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Funding for Training Businesses employing between 5 and 249 people can receive up to £1000 government funding towards training via the Leadership and Management grant from the Learning and Skills Council (LSC).

This can be a great help towards funding essential training for your business, especially in difficult economic times when budgets are tight. The grants can be applied to either public or private training courses from Bourne Marketing Training.

About the Leadership and Management Grants

The Leadership and Management grants are funded by the LSC. The funding is targeted at managers, business owners or anyone responsible for the direction of the organisation they work for – this applies to public and voluntary organisations, as well as private businesses. Each organisation can apply for up to £1,000 of grant support.

  • The first £500 of funding does not require you to contribute anything – and should be used for training for directors.
  • If you wish to, an additional £500 of ‘matched funding’ can then be claimed – this means that you will also need to contribute £500 towards the cost of the training. So – in total you can attend training worth up to £1500 us and only pay £500!

Do I Qualify?

To be eligible for the leadership and management grants you must: 

  • Employ between 5 and 249 people
  • Be from an EU country, or have lived in the EU country for 3 years or more
  • Not have received Leadership & Management funding support from Train to Gain previously

How do I apply 

First, choose a training course that you would like to attend. If you have any questions about our courses or would like to discuss a private or bespoke course, please feel free to call us on 08456 380 721 or email kjohnson@bournemarketing.com

A skills broker from Train to Gain will contact you to confirm your eligibility for the funding, and discuss your training needs.

Book and pay for your training course. You will then be reimbursed for up to £1000 of the cost by the Learning and Skills Council

£1,000 Training Funding Available Receive Up to £1000

on September 18, 2010 by kaz6862

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Lead generation is a marketing term that refers to the creation or generation of prospective consumer interest or inquiry into a business’ products or services. Leads can be generated for a variety of purposes – list building, e-newsletter list acquisition or for winning customers. Lead generation is generally generated through search engines.

A lead is a sign-up for an advertiser offer that includes contact information and in some cases, demographic information. There are many different kinds of leads such as debt, loan modification, tax, bankruptcy, education, and mortgage leads.

Why use lead generation?

 Return on investment (ROI)

Online lead generation provides a direct and simple channel, which enables the advertiser to calculate their return on investment. For example, if 100 leads are bought for £1.00 per lead, and these leads then become customers producing £200 of sales revenue, it would be easy to track the lead back to the supplier and calculate the ROI for each lead acquired.

 However, it is also important to note that if a car brochure request may take longer before a test drive and subsequent purchase is completed. Whilst a ROI can be calculated for the online lead generation spend, the brand spend, the billboards, and all the other advertising activity that led to the sale needs to be factored into the trading result and ultimate ROI.

Online lead generation demonstrates to advertisers that their marketing activity is achieving a definite and immediate ROI providing the definitions are clear. It is for this reason that online lead generation is currently the fastest growing sector of online advertising, which itself is the fastest growing sector of advertising activity.

Transparency

Seeing what’s working and what’s not whilst the campaign is still going lets advertisers optimise the campaign. Performance-based services work best when you don’t have to wait until the end of the project before determining whether it has worked.

Cost effectiveness

Marketers determine how many leads they want and the price per lead which enables them to budget better and keep costs down. The quality of lead that can be collected through these campaigns also helps to ensure the cost effectiveness by giving ‘more bang for your buck’.

 Targeting

Marketers can get closer to the customers that are right for their business by using filters to narrow the customer profile. Any method of lead generation has the capability to capture very specific data to help focus the campaign on precisely the right demographics – so any buyer can access leads that are selected by gender, age and geography on top of their interest in the product.

Stability

Lead generation enables advertisers to generate a steady flow of new business and set lead and sales targets in line with budgets and available resources. For example, a company may only require 1,000 leads for men aged 30-40 living in London; as soon as they reach that threshold then the campaign stops. If they need 200 more leads, the campaign can be quickly started up again.

 Qualification

Marketers pay for qualified prospects that want to find out more about their product or service.

