In order to achieve long-term success with one’s own company, it is of central importance to maintain and, above all, expand visibility through sophisticated marketing.
After all, even if the products or services offered are of outstanding quality and of particular benefit to the customer, success will probably be a long time coming if the target audience doesn’t find out about them.
But fortunately, this scenario can be prevented by selecting and using suitable forms of advertising.
In our guide below, we first explain the difference between ATL and BTL advertising measures, as all existing advertising types can be divided into one of the two main categories.
After that, we will focus on the most promising types of advertising and present some of the most effective advertising measures such as print, outdoor and online advertising.
What is the difference between ATL and BTL advertising measures?
The two main advertising categories include the so-called ATL advertising, where the abbreviation stands for above-the-line and BTL advertising which means below-the-line.
ATL stands for traditional advertising in the form of print media such as magazines or newspapers, radio advertising such as television or radio, and outdoor advertising using billboards.
The ATL marketing strategy scores above all with a low organizational workload with a simultaneous large accessibility of the addressed target group and beyond that with a large part of all social classes and age groups.
BTL advertising, on the other hand, is not about classic advertising and marketing measures, but rather about direct advertising instruments, which usually involve a higher planning effort, but on the whole make more cost-effective campaigns possible thanks to creative concepts.
Typical BTL measures include, for example, guerrilla marketing, public relations and participation in exhibitions and trade fairs.
What are the most promising types of advertising?
Let’s now move on to the most worthwhile types of advertising in detail:
Print advertising
As described above, print advertising is one of the classic forms of ATL advertising and includes advertising in magazines and newspapers by placing targeted ads.
Although print advertising is convincing in terms of its topicality and its ability to be disseminated quickly, it is becoming less and less important due to the increase in online advertising.
Outdoor advertising
Outdoor advertising, also known as out-of-home advertising, refers to all advertising measures that take place in public spaces, such as billboard advertising, advertising on advertising columns or in shop windows, the use of neon signs and advertising measures on vehicles.
Compared with print advertising, which has become less attractive in recent years, outdoor advertising has a very good return on investment in the long term, which can be attributed in particular to the high acceptance and acceptable recognition value of outdoor advertising.
In contrast to classic posters in out-of-office measures, digital display panels, so-called digital signage displays, represent an excellent opportunity for flexible and contemporary presentation and marketing purposes.
This is because a digital signage display can be used to show videos, images or information about your own company in no time at all. If required, these can be exchanged and updated at any time via integrated HDMI, LAN and USB connections or via WLAN access, even from outside the company.
In addition, digital signage displays score points in terms of the sustainability factor, as no additional paper or printer ink is required for the use of a digital display other than electricity.
On the one hand, this protects the environment and, in the long term, also the company budget.
Online advertising
Online advertising is now the most widely used type of advertising for companies, because unlike traditional advertising measures, the success of online advertising and the associated acquisition of new customers can be measured and tracked more easily.
The most popular online advertising measures include banner ads, e-mail marketing, search engine optimization, social media and influencer marketing.