Marketing in practice

Successful marketing is about much more than promotion and selling, and understanding how to use marketing ideas and techniques is one of the best ways to improve a business’s competitive advantage. This course introduces a range of marketing concepts and tools, which you’re invited to apply to your own business. It will be of interest to anyone needing to communicate with customers and understand their needs, including owners of small and medium-sized businesses, those working in professional practices, managers of business units dealing directly with external customers, and branch managers.

What you will study

This 30-hour online course is designed to meet the needs of those working in a variety of settings. It covers professional practices, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), not-for-profit organisations and other situations where your work requires an understanding of and/or a contribution to how your organisation can best market their services or products to customers. A number of basic ideas about marketing are introduced, starting from the premise that the key to success is building long-term relationships with customers. It asks participants to apply the ideas to examples and then to their own business.

During this course, you will work at your own pace through study material that examines understanding your customers, commissioning market research, segmentation, the marketing mix, quality and the wider environment. Throughout, a series of activities encourage you to reflect upon the ideas and assess your current practice by building up Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis and finally a marketing audit.

By the end of this course you will be able to:

• understand the benefits of loyal customers
• undertake informal market research
• commission formal market research in an informed way
• recognise the benefits of segmentation and targeting
• use the basic components of the marketing mix to meet your customers’ needs
• apply three customer-focused quality models to your own business
• analyse the external environment you operate in
• make use of a SWOT analysis to audit your current marketing activities and identify areas for improvement.

The strong link between course learning and your work practice creates relevant, enduring and transferable outcomes. It requires no more than 30 hours of your time in total, over whatever period suits you. But the learning is far richer than more expensive one- to three-day workshops. Register online today and start tomorrow – no need to wait!

The course features the distinctive strengths of The Open University from its years of expertise in work-based learning:

• The convenience of accessing its clearly presented and sequenced materials, activities and support whenever suits you and wherever you have access to the protected course website – if you prefer, you can print key materials to work on them offline.
• The support of an expert learning adviser who can clarify course materials, answer questions and help you to relate the course to your specific needs.
• A work-based activity helps you to connect the course to your individual and organisational context and needs. This is built up from short activities during the course, leading to a Personal Development Plan. At the end of the course you send this to the learning adviser, who provides personal feedback.
• Certification of completion from the OU for those who complete the course. You can use this to demonstrate your Continuing Professional Development (CPD) activity to your employer and/or professional body. (N.B. The course does not carry academic credit points.)

Entry

Although there are no formal academic requirements to study any of our CPD courses, you are expected to have some experience in the field and the course assumes a familiarity with the subject.

For each course you can register and begin at any time during the life of the course. You can study at your own pace and submit your work-based activity at any date before the final submission date for the course. Information about the final submission date is available when you register for the course.

If you have a disability

The course is delivered online and makes use of a variety of online resources. If you use specialist hardware or software to assist you in using a computer or the internet you are advised to talk to the Student Registration and Enquiry Service about support which can be given to meet your needs. If you are a new learner with the OU, make sure that you look at our website.

Study materials

What's included

All learning materials, exercises, study support and work-based activity are delivered entirely online.

Computing requirements

You will need a computer with internet access to study this course as it includes online activities, which you can access using a web browser.

• If you have purchased a new desktop or laptop computer since 2007 you should have no problems completing the online activities.
• If you’ve got a netbook, tablet or other mobile computing device check our Technical requirements section.
• If you use an Apple Mac you will need OS X 10.6 or later.

You can also visit the Technical requirements section for further computing information including the details of the support we provide.

Learner support

Expert, confidential learner support is available when you need it from a learning adviser, who will respond to you direct within 24 hours. Other support is available via the course forum, library, StudentHome website and computing helpdesk.

Work-based activity

The work-based activity for this course is a written report and has been designed as an integrated ongoing activity that you submit at the end of your study. It will allow you to reflect on your learning and how to use it in your professional work.

Professional recognition

Successful completion of the course enables us to recognise your achievement of the course learning by issuing an OU certificate. You can use the certificate to document your commitment to continuing professional development in your personal portfolio, or to provide evidence to employers or professional body.

Students also studied

Students who studied this course also studied at some time:

• Science project course: frontiers in chemistry (SXM390)

Your questions

Try our frequently asked questions.

Come and meet us at an event near you.

Or contact an adviser by Email or call +44(0) 845 300 60 90 +44(0) 845 366 60 35

Employers' questions

Contact Corporate Enquiries
Visit our website for employers or Email us