Course Name: Core Foundations of Successful Marketing (PMKT101)

In this course you’ll learn the basics of undertaking marketing in today’s environment.

What will I learn?

Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Define marketing and outline its components
• Explain key marketing concepts and terminology
• Examine the role that marketing plays in society and in different types of organisation
• Analyse the “4Ps” of marketing, i.e. product, price, place and promotion
• Describe the stages of the product life-cycle
• Outline the controllable and uncontrollable factors that can influence marketing strategy
• Identify an appropriate marketing mix for a particular product or service
• Define aspects of a segmentation, targeting and positioning strategy
• Apply principles of market segmentation to segment a broad market into distinct customer segments
• Identify needs, behaviours and characteristics of different target markets
• Explain why products are positioned differently
• Develop core components of a marketing strategy and plan for a particular product or service

What’s involved?

This micro-course is offered online for independent study or you can join an international community of learners in gaining a better understanding of successful marketing. There are four learning pathways, each containing numerous resources and activities.

The learning pathways are:

• Orientation learning pathway (optional if you have already completed another OERu micro-course)
• Marketing products and services
• Optimizing the marketing mix (the 4Ps)
• Segmenting markets and target audiences

What prerequisites should I have, if any?

Anyone is free to participate in this course. An internet connection and basic web browsing skills are recommended with the ability to create a blog and microblog account (instructions and self-study tutorials provided.) You are requested to keep a personal learning journal as reflection has been shown to increase learning markedly.

You will need to be proficient in English language (reading, writing and listening) to participate successfully in this course.

This is one of three micro-courses which together make up the Principles of Marketing course. Each micro-course can be studied independently, but we recommend study in the following order because the later micro-courses draw to some extent on knowledge, skills and resources developed in the earlier ones:

All the micro-courses can be accessed and consulted freely online.

What assessment options do I have?

There are various options for assessment and certification of participation. Please refer to the Assesssment Overview for full information.