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Sales and marketing

Increase your sales and brand impact

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Latest on sales and marketing

Read our latest features and articles on sales and marketing.
AI fraud and accountants
  • Article
  • 08 Sep 2023
Many predictions about AI taking our jobs have not yet materialised, but the threat of AI-driven fraud is a much more worrying development.
FCA consults on updated social media guidance
  • Article
  • 05 Sep 2023
An explosion in the use of influencers to promote financial products is under the spotlight after the FCA admits current advice has failed to keep pace with the evolution of social media.
New index helps brands avoid greenwashing and greenhushing
  • Article
  • 18 Jul 2023
Minding the ‘sustainability gap’ can help brands realise billions of pounds in untapped value, according to a study of differences between ESG perceptions and performance
Cryptoassets and the case for regulation
  • Article
  • 14 Jul 2023
Crypto regulation needs to focus on risk mitigation and developing trust in the market to encourage a virtuous cycle of adoption, investment and technological development that generates real value, argues Reuben Wales, Head of Financial Services at ICAEW.
Trial for agents to get HMRC’s response to old post
  • Article
  • 11 Jul 2023
HMRC is expanding the role of the agent account manager team, which will now assist with processing post that is more than 12 months old.
Are small retailers drowning in business rates?
  • Article
  • 10 Jul 2023
Retail was one of the industries hit hardest in recent years due to myriad changes, and they’re still struggling. Is regulation holding them back?
Read more

Topics in depth

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Brand management
Find out more about brand management, including developing a personal brand.
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Customer relationship management
Resources on customer care, including building customer loyalty.
Retail bakery cakes
Marketing segmentation
Resources on market segmentation, a marketing technique involving treating customers as distinct groups of buyers with particular needs.
Business men talking about shop layout retail
Marketing plans
A collection of guides, articles and links to help you plan your marketing.
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Pricing
View our latest content on pricing.
Working globe
Researching your market
A collection of books, articles, guides and links on understanding and researching markets.
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Sales
A collection of guides, articles and links for successful sales operations.
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Social media marketing
Find out how to use social media for marketing and publicity.

Reports

How directors might use social media
  • Report
  • 2020
This guide provides insight on how directors could start using social media to engage with all stakeholders and yield benefits. Social media attracts an enormous number of users, including company employees, suppliers, and existing and new customers.
Special report - Corporate image
  • Report
  • 2018
Developing and enhancing your branding as a business can greatly enhance your market presence, especially on-line. This report covers the most important aspects to bear in mind when developing a brand strategy.
Exclusive Special report - Pricing
  • Report
  • 2016
This report deals with the practical aspects of pricing strategy for products throughout their life cycle.
More reports

Webinars and recordings

Business resilience
  • Webinar
  • 23 Apr 2021
This webinar from the Business and Management Faculty will explore business resilience and getting it right.
Modern slavery: how to prepare a s54 statement
  • Webinar
  • 17 Mar 2021
This webinar explains Pentland's approach to preparing the section 54 statement.
Supply chain assurance in the retail sector
  • Webinar
  • 16 Oct 2020
Abigail Harper talks through a risk-based approach to providing supply chain assurance within the retail sector.
Marketing for Finance
  • Webinar
  • 08 Jul 2019
Marketing top tips for finance professionals.
How accountants can become digital leaders
  • Webinar
  • 19 Jun 2019
In this thought-provoking presentation, we will demystify how your future online customer is "thinking" and why every founder, business owner, and entrepreneur can digitally transform their sales and marketing using a proven methodology as a digital leader and utilise disruptive technology effectively.
Influencing and persuading – promoting your brand
  • Webinar
  • 15 May 2019
We all negotiate on a much more frequent basis than we realise and some of us are much better than others are winning the argument. David Gillespie, professional actor and coach, brings some practical tips in how to persuade people and better negotiate in this punchy twenty minute webinar.
More webinars

Legal Alert

Legal Alert is a monthly checklist from Atom Content Marketing highlighting new and pending laws, regulations, codes of practice and rulings that could have an impact on your business.

New practice: Risks of ‘offer ends today!’ type advertising highlighted
  • Article
  • 01 Feb 2023
Businesses should avoid attracting the attention of consumer protection regulators by expressly or impliedly misleading consumers - for example, by saying or implying that customers will miss out on discounts unless they place an order urgently.
New guidance: ICO new guidance on marketing by electronic mail and phone
  • Article
  • 01 Jan 2023
Organisations marketing by electronic mail and/or live phone calls will welcome new Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) guidances on direct marketing by these means.
New Code: CMA launches Green Claims Code to stop misleading ‘green’ claims by businesses, irrespective of size or sector
  • Article
  • 01 Nov 2021
Businesses of all sizes in all sectors, and whether selling to consumers or to other businesses, should review any claims they make about their environmental credentials or risk falling foul of a new Green Claims Code from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).
New practice: Employers may need access to employees’ private phones, email, social media accounts, etc to satisfy data protection obligations
  • Article
  • 01 Jun 2021
Employers whose employees are allowed to use their own phones, computers or tablets, private email accounts and messaging services, or personal accounts on social or business media such as Twitter, LinkedIn, WhatsApp or Instagram for work purposes should ensure they are able to require their employees to give them access to personal data held on those phones, accounts etc where this is required to comply with data protection laws.
Case law: Information Commissioner’s Office publishes code of practice for providers of online services which children are likely to access
  • Article
  • 01 Mar 2020
Organisations providing online services to children up to 18, or online services that children are likely to access, should consider whether they are complying with a new age appropriate design code of practice published by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
Case law: Businesses beware sending service messages to customers electronically that contain marketing messages
  • Article
  • 01 Jan 2020
Businesses should ensure service messages sent to customers electronically do not include marketing messages - unless the recipient consented to receiving marketing communications and they otherwise comply with privacy and electronic communication rules.

