The answer is “YES”. The question is, “Can I afford NOT to use Social Media?”

When money is tight getting your message out and raising your profile is a financial issue.

You’re looking for ways to achieve as much with less. Obviously, you shouldn’t have one strand of marketing but you need to make sure that you maximize your investment.

You need Mail-shots, e-mail marketing, advertising and telemarketing because they each have a specific role within each campaign. However, you can now start to use these tools far more strategically with a much tighter focus if you add in Social Media Marketing.

Continue reading “Should I add Social Media into my Marketing Strategy?” »

This seems an obvious remark, but there is a part of marketing that a lot of us have forgotten. We need to market our services but we also need to structure our services to suit our market.

Continue reading “Marketing needs to be targeted” »

Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs), all face the same conundrum; how to grow your business on a limited budget.

There are three things you need before reaching out to the market; business cards, a brochure and a website.

Get your business cards produced professionally so that they reflect the quality image you want to project.

Have a simple but good quality website to start with to keep costs down.

Have your brochure produced as a PDF and keep it on computer. Print it out when you need it, on good quality paper and with quality glossy covers. You can finish it on your own binding machine (they’re not expensive from office supply companies).

Now you’re set to go marketing, but what are your objectives and what techniques will achieve them?

Continue reading “How to grow your business (and keep the costs down!)” »

“Telemarketing gives you instant feedback, market intelligence and a steady and increasing flow of appointments.”

Telemarketing has a very important part to play in any marketing strategy where information as well as sales growth is the objective.

This article will outline why you need telemarketing. It will detail the major concerns about telemarketing and show you how to find the right telemarketing partner. Continue reading “Why telemarketing?” »

For reasons beyond your control you will always lose clients and therefore turnover and, worst of all, profitability.

Now in today’s world there is an even more urgent need to address any potential downturn by pursuing a steady marketing strategy.

There is a way to improve on the effectiveness of a marketing campaign and that is by combining it with other marketing techniques. I have often told people that if you despatch a mail-shot you will achieve a success rate in the region of 0.5% to 1%. However, if you combine that with a telemarketing campaign you will double the performance. The converse is also true. If a telemarketing campaign is followed up, where appropriate, by documentation then the performance improves.

In today’s economic environment however, the majority of us want a combination which works but which is also low cost and effective.  Continue reading “Why have an integrated marketing campaign?” »

What is Call Handling?

It’s a low cost, call answering service

We make sure you don’t lose those important  business calls that could be worth £000’s  - whilst the monthly charge is low.

Continue reading “Why is Call Handling needed?” »

As a freelance copywriter, I must have sent out hundreds of enquiry letters and emails for work and I was fully prepared for a lot of rejection. What I was not prepared for was the amount of rejections littered with spelling and grammar mistakes.

‘Thanks, for the offer. But we dont need an help’, was probably my favourite. I was almost tearing my hair out and screaming ‘Yes, you do!’ at my computer monitor.

Continue reading “Why Copywriters Are Needed” »

Before entering into discussions with a telemarketing agency about a campaign you need to consider a few issues. This paper has been written to help you to identify the issues that have to be addressed in order to have the right tele-marketing campaign for you. Some, you’ll already know but I hope that some of the others will, in total, help you to reach a decision which is right for you.

Continue reading “Telemarketing campaign – What to consider” »

“If more people knew about us I’m sure we could sell more.”

A common enough thought throughout business.

The question is how do you get more people to know about your company and your product/service?

There are many and varied techniques to increase the market’s awareness of your company, but in today’s pinched economy we all need a technique that can achieve several objectives at the same time and therefore one which is the most cost effective.

You need a technique that will improve awareness, give immediate feedback, gather market intelligence and provide a supply of interested potential clients to put money back into your cash-flow. Is there such a technique?

Well yes, there is. Continue reading “Building Awareness” »

BHT Marketing Ltd, with telemarketing experience going back to 1997, launched a broad range of marketing services, nearly a year and a half ago and effectively became “The One-Stop Marketing Shop”.

We have surrounded ourselves with other excellent marketing entrepreneurs who became “The BHT Circle of Marketing Excellence.” They work in all disciplines and so allow us to offer  the complete marketing service.

Continue reading “The BHT Circle of Marketing Excellence” »

How many times have you heard someone say, “I tried telemarketing once and it didn’t work.”?

The reality probably was “I tried telemarketing once and I didn’t get it right first time, so I gave up.”

Telemarketing is a long-term marketing tool – not a quick fix. Continue reading “Long-term working partnership – Not short-term fix” »

There’s a book called “The Little BIG things”. We were given a signed copy recently by one of our suppliers as “a thank you for the business”. It came all wrapped in gold paper with a lovely personalised letter and, as it wasn’t expected, it had a huge impact on everyone in the office.

It got me to thinking – in these tight financial times, people, (and we must always remember that we are all dealing with people and not businesses), are always pleased to be recognised for what they have done and thanked in a manner which doesn’t have to be a grand gesture – just a personal one. Continue reading “Little things mean such a lot” »

© Marianne Harris-Bridge, Oysterjam Marketing & Business Development

Talking with a local business man at a recent breakfast meeting he was delighted to show me his new business card, complete with newly coloured logo. He had asked me what I do and when the word “ branding” came up he showed me the card stating “ I have just rebranded my company”. Continue reading “What’s in a Brand?” »

“You’ve got 5 seconds to make an impression.” That’s what they say.

Whether you are making a presentation, making a cold call on the telephone or trying to grab the attention of virtual browsers on the net you need something that will attract attention.

That’s where Mysttopia’s Motion Graphics are such a powerful marketing tool – grabbing the attention. Continue reading “Be Animated on your Website” »

A blindingly obvious statement is “Many companies would be more successful if they could identify, win and convert more sales opportunities.”

Many MDs in small to medium sized companies know this to be true and then make the mistake of believing that tele-marketing is something that anyone can do. Well, they are completely wrong. Continue reading “Tele-marketing – it’s not for amateurs!” »

If a company wants to run their own mailing/telemarketing campaign these are the procedures that need to be followed in order to add a degree of certainty to the outcome: Continue reading “Taking the guess-work out of sales and marketing” »

The first thing I would always recommend is that you visit the offices of the company to “get a feel” for the company and the people who work in it.

There are several things to look out for:

Continue reading “What you should look for in a Marketing Company” »