Marketing

  • Advertising Strategy

    Almost every business needs to promote itself in some way, reaching out to customers and potential customers. For businesses with large numbers of target customers in well-defined market segments, advertising is often a cost-effective way...

  • Building Customer Loyalty

    Customer loyalty matters because selling more to existing customers is easier, and cheaper, than finding and selling to new ones. Loyal customers tend to buy more, more regularly. And they will frequently recommend your business to...

  • Creating a Brand

    Having a brand can differentiate your business from your competitors and drive customer loyalty. And branding isn’t just for multi-nationals with huge budgets: small and medium firms can create an effective brand by examining how the business works,...

  • Design

    Businesses that underrate the importance of design are missing a major opportunity. Design is not just about the way products and brochures look. It is an essential part of improving your business, developing new products and innovating....

  • Direct Mail

    Direct mail can be an extremely cost-effective marketing method. You can use it to get details of your company and its products directly into the hands of the people who are most likely to want them. But direct mail works best with proper preparation...

  • Effective PR

    A good image is a valuable asset. Effective public relations (PR) creates good publicity, building your reputation with customers and others whose opinion matters to you. While advertising can be purchased immediately, generating positive...

  • Exhibitions

    Exhibitions provide a unique opportunity to display your product and business to large numbers of potential customers. A clear idea of what you are trying to achieve, and how to go about it, helps you maximise the impact. This briefing...

  • Marketing with Your Database

    Databases make information management easy and relatively inexpensive. Mailshots, telemarketing and customer service activities can be more purposeful when you have instant access to details of all your customers and prospects and all your contacts with them....

  • Planning Your Marketing

    Successful businesses focus on getting the basics of marketing right. Marketing is based on identifying and satisfying customers’ needs — profitably. It encompasses market research, pricing, promotion, distribution, selling,...

  • Pricing

    The prices you charge for your products can have a dramatic effect on sales and profits. Setting your prices too high can reduce sales abruptly, while undercharging can devastate your profits. The logic is simple. Your optimum price is...

  • Research for Your Marketing

    Marketing research helps you understand your competitive position, spot opportunities, lessen risks and take better decisions. It is more than just market research, which is concerned only with examining aspects of a given market, such as its size, location...

  • Writing a Mailshot

    Most businesses send out mailshots several times a year, whether they are large-scale mailings or batches of individualised letters to a dozen key customers at a time. If the targeting and the offer are right, you get a positive response. If you get them...

  • Writing an Advertisement

    A well written advertisement can dramatically improve the effectiveness of your campaign. While writing a great advertisement is an art, the key principles are easy to understand — helping you either to prepare your own...