CIM Diploma in Marketing

The Professional Diploma in Marketing is for marketers with operational responsibility and an eye on management. You'll learn how to plan, implement and measure marketing activities at the operational level, and understand the impact of marketing decisions on other functions within the business.

This marketing diploma qualification really helps with the 'how to' aspects of marketing planning, enabling you to develop as the 'marketing professional'. The focus moves from the theoretical aspects of marketing towards the many skills needed to manage the function itself - including elements ranging from channel management to communications, along with specialist areas like new product development.

This CIM marketing diploma qualification is delivered through distance/e-Learning over 12 months, assessed by 3 written assignments and 1 case study based examination. The e-learning units comprise of high quality learning tutorials and videos from world leading marketing experts. You can study anywhere and at your own pace.

Unit 1: The Marketing Planning Process

By the end of this unit you should be able to:

• Evaluate the role of the marketing planning process and the marketing plan implementation in a range of marketing contexts including that of the organisation's strategy, culture and broader marketing environment
• Evaluate the interconnectivity between corporate, business and marketing objectives and consider the impact of the external marketing environment and the organisation's resources on their development and achievement
• Conduct a marketing audit including a detailed analysis of the internal and external marketing environments
• Assess the findings of the audit and develop a marketing plan that is responsive to market and organisational changes and underpins the organisation's marketing strategy, Determine the importance of segmentation, targeting and positioning and their relative interdependencies and develop effective segmentation, targeting and positioning strategies which are innovative, cost effective, valuable and maximise the potential marketing opportunities successfully
• Utilise a range of positioning platforms including price, quality, service and brand perception, to establish an organisation's marketing positioning strategy
• Recognise the significance of retaining existing customers through relationship marketing when developing strategies to achieve marketing objectives

Unit 2: Delivering Customer Value Through Marketing

By the end of this unit you should be able to:

• Develop and manage a brand and product portfolio in the context of the organisation's marketing strategies and objectives
• Develop and implement an effective and efficient channel management strategy which reflects the needs of stakeholders and considers the impact of the external environment
• Develop an effective and innovative communications strategy and plan which clearly delivers the organisation's proposition to the market, through effective segmentation and targeting of internal and external markets
• Utilise an innovative and effective integrated marketing mix to reinforce the organisation's brand values and overall marketing proposition and competitive advantage
• Determine customer requirements for product and service delivery to ensure the marketing proposition is customer-focused , efficient and effective

Unit 3: Managing Marketing

By the end of this unit you should be able to:

• Recommend how a marketing function should be structured to deliver competitive advantage, marketing and organisational success
• Assess a range of approaches that can be used to manage the marketing function on a day-to-day basis
• Prepare plans for showing how a team should be structured, selected, formed, managed and developed to demonstrate effective performance against objectives
• Critically assess the organisation's resource needs and capabilities for the marketing team and manage its marketing activities effectively and efficiently
• Prepare appropriate budgets and accounting documentation to support the financial management of the marketing function and associated marketing activities
• Critically assess the ongoing financial situation including manageability of the budget, financial stability and success of the marketing function.

Unit 4: Project Management in Marketing

By the end of this unit you should be able to:

• Identify the organisation's information needs, scope of research projects and resource capability to underpin the development of a business case to support marketing projects
• Develop an effective business case, complete with justifications, financial assessments and consideration of the organisation's resource capacity and capability to deliver
• Undertake a risk assessment programme with suggestions on how to mitigate for risks facing the organisation and the achievement of its business and marketing objectives
• Design, develop and plan significant marketing programmes, using project management tools and techniques, designed to deliver marketing projects effectively, in terms of quality, resource and delivery
• Integrate a range of marketing tools and techniques to support the development and implementation of a range of marketing projects
• Monitor and measure the effectiveness and outcomes of marketing projects through the end-to-end project process.