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BTL advertising · Marketing

The lift panel is cheap, and the association's permission is what you are buying.

Below the line (BTL) advertising is bought site by site: societies for a month, a mall kiosk for a weekend, IT park food court screens for a fortnight. The rate per site is small next to a hoarding. The permission is the hard part.

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Scope, fee, reporting and term are agreed in writing after we have read your brief and spoken to you.

Editorial illustration for BTL advertising

In one paragraph

BTL advertising is the media buy inside private and controlled places: apartment societies, malls, IT parks, campuses and stations. A lift panel, a lobby standee or a weekend kiosk reaches people at home or at work. GullySales picks the locations around your catchment, confirms the permission that gates each one, and coordinates the booking with the site or its media agency.

An apartment campaign does not start at the printer. It starts with the association or the facility manager agreeing in writing. Plenty of societies say no, charge a fee of their own, or allow a notice board and nothing else. A vendor claiming two hundred societies has a working relationship with a handful of facility managers.

Malls and IT parks are controlled the same way. The mall's marketing team allots your kiosk position, takes a deposit, and decides whether your staff may approach shoppers or must wait to be approached. A college campus goes through the administration, and the answer depends on where the term has reached.

Who it is for

This is written for you if these sound familiar.

  • Clinics and dental practices selling to the households within a few kilometres of the door
  • A restaurant or grocery store opening where its customers already live
  • Schools, coaching centres and fitness studios advertising in the societies their students walk from
  • Financial services and travel businesses reaching salaried buyers inside an IT park at lunch
  • Home services and repair trades who need a number on the notice board before the tap leaks

Not for

It is not the right fit if.

  • Businesses selling to another city, since every unit here is one building
  • A campaign that has to be live next week, because approvals take longer than printing does
  • Anyone expecting the medium to report back, as a lift panel counts nothing

The problem

Does this sound like your business?

What owners tell us on the first call, in their words.

  • “Standees were printed for sixty societies and forty said no”

    Production ran ahead of permission, which is the usual order and the wrong one. Written approval from each association comes first, then the print order matches what was actually cleared.

  • “The kiosk ran on a Tuesday morning in a residential society”

    Everybody it was meant for was at work. A society kiosk belongs to the weekend and an IT park kiosk belongs to the lunch hour, so the day is worth more than the location.

  • “Nobody can say whether the media went up”

    Forty societies is forty places you are never going to visit. Without a dated photograph from each, you are paying for display on trust, and some of it comes down the next morning because the security staff were never told.

  • “The mall gave a position nobody walks past”

    Kiosk spots inside a mall are allotted rather than chosen. The one beside a service lift on a weekday is priced close to the one outside the food court on a Sunday.

What we do

Everything that is included.

Each deliverable, and what it gets you. Nothing here is an extra.

  1. Location list by catchment

    The specific societies, parks and malls inside the distance your customer will actually travel, with what sits around each one.

  2. Permission confirmed in writing

    The association, facility manager, mall marketing team or campus administration agreeing what may go up, where, and for how long, before anything is produced.

  3. Format chosen per site

    Lift panels, notice boards, lobby standees, gate arches, food court screens or a staffed kiosk, picked by what that site allows rather than by what the vendor stocks.

  4. Packaging and bill inserts

    A leaflet inside a quick-commerce order or folded into the electricity bill reaches the same households with no association to ask. You buy the pin codes that delivery or billing route covers, and the printing is yours.

  5. Print and installation coordination

    Artwork produced to each site's measurements, delivered with the approval letter, and put up on the date the site agreed.

  6. A traceable route

    A number, a QR code or an offer code used at these sites and nowhere else, so an enquiry can be put down to the society it came from.

  7. Dated display proof

    A photograph from every site with the date on it, collected once the campaign starts and again before it ends.

  8. Renewal and removal

    Media taken down on time or renewed with fresh approval, so nobody is paying for a torn poster a watchman removed in week two.