 Flexibility

Filtering enables marketers to adjust their campaigns quickly as market conditions change.

 Builds your customer database

Every lead is an engaged consumer that has expressed an interest in the advertiser that contacts them and should be put into a CRM system for future campaigns, which can include email campaigns and voucher promotions.

Put your sales on auto pilot

on September 17, 2010 by kaz6862

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Are you struggling to get customers to your door?

Do you find it hard to make time for your marketing on a regular basis?

Would you like to have a lead generation system that sits on auto-pilot?

Would you like someone to hand hold you and show you a system that will get you customers to your door, even whilst you sleep?

 On October 9th,  I will offer you the chance to be hand held and set you up a sales lead generation system that will get your customers to pop into your inbox – even whilst you sleep and then keep them buying from you time after time!

 Join me on this fantastic workshop that will increase your sales – even whilst you sleep and…

  •  Create a website that gets your customers to raise their hands
  • Promote your business with other people
  • Learn how to create a multi-step system that gets multiple sales
  • Find out how to drive customers to your website for very little, or no outlay

Saturday 9 October  @ 9.30 – 12.30

Bournemouth Adult Learning
 Ensbury Avenue

Bournemouth

BH10 4HG

United Kingdom

Call 0846 380 721 to book or click here

How to get your BIG list of potential Customers

on September 15, 2010 by kaz6862

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The Bourne Marketing Department provides Small business owners with a Virtual Marketing Manager who will plan and implement ongoing marketing activities that are consistent and focused on key business objectives.

 Why use The Bourne Marketing Department?

  •  Low Cost ‘Pay as you go’ fee structure
  • Key tasks and marketing activities are completed ‘in house’ in a timely, reliable manner
  • Existing staff can be trained to complete key marketing tasks
  • Business owners & key staff can focus on their specialist areas of the business
  • Saves money – The extensive industry knowledge of each Virtual Marketing Manger ensure clients receive the best services at the lowest prices
  • One central point where all marketing enquires & activities are dealt with

 Get this £50 discount code by clicking here!*

 *Only one coupon available to each business, limited availability

£50 promo code

on September 14, 2010 by kaz6862

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It’s true to say that marketing is big business. In fact, there aren’t many companies around today who don’t use some aspect of marketing to help push their sales. And because there’s such a demand for marketing, you can be sure that there’s also a demand for people with the right skills you can gain by studying a marketing course.

So if you want to gain the vital skills and understanding needed to succeed in marketing, either you want to get into this exciting field or you want to start or have already started running a business, why not come along to this free marketing workshop.

Places are limited so please reserve your place now by calling 08456 380 721 or by logging onto www.bournemarketing.com

Free Marketing Workshop

on August 14, 2010 by kaz6862

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PR or public relations means getting people to talk and think about your business in a positive way. It can be a vital weapon in your business’ armoury. It’s a way to get good publicity without advertising. And if there’s ever a problem facing your business it helps you deal with it effectively.

You can use PR to attract and impress people such as customers, suppliers, distributors, banks and other lenders, potential employees and possible business partners. And PR isn’t just for big companies using national newspapers or television. Even the smallest business can use publicity opportunities to catch the eye of its local audience.

This workshop will help you generate positive media coverage and identify the media you should target. It will also tell you how you can go about writing a press release and give you tips for dealing with bad publicity. On this workshop you will learn how to:-

  • Identifying your target media
  • How to get media coverage
  • Building contacts with the media
  • Dealing with bad publicity
  • Should I use a PR agency? 
  • Writing an effective press release
  • Get coverage for your press release
  • Sample press release for a local newspaper
  • Non-media PR

Ring 08456 380 721 to book and for further informaiton

An Introduction to PR

on July 14, 2010 by kaz6862

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It doesn’t matter what business you are in or what size of business you have, if you are an exhibitor at a trade show, you will all have one thing in common – an eye watering appreciation of the costs involved.
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Stand space, stand design and build, the get in and get out, staff and accommodation costs, sales staff not on the road selling. It’s enough to have the Financial Director Reaching for the gallium.

