Marketing & Sales City & Guilds Limited Occupational Qualification Revision
Complete topic breakdowns, revision notes, exam practice questions, and adaptive quizzes for the City & Guilds Limited Occupational Qualification Marketing & Sales specification.
Specification Topics
- Buyer behaviour in sales situations
- Competitor analysis in the sales environment
- Analyse and report data
- Understanding sales targets
- Marketing on mobile devices
- Online display advertising
- Meeting customers’ after sales needs
- Understanding sales techniques and processes
- Principles of Keywords and Optimisation
- Understanding the relationship between sales and marketing
- Monitoring sales deliveries
- Principles of marketing and evaluation
- Understanding the sales environment
- Obtaining and Analysing Competitor Information
- Obtaining and analysing sales-related information
- Principles of marketing stakeholder relationships
- Participate in meetings
- Principles of Social Media Advertising and Promotion
- Principles of Social Media within a Business
- Preparing and delivering a sales demonstration
- Produce copy for digital media communication
- Project management
- Processing sales orders
- Search engine marketing
- Selling at exhibitions
- Communicate information and knowledge
- Customer service in sales
- Brand development
- Spreadsheet Software
- Selling by telephone - inbound
- Selling by telephone - outbound
- Understanding legal, regulatory and ethical requirements in sales or marketing
- Understanding the business environment
- Selling face to face
- Using Collaborative Technologies
- Supporting customers in obtaining finance for purchases
- Time planning in sales
- Video Software
- Website Software
- Communicate information and knowledge
- Principles of online selling
- Content Management System Website Creation
- Principles of personal responsibilities and working in a business environment
- Content marketing
- Communicating using digital marketing/sales channels
- Principles of presentations and demonstrations in sales
- Complying with legal, regulatory and ethical requirements in a sales or marketing role
- Delivering e-commerce solutions
- Deliver reliable customer service
- Principles of selling at trade fairs and exhibitions
- Develop own professionalism
- Digital marketing metrics and analytics
- Understanding business awareness in sales
- Generating and qualifying sales leads
- E-mail marketing
- Understanding customers’ creditworthiness for sales purposes
- Inputting and accessing sales or marketing data in information systems
- Manage personal development
- Imaging Software
Top Exam Tips
- During observations, pause to articulate your thought process: explain which stage you believe the buyer is in and why you are responding as you are.
- In written assignments, always relate theoretical models to concrete examples from your own sales practice.
- Prepare for professional discussions by reviewing key models and reflecting on how you have adapted your approach in different scenarios.
- When answering written questions, always link competitor analysis findings to practical sales actions (e.g., 'This indicates we should adjust our pricing'), rather than just describing the data.
- In assignments, explicitly reference the analytical tools and methods you used (e.g., 'Using a SWOT analysis I identified a competitor weakness we can exploit') to demonstrate applied understanding.
- Ensure you mention both quantitative data (e.g., prices, market share) and qualitative data (e.g., customer reviews, brand reputation) in your evidence to show comprehensive analysis.
- Always align your data analysis explicitly with the marketing objectives stated in the scenario—demonstrate how each metric relates to ROI or customer acquisition.
- Structure your report with a clear logical flow: executive summary, methodology, findings, and recommendations; use headings to guide the assessor.
- Ensure you label all charts and tables correctly, including units, data sources, and timeframes; this shows attention to detail and professionalism.
- When evaluating data, comment on the reliability of sources (e.g., sample size, data collection method) and any limitations of your analysis.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Confusing the stages of the decision-making process, leading to premature closing attempts.
- Using the same sales script regardless of buyer signals, ignoring differences in individual decision-making styles.
- Neglecting post-purchase stages in the sales cycle, missing opportunities for repeat business and referrals.
- Confusing competitor analysis with general market research, failing to focus specifically on identifying and evaluating rival businesses' sales activities and strategies.
- Ignoring the importance of secure, compliant data storage under GDPR when handling competitor intelligence, leading to potential legal breaches.
- Assuming all competitor information is freely available and neglecting ethical collection methods, such as transparency in mystery shopping or respecting intellectual property.
- Confusing correlation with causation when interpreting data (e.g., assuming a spike in website visits was caused by a social media post without checking other factors).
- Overlooking data cleansing steps, leading to skewed results such as duplicated entries or incorrect time periods.
Key Terminology & Definitions
- Buyer decision-making stages
- Psychological influences on purchasing
- Adaptive selling techniques
- Sales cycle alignment
- Customer needs analysis
- Understand the use of sales-related information, Understand the collection and storage requirements of sales-related information, Understand the use of tools and methods for analysing quantitative and qualitative sales-related information, Understand how the results of competitor analysis are used
- Understand how to organise and evaluate data that has been researched, Understand how to report data that has been researched, Be able to analyse and evaluate data, Be able to report data
- Understand how sales targets are calculated, Understand the use of sales targets, Understand how to collect sales-related data, Understand how to evaluate sales performance
- Know the unique aspects of mobile marketing, Understand mobile marketing communications, Understand the use of location aware apps for business
- Understand requirements for online display advertising, Understand technology used in online display marketing, Be able to create an online advertising campaign
- Be able to investigate customer after sales needs, Be able to handle customers’ after sales needs, Be able to review the after sales process
- Understand the sales cycle, Understand the buyer decision-making process, Understand how to generate and qualify sales leads, Understand how to sell by inbound telephone call, Understand how to sell by outbound telephone call, Understand the principles of selling face to face, Understand how to close a sale, Understand how to process sales orders
- Understand Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Be able to plan implementation of SEO techniques, Understand Social Media Optimisation (SMO), Understand how to plan implementation of a website optimised for mobile devices
- Understand the impact of different organisational structures on sales and marketing functions, Understand the interface between sales and marketing functions, Understand the impact of sales and marketing on product development processes
- Order tracking and progress monitoring