eBooks

The ICAEW Library & Information Service provides full text access to a selection of key business and reference eBooks from leading publishers. eBooks are available to logged-in ICAEW members, ACA students and other entitled users. If you are unable to access an eBook, please see our Help and support advice or contact library@icaew.com.

Exclusive 101 marketing strategies for accounting, law, consulting, and professional services firms
  • eBook
  • 2004
  • Troy Waugh
  • John Wiley and Sons
A guide to marketing, selling and persuading.
Exclusive Advising the wealthy client: a handbook for working with the ultra wealthy
  • eBook
  • 2020
  • Barbara R. Hauser
  • Globe Law and Business Ltd
Countries are racing to disclose bank accounts to garner more tax income from the ultra wealthy and the politics of being in the “1% club” are not always positive. Yet these are important clients with important needs.
Exclusive Blog marketing
  • eBook
  • 2006
  • Jeremy Wright
  • McGraw-Hill
This book looks at the impact that blogging can have on business.
Exclusive Branding your business
  • eBook
  • 2008
  • James Hammond
  • Kogan Page
A practical guide to creating and managing successful brands.
Exclusive Building a marketing plan: a complete guide
  • eBook
  • 2011
  • Ho Yin Wong
  • Business Expert Press
A practical guide to developing a marketing plan.
Exclusive Business to business market research
  • eBook
  • 2005
  • Ruth McNeil
  • Kogan Page
Designed to help the reader develop core business-to-business market research skills and to apply research effectively.
Terms of use

You are permitted to access, download, copy, or print out content from eBooks for your own research or study only, subject to the terms of use set by our suppliers and any restrictions imposed by individual publishers. Please see individual supplier pages for full terms of use.

More eBooks

Business press

The ICAEW Library provides access to leading business, finance and management journals. These journals are available to logged-in ICAEW members, ACA students and other entitled users subject to suppliers' terms of use.
Exclusive Do unconventional brand name spellings help sales?
  • Article
  • 01 Sep 2023
Short article discussing recent consumer research into how the unconventional spelling of brands impacts sales for new-to-market brands. There are some exceptions, but the findings indicate that, in general, unusual spellings carry some risk.
Exclusive Even tiny website slowdowns can cost you sales
  • Article
  • 01 Jul 2023
The article describes how website performance can impact retailers' brand reputation and profitability. It summarizes research presented in the article “Need for Speed: The Impact of In-Process Delays on Customer Behavior in Online Retail,” published in the journal 'Operations Research', 2023. Suggestions for reducing check-out time for online shoppers are given, including offering faster payment options such as Apple Pay and Google Pay.
Exclusive Boosting your sales reps' performance
  • Article
  • 01 Jul 2023
There’s a delicate balance between the roles sales staff play in finding potential customers (prospecting) and signing them up (converting). The University of Missouri’s Srinath Gopalakrishna and colleagues studied the auto insurance industry to learn more about what drives sales success. Here they share recommendations for sales managers looking to amplify their reps' productivity.
Exclusive TikTok dupe culture can boost brand value: Brands are changing their strategies when it comes to knockoffs
  • Article
  • 26 Jun 2023
  • Adrianne Pasquarelli
The strategies brands are deploying to tackle the ever-present problem of cheaper counterfeit items are changing. Some, like leggings brand Lululemon, are embracing so-called 'dupe culture' through 'dupe swap' events, rather than spending on traditional marketing. Others are using the trend to highlight their products as possible dupe alternatives to more expensive brands.
Exclusive TikTok boom - and busts
  • Article
  • 01 Jun 2023
  • Danielle Lee
An interview with Christian Rivera, whose US accounting firm is constantly pivoting to best serve its niche market of online sellers and influencers. He left a secure Big Four accounting firm job with the goal of running his own very specialized firm; here he explains the customer service and marketing learning curve he has been through.
Exclusive Metrics for marketing decisions: Drivers and implications for performance
  • Article
  • 01 May 2023
  • Ofer Mintz
Are marketers being drowned by the increasing availability of and demand for metrics? Or is the greater availability of metrics or KPIs - such as return on investment, net profits, market share, net promoter score etc - a blessing for them, leading to better marketing decisions? Associate Professor in Marketing Ofer Mintz offers some interesting findings, including the most/least popular metrics and those associated with greater/worse performance.
More articles

Online magazines

These journals are available only to logged-in ICAEW members, ACA students and other entitled users. To access them, please log in.

