Marketing Strategy for Business Leaders

Description

High-achieving business leaders understand there is a complex relationship between marketing strategy and overall business strategy. It is therefore critical to consider marketing as a core input into larger business decisions and formulating or executing business plans. Effective business decisions rely on a clear and evolving understanding of your company, your customers, the competition and the many challenges that require you to be well versed in marketing strategy.

The material in this Ivy League graduate-level certificate program is based on MBA level content from the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University. The material will equip business leaders in all functional areas with the marketing concepts needed to make strong business decisions. You will learn to align marketing execution with business strategy. And in gaining a complete understanding of the role of marketing in organizational strategy, you will explore concepts such as the effect of a “marketing mentality and orientation” on larger business decisions; segmentation, targeting and positioning; the strategic nature of pricing, marketing research and analysis, and marketing math; and how to build and exploit brand equity. Then you will apply these high-level skills to marketing current and new products and services. As a business leader, you will also discover the advantages of implementing a cross-functional understanding of marketing in leading a successful business team, unit or company.

Who Should Enroll in This Certificate?

• Make decisions about products, pricing, promotion and placement.
• Must interact with the marketing function and its managers (including sales leaders, IT and product development professionals).
• Are experienced professionals with new or expanded marketing-related responsibilities.
• Operate in a brand-driven environment.
• Work in small organizations or business units without a formal marketing team.
• Are entrepreneurs or executives and need strategic marketing knowledge to inform product planning/positioning.
• Are professionals in any business who require a top-level understanding of marketing to make strategic business decisions for their companies.

Enrollment

Courses in this Certificate

• Essentials of Marketing Strategy
  • In this first online course of eCornell’s Marketing Strategy for Business Leaders certificate program, you will learn about the role marketing plays within an organization, some ethical questions that surround marketing practices, the impact that a strategic approach can have on marketing within your organization, and the components of a well-defined marketing strategy and overall business strategy. In defining how the organization will successfully engage customers, prospects and competitors in the market arena, you will discover how to think strategically about the market you’re in, why you’re in that market, and what you’re trying to accomplish in that market. You’ll also gain a strategic view of your organization’s “brand.”
    Benefits to the Learner
    After completing this course participants will understand:

    • The role marketing strategy plays in overall business strategy.
    • The ethical questions surrounding marketing practices.
    • The components of a well-defined marketing strategy.
    • The importance of branding.
    
    
• Applied Marketing Strategy and Decision-Making Tools
  • Strategic marketing decisions are informed by data, and that data is best reviewed through a framework. But because different frameworks provide value to the marketing decision maker, you will review and learn how to use best practices for varying data sets. Through these strategic tools, you will apply the core marketing concepts of segmentation, targeting and positioning to a product or service. You will then explore the strategic role of pricing and methods for influencing buying decisions. You will also address common pricing errors and identify instances of pricing mistakes in the market.
    Benefits to the Learner
    After completing this course participants will understand:

    • The important role of data and five frameworks for using it to make decisions.
    • The core marketing concepts of segmentation, targeting and positioning.
    • The role of pricing as a strategic marketing tool.
    • Common pricing mistakes and how to avoid them.
    
    
• Marketing Research and Analysis
  • Marketing professionals rely on clearly defined goals to determine the course of action when placing a product in the market. Leveraging research to learn more about your target audience is the main subject of this third online course in the Marketing Strategy for Business Leaders certificate program. In this course you will learn how to be an intelligent consumer of information when it comes to marketing research and analysis, so you can become a more effective decision maker. You will first look at marketing research, including the purpose and goals of research, how to balance the ideal with reality in doing research, and how to apply the six stages of research to a marketing situation.

    Next you will examine different ways to analyze the data acquired through marketing research. Using formulas to determine how cannibalization affects the profitability of new products and the value of a long-term customer, you will perform a basic sensitivity analysis to assess the robustness of your results.

    Benefits to the Learner
    After completing this course participants will learn how to:

    • Define goals for marketing research and apply various research methods.
    • Analyze marketing research to learn more about their customers and products/services.
    • Test results and determine how to apply them to real-life scenarios.
    
    
• Creating and Communicating the Value of Your Brand

  • Exploring the reasons why brands are so valuable and the factors that contribute to that value is a key part of developing a comprehensive marketing strategy.

    This course is the fourth online course in eCornell’s Marketing Strategy for Business Leaders certificate program, and is based on the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University MBA marketing content.

    Participants will examine the concept of branding through a strategic lens to understand why brands are so valuable, and explore the many factors that contribute to that value. You’ll learn that creating a memorable brand takes much more than just developing a strong image. Through the concept of brand equity, you will explore the various aspects of a brand’s success that are created internally, and influenced externally by consumers.

    You will evaluate the value brands provide to both the firm and the consumer, and identify the qualities that create an effective brand image. Real-world examples will illustrate how marketing communication tools and techniques that can be used to build brand equity.

    Benefits to the Learner
    After completing this course participants will:

    • Understand the concept of branding through a strategic lens.
    • Learn the factors that contribute to a brand’s value.
    • Gain insight into the marketing communication tools and techniques that can be used to build brand equity.
    
    
• Introducing New Products: Successes and Failures

  • Adding new products to a company’s portfolio keeps revenues up and promotes innovation in the market. And offering products that follow a logical cycle matched to consumers’ needs will help promote “lifetime customers,” a concept closely tied to “lifetime value.” However, innovation alone will not determine the success or failure of a product.

    This fifth online course in eCornell’s Marketing Strategy for Business Leaders certificate program examines the psychological and sociological systems in which customers choose whether to adopt new products and services, and how the product lifecycle is connected to new-product diffusion. You will apply the concept of a marketing continuum to develop an effective marketing program, leverage an understanding of social systems to improve new product diffusion, and develop strategies to increase product adoption and sales.

    Benefits to the Learner
    After completing this course participants will understand:

    • The importance of new products and services to an organization.
    • The various reasons so many new products fail…and how to avoid them.
    • How to apply the concept of a marketing continuum to develop an effective marketing program.
    • How to develop strategies to increase product adoption and sales.
    
    
• Distribution Strategy and International Marketing

  • In the first course (LSM521) you reviewed “The Four P’s of Marketing.” In this sixth and final course in eCornell’s Marketing Strategy for Business Leaders certificate program, you dive deeper into the “Forgotten P”—Place.

    In marketing, this “place” is the marketing channel. Channel function, design and strategy will all be explored and applied to real-life cases. You will define marketing channels and learn how to leverage them to deliver messaging to potential consumers.

    Finally, you will dive into the world of international marketing and distribution through the use of channel expansion strategies. Discover the nuances of global markets, recognizing and identifying the types of global organizations and exploring the pros and cons of globalization.

    Benefits to the Learner
    After completing this course participants will understand:

    • Marketing channel function, design and strategy.
    • How to leverage marketing channels to deliver messaging to potential consumers.
    • The pros and cons of globalization.