Professional Certificate in Marketing

What is it?
The Professional Certificate in Marketing gives you the practical skills and knowledge to devise and execute tactical marketing activities and gain marketing credibility.

Who is it for?
This qualification is ideal for junior marketers, those working in marketing support roles (like personal assistants); or if marketing plays some part in your current job description.

Benefits to You
By the end of this qualification, you should be able to:

• Understand the function and fundamentals of marketing in some depth - including how to write and execute a marketing plan
• Know the many different ways of understanding and communicating with customers, and the function these methods serve
• Understand your organisation's marketing environment, its many constituent parts, and how they work in unison
• Apply practical knowledge - including the collecting and analysing of data, and the establishment of marketing budgets

Course Content
This qualification contains four modules and to complete each one, you'll need to cover all the following tasks successfully:

1. Marketing Essentials

• Explain how marketing has evolved and the importance of market orientation in creating customer value
• Assess the importance of marketing, its cross-functional role and the contribution it makes to the organisation and society
• Identify and explain the stages in the marketing planning process
• Assess the key elements of the internal and external marketing environment that impact upon the organisation, its objectives and activities
• Identify and describe the characteristics and applications of each element of the marketing mix (7Ps)

2. Assessing the Marketing Environment

• Explain the nature and scope of the internal marketing environment, including the resource perspective
• Distinguish between the types of organisation within the public, private and voluntary sectors and understand the different influences and challenges they face and how their objectives differ as a result
• Identify and explain the different characteristics of the micro environment and recognise the sources of information required to gain a good understanding of the micro environment, its drivers and challenges - and distinguish from the natural environment
• Assess the importance and potential impact on a market-oriented organisation of key trends in political, economic, social, technological and legal/ethical/regulatory environment
• Consider the implications for organisations pursuing both economic and environmental sustainability as a part of an agenda for corporate social responsibility

3. Marketing Information and Research

• Identify appropriate information and marketing research requirements for marketing decision-making
• Evaluate the importance of customer databases and their contribution to providing detailed marketing information to support marketing decisions
• Review the processes involved in establishing an effective database
• Explain the nature and scope of the research industry and discuss the importnace of working in line with the industry's code of conduct
• Explain the process for selecting a marketing research supplier in domestic and international markets, developing the criteria to support that selection
• Explain the process for collecting marketing and customer information, utilising appropriate primary and secondary sources
• Appraise the suitability of different qualitative and quantitative research methodologies to serve different research situations

4. Marketing for Stakeholders

• Assess the relative importance of organisational stakeholdes to the marketing function, and the impact they have on the organisation's marketing activities
• Explain the importance of relationship marketing in the context of the organisation's stakeholders in achieving their interest, involvement, commitment and loyalty
• Learn how the marketing mix can be effectively co-ordinated to support internal and external stakeholder relationships
• Explain how to co-ordinate the communcations mix to communicate effectively with the organisation's stakeholders in line with budget and time requirements
• Evaluate key methods for measuring the success of the marketing mix and communications activities