CIM Professional Certificate in Marketing

The Professional Certificate in Marketing has four modules;

Marketing Essentials, Marketing Information and Reserch, Assessing the Marketing Enironment and Stakeholder Marketing.

In Marketing Essentials, the students should be able to explain how marketing has evolved and the importance of market orientation in creating customer value. In addition, access the importance of marketing, its cross-functional role and the contribution it makes to the organisation and society and 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 its activities and identify and describe the characteristics and applications of each element of the marketing mix (the 7Ps)

In Stakeholder Marketing, the students should be able to assess the relative importance of organisational stakeholders on the marketing function, and the impact they have on the organisation's marketing activities and explain the importance of relationship marketing in the context of the organisation's stakeholders in achieving stakeholder interest, involvement, commitment and loyalty. In addition the student will become faimiliar with explaining how the marketing mix can be effectively co-ordinated to support internal and external stakeholder relationship and explain how to co-ordinate the communications mix to communicate effectively with the organisation's stakeholders in line with budget and time requirements. Evaluate key methods for measuring the success of marketing mix and communications activities.

In Market Information & Research the student will be able to identify appropriate information and marketing research requirements for marketing decision making and evaluate the importance of customer databases and their contribution to providing detailed market information to support marketing decisions. In addition, he or she will be able to review the processes involved in established an effective database and explain the nature and scope of the research industry and discuss the importance of working in line with the industry's code of conduct. Explain the processes for selecting a marketing research supplier, in domestic and international markets, developing the criteria to support that selection and explain the process for collecting marketing and customer information, utilising appropriate primary and secondary sources. Appraise the appropriateness of different qualitative and quantitative research methodologies to meet different research situations.

In the final module, Assessing the Marketing Envrionment, the student will be able to explain the nature and scope of the internal marketing environment, including the resource perspective. Also, 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 it together with its drivers and challenges and assess the importance of and potential impact on a market oriented organisation of key trends in political, economic, social, technological and legal/ethical/regulatory environments. Finally the student will consider the implications for organisations pursuing both economic and environmental sustainability as part of its agenda for CSR.