Sales & Marketing

We are all fully aware what the last year has represented. Living through the unprecedented circumstances of 2020 has meant that we have had to adapt. Luckily, because of the nature of who we are, we are adaptable beings. So, if your business wasn’t online at the start of 2020, then you most certainly will have taken the steps to change this by the time the year ended, if, of course, the business is one that can also adapt. (more…)

At Bytestart, we receive hundreds of press releases every week. Although around 40% are usually relevant to UK small businesses, out of these we probably only end up using 4 or 5 a week in our news articles. Many are not relevant to our business, some are poorly written, and the majority are not newsworthy.
(more…)

Whether you’re an established small business or a start-up about to launch your enterprise in a competitive market, one of the key ingredients you need to succeed is a unique selling point.

Some would go further than that and say having a USP is the key to success, and is more important than anything else, including marketing, service and pricing. A USP is what differentiates you from your competitors and can give you a vital edge.
(more…)

Content is at the heart of every modern marketer’s toolkit. But aligning this material with sales departments is a common problem many organisations face.

Your marketing team might be well-armed with blog posts, case studies and whitepapers to generate leads and brand awareness, but you need a well-equipped and driven sales team to nurture leads over the finish line. (more…)

If your business has a physical presence of any kind, or you exhibit or attend branded events, it’s imperative to invest in quality business signage that stands out from the crowd.

The right signage and logo design will help build brand recognition, both offline and online, and ultimately increase footfall and conversions. (more…)

 Google RankBrain first rolled out in 2015. Unlike Google’s many previous updates it uses machine-learning and AI for the first time, in order to help better refine search results, especially in cases of rare, ambiguous or one-of-a-kind queries.

Understanding more about Rankbrain can help your website succeed, so we asked digital marketing expert, Paul Morris of Superb Digital, to explain what Google’s RankBrain is, how it works, where it’s going and why, as a small business owner, you should care. (more…)

Getting coverage in your local press may not have the kudos of being featured in national newspapers but it often delivers a better return on investment, especially to locally-based businesses.

For small businesses, local newspapers are a more realistic target for press coverage than the national press. Readers of local papers want to read about local news, stories and events so if you can help a journalist deliver this, then you are well on the way to getting valuable press coverage for your business.

(more…)

Making the leap into starting your own business takes a lot of bottle and brings a lot of new challenges.

Those early days, as you work to drum up business and generate new customers, will be among the hardest you face.

Making sure that your business stands out in your niche is crucial to your success. But how can you do that?

(more…)

Here’s a checklist of pointers to help small business owners to raise their firm’s profile within vertical markets.
(more…)

When you’re hiring a creative freelancer or agency, you need to remember that they’re coming from outside of your organisation, and might not know your brand guidelines, tone of voice, and so on.
(more…)

It’s an occasional necessity of business that you’ll need to call somebody without them expecting it, which is the very definition of cold-calling.
(more…)

If your new business makes a product that you want to sell to the general public, then one of the most important factors in your future success will be great distribution.
(more…)

Increasingly, companies of all sizes, and especially brands and those with a defined image, are aware that price cutting can have disastrous long-term effects on both the general public’s perception of the brand and on company profits.
(more…)

As a business owner, you are often the face of the business at every turn. Whether you’re dealing with customers, suppliers, partners or staff, what you do matters and sets the tone for your whole business.

How successful you are often comes down to how good you are at persuading and influencing people. With these skills being so important, we asked behaviour expert, Ally Yates, to outline how you can become more persuasive in business. (more…)

If you can develop a better understanding of the selling process, you’re more likely to make those all-important sales. And by knowing more about the seven specific steps you need to take before you can close the deal, your sales efforts will be more richly rewarded.

Here’s what you need to know about the seven steps of the sale;
(more…)

If you’ve been involved in running a website, you’ll know that it’s relatively “easy” to get eyeballs on your site. Throw money at it and they will come.

