Marketing

Branding, Marketing & Sales

Developing and implementing a Marketing Strategy.

Even with developed business strategies, (whether explicit or known only to the senior leadership team) knowing how to achieve goals of profits, growth, developments, competitiveness etc and the operational processes and plans which support them is vital, in order to succeed. Without a marketing strategy in place the appropriate resources, branding, communications and customer relationships ( to name but a few) may not develop in the right direction.

Once the business strategy is in place have you implemented the right marketing strategy to help to achieve your aims.? Have you good insight into the competition, customer preferences and behaviour, external constraints and your own successful and less successful previous marketing performance?

The marketing strategy will define: the markets you are aiming at, the products and services you wish to provide, their prices, how they will be distributed to customers, how they will be packaged and promoted.

It will include sales targets and predictions, operating costs (including marketing costs) and profits likely to accrue.

It may break down different markets segments, types of customers and even individual products.

It will be monitored and have key performance indicators and timelines on which to routinely report.

Fixing performance measures against marketing activities, targeting, service/product delivery and campaign management will give leaders a clear view of whether the business strategy is likely to be achieved and how.

Oysterjam has developed many different marketing strategies in support of business strategies across private, public and third sector organisations. Whether Business to Business, (B2B) Business to Consumer, (B2C) international or home market we can develop, implement and monitor your marketing strategy.

Marketing planning and review

Whether starting a new venture, entering a new market, or implementing your business plans for the short, medium and long-term, planning the marketing activities to help to achieve targets is essential. Depending on how ambitious your goals are, you will need to map the resources, timing and content of the marketing activities which will provide maximum impact towards achieving those goals.

Do you need to communicate differently, to target new customers, in new media, at different times, with new messages?

Have you run a successful marketing campaign which now needs to be changed, reinforced and followed up?

Oysterjam will plan your marketing with you in the context of your business goals and resource allocations.

We will review the success of previous marketing activities and recommend future marketing plans and support.

Brands- what do they mean, how to manage them and why are they important?

The success of organisations, services and products is often dependent on the strength of their brands.

Do you understand the brand image, personality and values that your brand(s) represent(s)?
Are they distinctive, relevant, engaging, competitive and easily understood?

There’s so much to managing a successful brand that determines the potential success of its market performance but we often do not take the time to either clarify what our brand should be and/or actually embodies.

Large corporations often have teams of experts monitoring their brands; performance, updating when required and actively managing them. Whatever the resources we have on hand to do this the brand is not just a pretty logo or clever website- it’s a lot more besides. Market research has developed alongside multiple customer awareness, sophisticated Customer Relationship Management systems and 24 hour monitoring of digital media communications- to mention just a few tools available to scrutinise brand performance.

The way you manage your brand, how you communicate, how your staff perceive and live the brand and how you appear to potential and current customers should not be left to chance.

Oysterjam will help you to understand the brand, what it stands for,the impact it has and how to develop and enhance it in the way that best meets your business and cultural objectives.

Marketing management

With or without a plan do you have someone to manage the implementation of your marketing activities?

Are there performance measurement tools in place and are staff trained and competent to handle any marketing challenges that you and the customers throw at them?

At Oysterjam, to underpin the agreed marketing strategy we can specify the skills needed and recruit your marketing team, training where required. We will review and implement measures to try to ensure you get best value from your marketing activities – whether in-house or out-sourced. We will help with the day to day management and progress chase planned activities and campaigns.

And when the unexpected hits and you have to take remedial action (manage communications, media relations, or take quick marketing steps to deal with new circumstances for example,) then Oysterjam provides the capable hands to deal with the issues.

Marketing management services embrace all aspects of media: Advertising, Direct marketing, PR, Web development, market research, social media, marketing collateral and events. We also develop and implement strategies and plans to cover internal and external communications and sales (see also Sales section.)

Oysterjam provides marketing management services on a project or regular basis- contact us to discuss your needs.

Training in Marketing

Do you have gaps in your marketing expertise?
Are you developing an in-house marketing team, recruiting and developing new team members,
Do you need to help colleagues to understand marketing and how its helps to support the business?
Do you provide services for new staff, new or growing businesses and would like to add marketing to the training and development you provide?

Oysterjam can help with marketing training, from introducing marketing concepts to practical steps to get your marketing activities up and running.

Commissioning and managing marketing agencies

Do you need to purchase marketing services or materials to support your strategy? It could be PR, digital developments/social media or printed leaflets, for example.
Can out-sourcing boost your capacity to improve performance ?
Do you need to set up a procurement and/or tendering process to select preferred suppliers?
Are you comfortable with procurement processes, managing contracts and ensuring that the out-sourced services are of high quality and value?

Oysterjam can help you to determine the nature and scale of your need, source and commission external agencies for you. We will also manage those agency relationships if you need us to.

Sales Planning

Determining what you have to sell and that there is a customer base to sell to are just the first steps in planning your sales activities. How to price, promote, package, distribute and target are key and may require flexible approaches as the market changes.

Whether you have a contact centre at your premises, use a field force, direct sale on-line , external appointment making agencies or all of these, then it will need planning.

There are cyclical markets which peak at certain times of the year and you might have planned, timed, specific marketing campaigns to drive up sales so it is important to consider this in the planning of resource allocation.

What about when and where your potential customers might be accessible, contacting past and current customers and new potential customers who may have emerged since you last planned a sales drive?

Have you planned the sales process- getting the goods/services to the customer, after sales support and follow up for repeat sales?

Oysterjam will sit down with you to plan how the sales function needs to work to achieve targets and capitalise on marketing campaigns.

Sales management and targeting

Managing sales can be closely tied to information gathering and performance measurement. What do you know about sales patterns, top clients, why and what they buy, when and how much?
Do you have a Customer Relationship Management platform and ways of analysing data to understand the key profiles of good and potential customers?
Once you know who you want to sell to how do you manage the sales force or sales media and set realistic targets?

Oysterjam will analyse your key sales requirements and help you to introduce the right management systems to suit you and your customers.

Whether setting up sales processes and practices (calls made, conversion from calls to sales etc.) or introducing commission schemes we can advise.

If you need to contact past and/or inactive clients we can help too.

We can help to establish contact centres for both outbound and inbound calls.

Client relationship management

Whatever your system of managing client sales records Oysterjam will help you to establish best practice in the frequency and methods of client contact to maximise keeping even inactive clients “warm”.

You might want to establish regular newsletters, e-zines or other methods of keeping them informed but also ensuring that the field force do not lose contact with their clients.

Most customers buy from people and people with whom they have an active and good relationship. We will recommend processes to help you to build regular customer contact into the day to day business, be able to adjust and monitor performance and ensure that you retain and grow your client base.

Marketing

Branding, Marketing & Sales

Services