How the result is measured

  • Sites with written permission against sites approached
  • Dated display photographs received
  • Enquiries on the campaign number by site
  • Names collected at each staffed kiosk day
  • Cost per enquiry by society, park or mall

Recorded as a baseline before work starts, so every later report has an honest comparison.

How it works

How the BTL advertising work runs

The work itself, in order. How an engagement starts, from your brief to a written scope, is set out on our method page.

  1. 1

    Draw the catchment

    We start from how far your customer travels to you, which for a dental clinic is a very short distance and for a school is the route of its bus.

  2. 2

    Get permission before anything else

    Each society, mall, park or campus is approached for written approval of the format and the period, and the list is cut to what actually clears.

  3. 3

    Buy site by site

    We coordinate the booking with each site or the media agency appointed for it, and compare what they charge for the same format.

  4. 4

    Produce and install

    Artwork is made to each site's measurement and installed with the approval in hand, so nothing goes up that can be pulled down.

  5. 5

    Collect the proof and the response

    Dated photographs and the response on the campaign number are read together, and the next round drops the sites that gave nothing.

Where this fits

Three pieces of sales work, in this order.

This work sits inside sales process design, at stage 1, prospecting and lead generation. The audit comes before it, and sales management keeps it running.

  1. Step 1

    Sales audit

    Find where deals are being lost and what to fix first.

    Start here if you cannot say where orders are lost.

  2. Step 2 · you are here

    Sales process design

    One written way to sell, from first enquiry to repeat order.

    Start here if every salesperson sells differently.

  3. Step 3

    Sales management

    A target, a review routine and someone who owns the number.

    Start here if the team has targets and no routine.

Tell us what you need Your brief is read before we call. Scope, fee and term in writing.

FAQ

Questions owners ask before they call.

Not here? More answers, or ask on WhatsApp.

Tell us what you need
How is this different from a brand activation?
This is the media buy: which societies, which malls, what may go up and what the site charges for it. An activation is what happens on the day, the demonstration, the sampling, the staff and the follow-up, and that sits under brand activation campaigns. A staffed kiosk needs both.
Can you get us into any apartment society?
No. The association decides, and some allow no commercial media at all. We approach the ones that fit your catchment, tell you which said yes and on what terms, and build the campaign from that list rather than from a wish list.
Which works better, a lift panel or a kiosk?
A panel is cheap and sits there for a month, and nobody speaks to anybody. A kiosk costs more for two days and is the one BTL format that can take a name on the spot. For a clinic opening in Nagarbhavi, panels for the month plus one weekend kiosk is a sensible first campaign.
How do we know it produced anything?
Only through what the campaign builds itself. A number or QR code used at these sites and nowhere else, or a code the kiosk staff ask for, is the difference between a report and a guess. The society will never tell you who read the poster.
What makes one society or mall dearer than another?
How many other advertisers are allowed in, and where the media sits once you are inside. A panel competing with a wall of other posters is worth less than the single board a strict association permits, and the seller knows it. Ask who else is on that wall this month. Exclusivity in your category is sold separately, it costs extra, and it is worth nothing once a competitor has already signed.
What does a BTL campaign cost?
There is no published price. Every site quotes its own charge for its own format and period, and a mall adds a deposit, so the media cost follows the approved list rather than one rate. Our fee is put in writing after we have read your brief and spoken to you, apart from that site cost and from printing and installing the material.
How long is the contract?
The term is agreed in writing after we have spoken, along with the fee and the reporting. It is never a default twelve months, and renewal is decided on the numbers against the baseline recorded at the start.
How soon will we see results?
It depends on the trade, the channel and what is already in place. After we have read your brief and spoken to you, we say what we would expect to move first and how it will be measured against the baseline. Nothing here is guaranteed.
Who will actually do the work?
The person you speak to before anything starts. We work from one office in Nagarbhavi, Bengaluru, with no account managers in between.
What do you need from us?
Your brief, and a conversation. After that, access to whatever this work touches, such as your website, your accounts or your enquiry record, and time with the people who handle your enquiries.

By industry

BTL advertising, written for your industry.

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