Articles and books in the ICAEW Library collection

The collection of the ICAEW Library & Information Service includes a range of articles, books and reports on sales and marketing. Use the links below to see what we have available to request in our Library catalogue (Libcat).

To find out how you can borrow books from the Library please see our guide to borrowing books.

You can obtain copies of articles or extracts of books and reports through our document supply service.

External resources - guides and reports

BrandZ
  • Website
  • Kantar BrandZ

Brand equity database with individual annual reports covering:

Finding and selling to customers
  • Website
  • smallbusiness.co.uk
Articles providing helpful tips and advice on selling and marketing to customers. Written for UK small businesses and sole traders.
Sale of goods and services and data protection
  • Website
  • GOV.UK
Sales guidance for businesses from GOV.UK, covering topics such as accepting returns and giving refunds, marketing and advertising law, online and distance selling, trading hours and product labelling.
Sales & Growth resources
  • Website
  • Be The Business
Sales and growth resources covering common business questions for UK SMEs. A Sales & Growth assessment tool and Help to Grow Digital programme are available, providing free impartial advice on how technology can boost your sales and marketing efforts. Be the Business is an independent not-for-profit organisation supported by the UK government.
Terms of use

ICAEW accepts no responsibility for the content on any site to which a hypertext link from this site exists. The links are provided 'as is' with no warranty, express or implied, for the information provided within them. Please see the full copyright and disclaimer notice.

External resources - Atom marketing guides

Apps and online tools
  • Website
  • Atom Content Marketing
Thanks to the proliferation of innovative apps for smartphones, business owners can now do so much more while they are out of the office.
Content marketing
  • Website
  • Atom Content Marketing
For small businesses, posting useful content online offers a powerful way to engage with customers, via blogs, case studies, email and social media.
Ecommerce
  • Website
  • Atom Content Marketing
Selling online, either wholly or in addition to selling offline, can provide a fantastic source of revenue, but how do you get involved in ecommerce?
Email marketing
  • Website
  • Atom Content Marketing
Email marketing is fast and cheap, while enabling businesses to target messages to the right people at the right time. Find out how to do it.
Online and PPC advertising
  • Website
  • Atom Content Marketing
Unlike traditional advertising, online advertising can deliver visitors immediately - through a simple click on your ad with measurable results.
SEO
  • Website
  • Atom Content Marketing
If you’ve got a website, you need SEO. It’s that simple. Search engine optimisation can help you feature prominently on search engines like Google.
Social media
  • Website
  • Atom Content Marketing
Social media is firmly established as a marketing tool. Having a presence opens up new lines of communication with existing and potential customers.
Your website
  • Website
  • Atom Content Marketing
Your website helps new customers find you as well as keeping existing customers up to date with special offers and product launches.
Terms of use

ICAEW accepts no responsibility for the content on any site to which a hypertext link from this site exists. The links are provided 'as is' with no warranty, express or implied, for the information provided within them. Please see the full copyright and disclaimer notice.

External resources - Atom sales guides

Sales management
  • Website
  • Atom Content Marketing
Effective sales management gets the most out of your salesforce. Sales people need hands-on support and guidance to help them succeed.
Sales lead generation
  • Website
  • Atom Content Marketing
New sales leads are the lifeblood of many businesses. To successfully generate them, you'll need to actively prospect for marketing leads.
Tendering for contracts
  • Website
  • Atom Content Marketing
Tendering can be a major opportunity to win new business. Understanding the tender process and how to tender will help you submit winning proposals.
Sales strategy
  • Website
  • Atom Content Marketing
Selling is one of the most difficult tasks for small business owners. A sales strategy will focus your attention and help you seize opportunities.
Sales tools and technology
  • Website
  • Atom Content Marketing
The right sales tools improve sales success rates, whether you use a customer database or sophisticated customer relationship management (CRM).
Choose a pricing strategy
  • Website
  • Atom Content Marketing
Pricing is one of the most important aspects of your offer to get right.
Sales presentations
  • Website
  • Atom Content Marketing
A sales presentation is a great chance to progress or even complete a sale. It's up to you to make a truly effective presentation.
Sales lead generation
  • Website
  • Atom Content Marketing
A successful sales process looks at the customer and what they want, rather than just what kind of product or service you're trying to sell.
Terms of use

ICAEW accepts no responsibility for the content on any site to which a hypertext link from this site exists. The links are provided 'as is' with no warranty, express or implied, for the information provided within them. Please see the full copyright and disclaimer notice.

Related topics

We also maintain separate web pages on these topics:
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Marketing in a downturn
If the country you are based in is going through a downturn, ICAEW has a range of resources to help you successfully market your business in difficult economic times.
Can't find what you're looking for?

The ICAEW Library can give you the right information from trustworthy, professional sources that aren't freely available online. Contact us for expert help with your enquiries and research.

Everything business

Find out about the key benefits available for members in business and the support from ICAEW. We are proud of our some 60,000 members working in and running business all over the world.
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Information

Some of the content on this web page was provided by the Chartered Accountants’ Trust for Education and Research, a registered charity, which owns the library and operates it for ICAEW.