However, with a little forward planning you can make the event work for you in terms of maximising your attendance, attracting potential customers to your stand and raising the profile of your company. The key is, harness the Public Relations opportunities and set them working for you.

Successful exhibition PR is all about timing and your starting point should be the date of the exhibition, because you need to plan backwards.

For example, if your exhibition is in June and your key industry magazine is monthly, then you need to be sending your exhibition press releases in April, because they will be working two months in advance.

PR activity around exhibitions falls neatly into two halves: your role and the role of the exhibition organisers.

In terms of your role, let’s start with the press pack. This should contain two or three newsworthy press releases. Don’t forget to put the hall and your stand number on the front page of each release. Enclose good quality and interesting photography. Be creative, it will stand much more chance of being used if your new product shot has been taken from a creative angle. You might want to include biographical details of key personnel on the stand. Also, don’t forget to put a label with details of how to find you on the pack itself.

Make sure that there is always someone on your stand who can speak to journalists about your company and the products you have on display.

Tell the business editor of your local newspaper that you are going to the exhibition and send your quirky photograph and press release to them.

Here’s how to make the exhibition work for you.

Once you have your Exhibitor’s manual, find out who has responsibility for co-ordinating PR on behalf of the organiser and make contact with them. Find out which magazines are supporting the exhibition and target them with press releases and invitations to visit you at your stand.

Ask for a list of journalists who have confirmed that they will be attending and make a point of introducing yourself to them. Check if the exhibition is going to have a daily newspaper – they are often produced by an industry magazine – and contact the editorial team. They will be hungry for stories particularly for the first edition which will be produced before the show starts.

Make sure that you are included in any exhibitor directories and that you are featured on the exhibition website.

Some very large international exhibitions like 3GSM in Cannes will attract the attention of business television companies like CNBC or Reuters. Find them and keep in touch.

The exhibition will have a Press Office, so make sure your press packs are on display – don’t rely on Press Office staff to do this for you – it’s your responsibility.

Visit the Press Office frequently to ‘top up’ the supply of press packs. Also, keep some packs on your stand just in case a stray journalist turns up.

On Press Day (usually the first day of the exhibition) make sure that your key personnel are available and have someone hovering around the Press Office. Nothing is more frustrating than finding that an important journalist is somewhere in the exhibition or worse, that they have been and gone.

Once the exhibition is over, tell the media how successful it was for you. This is especially important if you have clinched an important deal, won an exhibition award or had influential visitors to your stand.

And finally. Many exhibitors feel that they are too small to be of interest to the media. This is a completely false impression. Journalists are always interested in small, exciting companies with interesting stories to tell.

Make an Exhibition of Your Company

on June 14, 2010 by kaz6862

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Testing your marketing Just like failing to plan is planning to fail, without testing your marketing, how do you know what works and what doesn’t – in order for your marketing to SUCCEED you really need to Plan, action and evaluate!

If you don’t have the right message, reach the right audience, the right timing, or the right offer, you won’t succeed. And to that I say ABSOLUTELY! In fact, those are the very elements of a successful campaign that can be identified through proper testing. So how do you know that your messaging is optimized or that you’re reaching your target audience in the most effective way possible? Only proper testing can give you that information.

By testing multiple landing pages, post cards, direct mail packages, keyword campaigns, and other marketing campaigns, you can find what resonates best with your audience and set proper expectations for performance.

Once you’ve established a baseline, continue to test and experiment with different messaging, timing, and offers and compare your results against your baseline. Failed marketing campaigns can lead to some costly results for a company. Not only do they fail to have a strong marketing presence because of the less than marketing results, but they also risk tarnishing their company’s image.

No matter what kind of marketing you plan on using take the time to do at least a few tests to gauge how much people are going to like it. Yes, you might have to go back to make some minor changes to your marketing because of it, but that’s a lot better than having your marketing campaign fail.

