Successful Marketing

Course overview

Marketing's no mystery and a lot of nonsense has been talked about it by people who think they know all about it.

If, on the other hand, you want to build yourself a solid foundation of knowledge, principles and technique, Falconbury's six-week course is deal for you.

You'll learn all about the basic principles of marketing from experts with over 25 years' experience of consulting and successful marketing in practice. This will enable you to put the building blocks in place one by one: understanding customers' needs and differentiating between markets, supply and demand, different pricing techniques and routes to market.

And once you've got that in place, marketing planning and budgeting will all make much more sense. You'll be ready and fit to make a real input.

How does this distance learning programme work and what do you get?

• Ten modules, each requiring between 3 to 4 hours study to be completed as you choose
• The course and its modules start at any time to suit you
• Modules may be downloaded to study on your PC or to print hard copies. (You may also opt to receive them printed-and-bound from us.)
• Each module has self-assessment progress questions and model answers
• The course has an optional on-line multiple choice assessment at the end, with a certificate of completion being awarded

Who should enrol

• Marketing assistants
• Executives in other areas who want to understand the essentials
• PA's to the marketing director
• Aspiring marketeers everywhere

This distance learning course will:

• Detail the fundamentals of marketing, including strategic focus, product life cycle, the law of supply and demand and understanding customers needs
• Explain how to create, budget, action, and control and measure an effective marketing plan
• Provide all you need to know to plan and executive a direct mail promotion from building your lists to choosing your mailing house
• Boost your copyrighting and sales letters with some great tips and techniques from the experts

Course modules

MODULE 1: THE CORE MARKETING CONCEPTS AND RULES

Effectiveness is more important than efficiency

• Creating a strategic focus
• Introduction to the product life cycle
• Strategic focus and the product life cycle
• The effectiveness/efficiency grid

The law of supply and demand

• The basic link in the chain
• The core principles of supply and demand
• The marketing concept introduced

How marketing works

• Grouping your customers
• Understanding your customer's needs
• The competitive differential advantage
• How to develop competitive advantage

MODULE 2: SEGMENTATION, PRODUCT POSITIONING AND PRICING

Segmentation and positioning strategy

• The role of segmentation
• Positioning strategies
• Segmentation strategy approaches

The product

• What 'products' are
• The total product concept

Marketing pricing

• Internal accounting based pricing
• The product life cycle and price
• 'Value based' pricing
• Useful marketing pricing strategies

MODULE 3: THE ROUTE TO MARKET – DISTRIBUTION, MARKETING PROMOTION AND COMMUNICATION

The route to market

• The environmental and structural dimensions
• Functions of the 'route to market'
• The use of intermediaries: advantages and disadvantages
• Managing the distribution channel
• Power in the chain – its nature, how it is gained and how and when it is exercised

Marketing promotion and communications

• Understanding marketing communications
• Public relations and editorial publicity (PR & EP)
• The role of advertising and promotion
• The campaign design process
• The campaign – the target group, mode and class, media choices, message and creative strategy
• Creative execution and testing

MODULE 4: THE MARKETING PLAN

The Marketing plan

• The plan as a working document
• The plan's main headings
• The marketing audit
• The marketing programme
• The control mechanisms
• Building the budget

The marketing audit

• The shock of change – PEST analysis
• Technological innovation
• The structure of society – demographics and the changing attitudes of society
• The format for recording the macro analysis
• Identifying the competition
• Analysing the sales and marketing competency

Marketing assets and liabilities

• Customer, distribution and internal based

MODULE 5: MARKET AND MARKETING RESEARCH

• The difference between market research and marketing research
• Secondary data via desk research
• Primary information via field research
• Qualitative and quantitative research
• Market and customer information systems
• The MIS/CIS tools
• Market/ing research (critical issues)
• The research budget, brief and proposal

MODULE 6: WHAT IS CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT?

Customer relationship marketing demystified

• The four steps to relationship management
• The business case

Why do customers defect?

• Complacency, not competition kills customers
• The service economy

Customer focused selling and marketing skills

• The three principles of customer focused selling
• The customers buying steps
• Customer focused prospecting

The objection handling process

• Exploring needs
• Understanding the buying criteria and the customers buying process

The ten keys of outstanding customer service

MODULE 7: OUT OF THE BOX MARKETING

Joint venture marketing

• Joint ventures and strategic alliances in marketing
• What can they offer us and what can we offer them

Winning with e-commerce

• How to get visitors to stay and return again
• How your web site should function for the customer

Choosing appropriate advertising media

• How to research your media
• What are your selection criteria
• The advantages and disadvantages of different types of media
• How to evaluate each

Direct mail promotions

• Planning a direct mail campaign
• Building up your mailing list
• Creating and assessing your mailing materials
• How to evaluate the success of the campaign

Choosing and using a mailing house

• How to create a mailing house brief
• Selecting a mailing house
• Mailing house services

Writing winning sales letters

• The different types of sales letters
• Contents and presentation

Using point of sale materials

• Why provide PoS materials?
• Developing PoS material

MODULE 8: GURU'S ON MARKETING

Peter Drucker

• Where does Peter Drucker come in?
• The customer as decision-maker

Theodore Levitt

• Marketing myopia
• Production life cycle
• Differentiation
• The globalisation of markets

Michael Porter

• Porter's five forces and marketing
• Porter's value chain and marketing
• Porter's generic strategies
• Differentiation and segmentation

Phillip Kotler

• Kotler on marketing management
• Analysing the market environment
• Developing, testing and launching new products and services
• Kotler's perspective on strategic marketing

Tom Peters

• Close to the customer
• Service and quality obsession
• Nichemanship
• Listening to the customers
• Peters' on marketing and marketing issues