make their product known. Using different mediums like signboards, advertisements, print media and what not. Promotion is a very important skill and needs to be understood well in order for it to be useful. Companies often end up spending more money promoting the product than creating it. Companies use sales promotion and even celebrities to attract attention.

Companies may use the above mentioned techniques but they need to make sure what would create a lasting impression. Customers today are so overwhelmed by all the information about various products that they don’t have time to read all. They end up throwing the pamphlets in the bin without even reading. All unread mails about different offerings are simply sent to the trash folder. The excess of information has given rise to a situation where it has become almost impossible to get the customer’s attention.

Because of the above mentioned reasons, marketers need to spend time studying how people in their segment allocate their attention time. Marketers may use different strategies to draw attention like shocking stories, free offers and various other methods, but still the question of effectiveness remains. It is one thing to draw attention, but another to make people buy your product. Promotion thus should target not on how to get the attention, but on how to make people buy products!!

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Marketing Concepts Simplified

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Changing the way you operate:

They say that “Change is the only constant” and in the world of marketing this concept is the basis of planning the kind of work that any organization will undertake.

Various companies start with a goal in mind but have to change their paths because they understand the need to diversify (read change). Those that fail to do so, mostly end up dead. In fact, out of the companies that featured in the Forbes 100 in 1917, only 18 could stay there till 1987. The downfall can, in part be blamed on their obstinacy of not bringing about a change in the way they worked.

Bringing about a change in the organization may be easier said than done. The top management should find a way to blend in the changes they plan to introduce into their organization. A change in the way an organization works is feasible only if the benefits to stakeholders outdo the risks and costs of bringing in that change. Employees may resist change and it is up to the top management to align the vision and mission in order to implement the change, keeping in mind the concerns of the people who matter.

Nokia a major mobile device producer did not start out to produce mobile phones instead it started out as a paper manufacturer in 1865. Established by Fredrik Idestam on the banks of the Tammerkoski rapids, Nokia moved from producing paper to hydroelectricity before starting to manufacture mobile devices. Nokia has, over the years, proved that change is what gets you moving.

The rate of change inside the organization should exceed the rate of change in the industry, only then can a company can prosper and stay alive.

“God, give us grace to accept things that cannot be changed, courage to change what should be changed and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other”

-Reinhold Niebuhr

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Branding

A few days ago, I was contemplating whether to buy a Mac or a normal windows PC. The question would have been less baffling if I had less money or if I had no choice :D.
Think about how easy would it be for you when you walked into a barista and asked for a coffee, no need to answer if you wanted it black or with milk, sugar or no sugar, cream or without cream. How good would it be if they gave you everything and you used whatever you wanted to :D.

The question made me think about a very important concept of marketing called “Branding”.

We are all familiar with the term Brand but little do we know that everything around us has a brand value, even ourselves. There is one thing that differentiates one person or thing from the other which may be exploited as the thing/person’s brand value.

All cars cannot be a Ferrari!!!

When talking of Brands, it is also important to know how to keep the brand alive. It is important, hence, for brand managers to think of what extensions to give to a product/product name. Should it be a line extension of launching a new product in the same category, should a company go for a brand extension of introducing a new category or should a company foray into the unknown territory by moving into a totally new industry? While it may be a good idea to extend the line of existing products a brand manager should be careful because the new product can bring about a decline in sales of the older products while may not bring in additional profit. Line extensions make sense when the company can benefit from customer loyalty.

Brand Extension and Brand Stretch are a riskier and trickier. I may like to wear a Benetton t-shirt but would I like to buy laptop that goes by the same name, not really! Also the question of renaming the brand comes up when it comes to brand stretch that explains why Levi’s named its cotton trousers Dockers rather than calling it Levi’s cottons. So why did Levi’s do it, because it gave them the opportunity to establish a new brand image.

Quality is no longer a discriminating factor; it used to be, not anymore. It may create a tad bit of a difference but not enough to get a firm grip on the market. It is the after sales service, customer relationship management and USP of the brand.

Finally, a brand does not sell because of less cost, better quality or higher costs of the competitor. It sells on goodwill and customer retention. Try to work out how you get you can do that, and you’ve got yourself a “BRAND”.

P.S: I bought the Mac 

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Utility Marketing: Usefulness Creates Connections

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Utility marketing certainly isn’t a new idea. In fact, André Michelin launched the first Michelin Guide in 1900, less then 10 years after the inflatable tire was patented. What began as a simple marketing ploy to get Parisians driving more (thus buying more Michelin tires) has grown into a global business, spanning more than a century.

But in the last couple of years branded utility has truly come of age. More and more, we see brands providing useful tools and services to forge connections with consumers. Additionally, the penetration of web enabled devices and the massive popularity of iPhone apps are playing substantial role in this new maturation – elegantly illustrating how branded utility can foster an ongoing relationship with people.

By providing frequent, helpful interactions with consumers, these applications can quickly become a meaningful part of their daily lives. This regular contact can be a supremely potent way to establish trust and build brand loyalty.

The mindshare these often small, simple utilities garner can offer a tremendous return on investment. This is not lost on deft marketers with increasingly tight budgets.

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