Ongoing measurement and testing is essential for marketing success. If you’re not testing your marketing campaigns on a continuous basis, you’re missing out. In general, you’ll only improve your success rate about 10% of the time. But continue to test, test, and test some more and you’ll see your knowledge and results increase.

So remember to plan, action and evaluate, testing and tweaking as you go!

Testing your marketing

on May 14, 2010 by kaz6862

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Are you struggling to get customers?

It’s a tough job at the moment to get new business and for those of you who haven’t got a marketing team or marketing qualifications it’s all too easy for you to get stuck for help to promote your business. It’s even worse if you are on a limited budget with limited time and enthusiasm!

How many times did you say that you were going to do something, but didn’t because nobody else would know? – but now wished you had because your sales are looking a little less than healthy.

Would you like someone to take you by the hand and lead you step by step, with the knowledge and experience of marketing to get your business name out there, win new customers and keep and up-sell to existing ones. Even getting lapsed customers back and buying from you?

I will share with you my own marketing secrets in a step by step approach that will help you establish the momentum you will need to get your customers in just four weeks!

I will show you how to design your action plan and each week will help you implement your plan that will put your ideas into action immediately! Even in just a few days you will see results!

This four week marketing programme will show you:-

  • How to choose a direction
  • The best way to make an action plan
  • How to make marketing simple
  • How to create a predictable marketing and sales cycle
  • Create a strategy that will help you get unstuck

By using this programme you will have someone other than yourself to whom you are accountable – suddenly things get done when you are accountable to someone! 

You will also get a different point of view on your progress and by working in a group you will be able get the support of others as it’s helpful to have some else to complain to or celebrate with

 Show you the most effective marketing strategy for your business

 Stay on Track!

Book now before this programme gets fully booked as the places are limited to just 10! Book

Not only that – when you sign up for this four week programme, you get:

  • workbook
  • a marketing plan
  • resource list
  • DVD of the programme – so that you can revisit the programme essentials
  • a chance to network
  • a buddy to keep you on track
  • a follow up conference call to answer any questions to help you stay on track 

I am offering you this programme at the moment for just a small investment of £83 for 3 months

Join me in Bournemouth on Tuesday evenings from 7-9pm starting on the 18 May 2010 – and bring your partner for Free

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How to get more customers in just 4 weeks

on April 3, 2010 by kaz6862

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If you are running your own small business or work as an independent professional you may at times feel alone with your ideas and plans.  You could be too close to your business to see a clear way forward. You may know deep down that you really need to get some external stimulation and fresh ideas. You may yearn for the time to spend thinking about what you need to do to move forward and exactly what to spend your time focusing time, energy and action on to increase your revenues. 

Is this you?

 You need to attract more leads but don’t know how to get them

  • You are overwhelmed with options and need to focus
  • You lack expertise in sales and marketing but need the skills
  • You get frustrated with poor results and want a better return
  • You jump around from idea to idea and need a clear plan
  • You are too close to your business and need external input
  • You mean to take the right action but don’t know where to start

Bourne Marketing Networkshops will help you get right on track

Bourne Marketing Networkshops are designed to offer small business and new owners the ‘know how’ to sell and market their businesses confidently. You will be encouraged to take action as soon as you attend the networkshops and you will get better and better as you attend each event.

Now is the time to step up a level 

Right now is the best time to invest in learning about sales and marketing as these are critical business skills that, if you get them right, will deliver huge returns during 2010.

Join a group of like minded business people

Bourne Marketing Networkshops gives up to 15 like-minded business owners the chance to join other professionals once a month, and be guided and stimulated to create and deliver a sales and marketing system for their business that will generate a flow of new leads, and help build on existing business.

Build your network and your business

You will also get the chance to build really strong networking contacts and generate good referrals at the same time as getting that all important opportunity to focus on building your business for the future.

Bourne Marketing Networkshops

on March 29, 2010 by kaz6862

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