NEW PROFESSIONAL (6-WEEK) EVENING COURSE

Commences Thursday 8th October 2009
(6.15pm to 9.30pm for 6 Thursdays)

This course is designed to enable you to develop, communicate and implement ideas and concepts through strategic planning, managing the marketing process & marketing planning. This programme will introduce marketing analysis; research and targeting markets and marketing planning.

Course Aims and Objectives

This modular course is designed to provide senior supervisors, managers and advanced level business students with post-graduate/post experience level management qualification for career development purposes. It is also suitable for holders of degrees in non-business and management disciplines who require a high level management qualification.

Course Structure

Marketing commences in 8th October 2009 and runs over 6 week period. These modular courses are delivered 1 evening per week on Thursday evenings from 6.30-9.30p.m.

MARKETING

The Marketing Concept:

Evolution of Marketing, Business Orientations, Societal Issues & Emergent Philosophies, Customer & Competitor Orientation, Efficiency & Effectiveness, Limitations of the Marketing Concept.

Marketing Process Overview:

Marketing audit, integrated marketing, environmental analysis, SWOT Analysis, marketing objectives, constraints, options, marketing planning.

Costs and Benefits:

Benefits of building customer satisfaction, service and customer care, relationship marketing, customer retention, customer profitability, total quality marketing.

Segmentation, Targeting & Positioning

Macro-environment:

Environment scanning, political, legal, economic, socio-cultural, ecological & technological factors.

Micro-environment:

Stakeholders (Organisation's Own Employees, suppliers, customers, intermediaries, owner's financiers, local residents, pressure groups & competitors) direct & indirect competitors, porter's competitive forces.

Buyer Behaviour:

Dimensions of buyer behaviour, environmental influences, personal variables - demographic, sociological, psychological-motivation, perception & learning, social factors, psychological stimuli, attitudes, other lifestyle & life cycle variables, consumer & organisational buying.

Segmentation:

Process of market selection, macro & micro segmentation, bases for segmenting markets: Geographical, demographic, psychographic & behavioural, multivariable segmentation & typologies, benefits of segmentation, evaluation of segments & targeting strategies, positioning, segmenting industrial markets, size, value, standard, industrial classification

Marketing Mix:

Products:

Products & brands, features, advantages & benefits, the total product concept, product mix, product life-cycle & its effect on other elements of the marketing mix, product strategy, new product development, adoption process.

Place:

Customer convenience & availability, definition of channels, types & functions of intermediaries, channel selection, integration & distribution systems, franchising, physical distribution management and logistics, ethical issues.

Price:

Perceived value, pricing context & process, pricing strategies, demand elasticity, competition, costs, psychological, discriminatory, ethical issues.

Promotion:

Awareness & Image, effective communication, integrated communication process, promotional mix elements, plush & pull strategies, advertising above & below the line, packaging, public relations & sponsorship, sales promotion, direct marketing & personal selling, branding, on-line marketing.

Different Marketing Segments & Contexts

Consumer Markets:

Fast-moving consumer goods, consumer durables, co-ordinated marketing mix to achieve objectives.

Organisational Markets:

Differences from consumer markets, adding value through service, industrial, non-profit making, government, re-seller.

Services:

Nature and characteristics of service products - intangibility, ownership, inseparability, perishability, variability, heterogeneity - the 7Ps, strategies, service quality, elements of physical product marketing, tangible & intangible benefits.

International Markets:

Globalisation, standardisation versus adaptation, the EU, benefits and risks, market attractiveness, international marketing mix strategies.

Core Text: Marketing: HND Mandatory Unit 1. BPP Professional Education ISBN 0-7517-1243-4.

Alternative Texts and Further Reading: Fundamentals of Marketing - W G Leader & N Kyritsis (Stanley Thorne), Marketing Principles and Practice - D Adcock (Pearson Publishing), Principles of Marketing - Kotler (Prentice Hall).