Marketing Fundamentals

Many proven marketing processes, like lead generation, branding, PR, and product innovation, are increasingly hard to achieve with any degree of predictability - both in terms of measurable results as well as costs.

The Marketing Fundamentals Unit develops a basic knowledge and understanding of marketing, marketing process and the marketing mix. It aims to provide participants with a framework on which to build marketing knowledge and skills through the units of this level, through units at later levels and in the workplace. Students will not be expected to have any prior knowledge or experience in a marketing role.

The reason for this is that some of the context in which we market products and services has gone through a fundamental transformation, enabled by a participatory technology infrastructure. But unlike what some marketing pundits are claiming - not all the marketing fundamentals have changed. In fact there may be more fundamentals that remained the same than those that changed.

In recent years, the technical, engineering, and industrial communities have migrated to the Internet to search for components and services, and to locate manufacturers, distributors, and service companies. New and innovative online marketing tactics help companies build their brand and generate leads online. Some of the leads are “hot” and ready to buy, while others are long term and need nurturing. To turn these leads into customers, marketing and sales teams must have dedicated and collaborative lead management practices.

• Explain the development of marketing and the ways it can benefit business and organizations
• Identify the main steps in, and barriers to, achieving a marketing orientation within the organization
• explain the context of, and process for, marketing planning and budgeting including related models
• Explain the concept of segmentation and the different bases for effective market segmentation
• Identify and describe the individual elements and tools of the marketing mix
• Identify the basic differences in application of the marketing mix involved in marketing products and services