But, it’s getting those visitors to take action, to buy from you – that’s the hard part. So it’s no wonder that a website’s ‘Conversion Rate’ is one of the most keenly tracked metrics in online business. It measures the percentage of visitors who take a desired action, which in e-commerce means making a purchase.
(more…)

Free publicity is a great way to spread the word about your business. If you can get your business featured regularly in the newspapers, magazines and websites your target audience reads, it brings your business to the attention of potential customers, and at no cost.
(more…)

For a small business, email marketing offers an inexpensive but effective and efficient way to engage with your customers, and attract new ones – so long as the right planning has been put in place first.
(more…)

Lead generation is absolutely crucial to identifying potential customers that are interested in you business’s products and services.

With online leads coming from various sources such as search engines, email marketing, banner advertising and social media, you need to take an informed approach so you can reduce waste and focus your marketing budget on the sources that are driving the most high-quality leads.
(more…)

Negotiations are something all of us need to do every day. Whether it is securing a sale, negotiating a discount with a supplier or simply making arrangements with friends and family (children make particularly good negotiators!), the kind of questions we ask influences the final outcome for everyone.
(more…)

In a world dominated by ever-updating newsfeeds and 140 character exchanges, it seems that the traditional practice of direct mail has no place in modern communication, particularly as businesses look to utilise cheaper, faster ways to communicate with their consumers.

However, overloaded inboxes and newsfeeds that update faster than you can blink means that direct mail still delivers impact in a digital world.
(more…)

If there’s one marketing skill you should focus on developing above all others it is copywriting. Here we explain why.
(more…)

Good publicity can help to propel your small business to another level. Sadly many small businesses don’t make any effort to get any press coverage because they think it’s impossibly difficult to do so.

However, it is really simple to get free publicity for your business. In fact, the reason that many businesses get it wrong is because they try to over-complicate things. Here are the five powerful and unbreakable rules you must follow when trying to get free publicity for your business:
(more…)

Negotiations can often be a mysterious process. Maybe the conversation has reached a sticky point, no one is budging and tempers are beginning to rise. Then one person says something and the whole situation transforms. You strike a great deal and everyone is best friends.
(more…)

Traditionally, tradesmen have thrived on word-of-mouth recommendations, but in today’s marketplace online referrals can have a big influence on whether a customer decides to employ your services.
(more…)

Every business – even yours – has a brand.

One common misconception is that your brand is your logo. Your logo is a single visual representation of your brand, but it is not your brand. (more…)

When you start a business, everyone says networking is important; so you network. But are you getting more out of your networking than passable plonk and the occasional first-class canapé? Have your efforts delivered a strong network that adds value to your business?
(more…)

For every service business, ensuring your customers have a great experience is paramount. Whether you’re a small start-up cafe or a global hotel chain, customer satisfaction needs to be a top priority if you are to succeed.

To help you put in place the foundations for a thriving service business, we asked Michael Heppell, the author of, “5 Star Service – How to deliver exceptional customer service”, to reveal the key issues you need to get right, before you can start wowing your customers; (more…)

The ability to negotiate the highest possible fees without risking a client relationship or an instruction has become increasingly important to individual professionals and professional service firms in recent years.
(more…)

Most people think that to effectively promote their new business website, they need to do all the marketing work online.

In fact, that’s only half the story. Yes, driving traffic online is easier, as people are already using the medium. But there’s a lot of clutter online and standing out is hard. Promotional activity in the real world can be just as beneficial for publicising your new business website.
(more…)

When you’re starting or running your own small business, you have an endless list of jobs to do. One of the most crucial is generating interest in your business and creating awareness of your products and services.
(more…)

Marketing and PR can be difficult propositions for small businesses, where funds are often tight and need to be stretched as much as possible.

However, by following a basic process, you can maximise the effectiveness of any PR campaign you embark upon – and gain extra ROI by making your campaign wide-ranging in terms of its reach, but focused in terms of its message.
(more…)