AN international marketing organisation has switched its headquarters from Bedfordshire to York - and is preparing to employ up to 20 people in the city by next June.

The 1,000-member Marketing Guild, a network of largely UK company directors and principals in every sector of trade and industry who have personal responsibility for marketing services or products, today announced its move into plush new offices at Westminster Place in York Business Park.

The path into the city was smoothed by the York Inward Investment Board with whom Guild chairman Brendan Austin closely liaised. He was impressed York's skilled workforce as well as the advanced "broadband" telephony infrastructure with which BT has favoured the city.

Subscribers to the 15-year-old Marketing Guild, mostly small and medium-sized enterprises, pay an annual fee of £396 for a total sales and marketing support service.

This includes generating sales leads, a personally-manned telephone help-line, access to a computerised database of more than 30,000 strategies, tactics, templates and solutions to marketing issues.

Membership also ensures notification of conferences and training events run nationwide, receipt of up to three newsletters per month and a copy critique service.

Glasgow-born Mr Austin said: "It's like having a virtual top-flight sales and marketing director at your disposal. We wanted to expand our leads generation service for which there is a huge demand. It meant giving ourselves a better infrastructure.

"And apart from employing people to our helpline, telemarketing service, research and direct marketing facilities, we plan to announce next month a partnership with a prestigious accountancy membership organisation."

For the moment, five people man the new office - Mr Austin's son, Jamie, is heading up the tele-sales unit, Sarah Valentine is in charge of administration, Rebecca Marshall will concentrate on customer care and Colin Davies is finance director.

"But we intend to get our numbers up to 20 by the middle of next year, recruiting from York and North Yorkshire," said Mr Austin. "We have already established links with the University of York to bring our organisation to the attention of graduates.

"We chose York largely for its ease of communications, readily-available quality workforce - we need our staff to be of graduate calibre and we chose Westminster Place specifically for its customised 'fit-out' comfort and the advanced telephony infrastructure."

Graeme Rudd, client services executive of the York Inward Investment Board welcomed the Marketing Guild to York's growing professional services community and said: "The Guild's decision to locate here reinforces our opinion that the local pool of skills and expertise is able to equip any enterprise to thrive locally, nationally and internationally."