First of all, I want to inform you that this article is for explaining you the examples of Below-the-line ( BTL ) advertising, one of the promotion methods. Once you read the main article and the related article, I hope you get an understanding about BTL and ATL advertising. Now, let us continue to the article below.


If you learn marketing concept, there are three activities must be done before you run to the next steps. They are: segmenting, targeting, positioning.

Afterwards, you will carry out one activity which is called market validation. What is market validation for? You can find the answer in my previous article.

Once you found the market is good, you can start another activity, namely promotion. Promotion contains several actions, like advertising, merchandising, sales promotion, personal selling, etc. The goal of these actions is to create positive image about your product in your prospect’s mind.

Promotion activities need a channel to make a communication with prospects. Let me remind you what is the communication for, this communication is for telling your prospect or your target audiences about your product or your service.

The communication channel that is used determines which methods are implemented. In the marketing theory, there are two methods can be used. They are above the line promotion method and below the line promotion method.

For additional information about ATL and BTL (above the line and below the line ), read here: BTL activities

Above-the-line promotion activities facts

- Generally, the cost is more expensive than below-the-line promotional activities.

- Usually, ATL promotion method is managed by advertising agencies.

- The communication channels which are used are: TV, radio, magazines, newspaper, billboards, etc.

Below-the-line promotional activities facts

- Commonly, BTL promotion method is conducted by company itself.

- Because BTL advertising activities are handled by company itself, the cost is less than ATL advertising activities.

- The communication channel which are used are: mail, catalogs, personal meeting in exhibition, etc.

BTL activities examples

Before I show you the examples of BTL promotion activities, I just want to recap the BTL fundamental thing.

BTL activities are performed to make a good impact on especially targeted customer that drive brand awareness, so that it can enhance sales.

The major thing for btl activities is direct marketing action where create strong relationship between customer and seller or marketer.

BTL campaign samples are:

- Direct mail

There is one research that show us that 18% of US online shop sales originated from email in 2014 ( increase from 17% in 2013 ). Source: http://www.factbrowser.com/facts/16237/

- Free delivery service

According to BCG press release , 74% of US buyer more concern of free delivery to make them have a good online shopping experience.

Based on this research, it turns out that this BTL activity creates better customer experience.

- Trade show

You can join trade show program. Usually, trade show is held by business type, such as: fashion trade show, food and beverages trade show, etc.

So you can choose trade show that match with your business industry.

- Exhibition

By attending and joining in the exhibition, you can create initial communication with targeted prospective buyer.

Every people ask information from you in this exhibition show their interest to your product or service. This is what I call “targeted audience”.

You can build a list of prospect here, and you can follow up this via phone, email, or visiting them directly to build strong relationship with them.

- Point of sales

Regarding point of sales, you can grow your business through two methods. They are: make more your point of sales quality ( enhance the display, improve the payment system, fast response, improve the theme, etc. ), and add a quantity of your point of sales ( add your store to other places to make your customer easy to buy, etc. )

- Personal or one to one meeting

This is performed at initiation phase. It is done by sales people.

If your product is hi-tech, some engineer will help sales people to meet and deliver a presentation to prospective buyer. Usually this activity is called pre-sales consulting, pre-sales assessment. This meeting goal is assess what are the customer needs, and then sales team propose a solution for them.

- Give a sample

This activity is mainly performed by people who have business in food and beverages sector.

Generally, if you want to launch new variant of food, you have to test the market ( market validation ). It can be done by giving a sample, and get a feedback from this.

- Gift offer

This activity is mostly done if you carry out an up-selling or cross-selling.

You can encourage customer to buy more by offering a gift. For example: customer can get x-product for free if customer buy a-product and b-product.

- Free trial

It is performed largely in software provider or car dealer ( both new car and used car ).

You generally found in Google play store, many apps that you can download and use it for free. But, if you want to use more features you must pay for enable those features.

- Discount or price promotion

You can do this BTL activity, if you found that your target audiences are price sensitive.

So, you have to perform this activity to encourage them to buy.

- Event sponsorship

This activity main goal is raise your brand awareness among your target audiences ( people who attend the event ).

Event sponsorship is one approach of brand reputation strategy. With this activity, you can put a good image in your customer’s mind.

- Distribute business card

This is the conventional activity to list building strategy.

By giving your business card to your audience, you hope that he give his name card too. As a result, the more business card you give to others, the more name card you will get.

There is fundamental information in that card, such as: mobile phone or email.

By this information, you have known BTL campaign examples and then you can perform mobile marketing or email marketing to create strong relationship and drive them to buy.

There are more BTL activities you can try, like create a group discussion, forum, make a cold call, door to door promotion, and many more.