Marketing Masterclasses (Evening Delivery) – 6 Weeks

Who is the course for?

Blackburn College in conjunction with Eden Marketing are pleased to announce the release of our new suite of marketing courses, delivered by an industry specialist and aimed at any individual carrying out a marketing function within an organisation.

About the tutor:
Jean Atkinson is a Chartered Marketer and has spent over 17 year’s marketing in various industries on an international basis. She owns Eden Marketing, a training company in Blackburn providing business owners and marketing practitioners with the marketing knowledge and tools to carry out effective marketing within their own business. Her workshops are focused on developing marketing strategies to achieve results, yet are jargon free, bespoke and most of all fun.

She’s seen many successes with companies reducing marketing spend whilst still achieving growth and others generating large sales orders on the back of implementing their new-found marketing knowledge. Jean is actively involved in promoting good marketing practice to start-ups and SMEs.

Why should I attend?

• 6 x 3 hour sessions
• Morning or evening delivery available
• Pick and mix to suit to your requirements…..or attend every session
• Discount available if all 6 sessions are booked together
• Fast track to business growth
• No jargon…..let’s just get straight to the point!
• Hand-outs provided via PDF to support embedded learning
• 30 days free email support following the sessions
• 3 hours CPD per workshop (that’s 18 hours CPD if you book on all 6 sessions!)
• Certificate of Attendance for each workshop attended
• Morning delivery at our Business Suite and evening delivery on main campus
• Free parking

What will I study?

1. Marketing Planning and Strategy
There are obvious benefits to compiling a marketing plan, yet very few businesses write one. Regardless of whether you are a marketing professional or business owner, you will no doubt have limited resources and will want to channel these into achieving results. A marketing plan will ensure you are putting all of your resources into targeting the right people, with the right product/service, using the right marketing tools for the job. In the long-term, you will reap the benefits of all your hard work and be confident your marketing activity is making a positive impact on your companies’ bottom line.

• Create SMART marketing objectives
• Identify the business’s ideal customer through segmentation and targeting
• Evaluate competition & identify the organisation’s position within the market
• Identify the Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
• Develop a marketing strategy using the marketing mix and 7 Ps
• Working to a checklist, create a one page marketing plan

2. Measuring Marketing Activity
Marketing can be expensive if you use the wrong tools for the job and do not evaluate the success of all your hard work. There are various marketing metrics available to measure the impact of your online and offline marketing activity. These metrics include not only the financial measures, but the impact your activity has on employees, customers and productivity within your business. The sooner you can identify what works and what doesn’t, the sooner you can create an effective marketing strategy.

• Create SMART marketing objectives
• Identify measures for evaluating online and offline marketing activity
• Implement a ‘Balanced Scorecard’ approach
• Set and use customer service metrics
• Compile reports and indicators to communicate results

3. Customer and Employee Research
Internal and external research enables a business to make decisions based on good intelligence; minimising risk and paying dividends in the long-term. Satisfied, engaged employees will produce better customer service. Customer satisfaction and advocacy will increase based on customers’ interactions with employees. In short, market research helps you to communicate effectively, identify and understand opportunities, pinpoint obstacles or problems and benchmark and evaluate your success.

• Acknowledge the link between research and business growth
• Recognise the part employees play in supporting the brand
• Identify and apply the main research techniques
• Select the most suitable research approach to support objectives
• Develop a range of in-house research techniques
• Write a research brief and communicate this to an outside agency
• Identify the steps to creating a market research plan

4. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Acquiring new business is crucial for the sustainability of any business and SEM plays an important role in supporting this strategy online. Where you rank within the search engine listings can have a profound effect on the number and quality of visitors to your website. Applying a range of SEM tools and techniques can assist in driving the right kind of visitors to your website; increasing leads and ultimately conversion.

• Describe what SEM is and how it can support an organisations’ marketing activity
• Identify on-page techniques including copywriting, key phrases, meta-tags, blogs, videos and images (SEO)
• Identify off-page techniques including link building, directories, blogging, social media, YouTube (SEO)
• Assess when to use paid tools such as PPC, adverts and banners
• Recognise unethical techniques and ways in which a business can avoid being blacklisted
• Describe what affiliate marketing is and list the pros and cons
• Select appropriate tools to evaluate success, track leads and conversions

5. No-Cost Marketing
Effective marketing is not down to the size of your budget, its understanding what you want to achieve and selecting the right tools for the job. There is an abundance of free marketing tools available to businesses; both online and offline. Once you understand which tools are available and where they can be used to greatest effect, you can create an effective marketing strategy. However, just because they are free doesn’t mean you should use them all.

• List the pros and cons of using no-cost marketing tools
• Identify the main online no-cost marketing tools available including email, newsletters, blogging, directories, search engine marketing, Google Analytics, viral marketing, forums and social media
• Identify the main offline no-cost marketing tools including testimonials, creating case studies, writing scenarios, PR, word of mouth, direct mail, open days, seminars, talking, QR codes and networking
• Select the most effective marketing tools using a checklist
• Apply a range of measures to evaluate success

6. Social Media Strategy
The advent of social media has provided businesses with yet another set of marketing tools which can be used to build awareness and generate sales. In order to use social media effectively it is important to understand which social media tools will support your marketing objectives, how to use them, when to use them and most importantly how to evaluate the success of them.

• Integrate social media into the overall marketing activity
• Select the appropriate social media tools to support objectives
• Pro-actively and re-actively manage reputation
• Apply best practice techniques to engage the various audiences
• Introduce evaluation methods to measure effectiveness
• Utilise online tools to manage multiple social media accounts
• Identify potential legal and ethical issues
• Create a one-page social media strategy

How will the course be delivered?

Through classroom based activities alongside a tutor and other delegates at a similar level.

Course Entry Criteria

No specific entry criteria for this course.

The college operates a no refunds policy as detailed below. Cancellations and transfer requests are subject to the following conditions:

• More than 4 weeks notice – no charge
• 4 weeks notice – 30% of the cost
• 2-3 weeks notice – 50% of the cost
• 1-2 weeks notice – 75% of the cost
• Less than 1 weeks notice – 100% of the cost

All cancellations must be made in writing and are subject to a £10 administration charge. The full fee’s policy is available on request.

What will I get at the end of the course?

You will receive a Blackburn College Certificate of Attendance

What can I do next?

You may be interested in our sales courses:

Sales Training – Personal Selling
Sales Training – Sales Management
Sales Training – Sales Planning & Operations (EdExcel)

These courses can be viewed here

Alternatively you may wish to consider enrolling on our CIM Professional Certificate in Marketing

How much does it cost?

The course fee for each module is £75.00 including all tuition and a Blackburn College Certificate of Attendance. To book on a specific module only see here.

BOOK ALL 6 SESSIONS AND RECEIVE A DISCOUNT OF £25 PER SESSION -�
YOU’LL PAY ONLY £300.00 (THAT’S A £150 SAVING!!!)

(Prices are subject to change)