Strategic Marketing MSc

Cranfield University

A crucial competence for marketers is marketing strategy: in simple terms, analysing how the target market divides into segments, which of these segments are key targets for the firm, what the firm’s value proposition to each segment is, and what financial results can be expected over a planning period of typically 3 years. This module teaches Cranfield’s world-leading step-by-step process for developing such a marketing strategy and documenting it in a marketing plan.

The module enables you to define or refine a marketing strategy aligned with the organisation's purpose, mission, and vision. The strategic marketing plan underpins all aspects of marketing and is concerned about the organisation's impact on stakeholders. For example, the firm’s brand or brands need to be aligned with the value proposition while also delivering on the brand promise. To help you integrate learning across these different marketing disciplines, this module is assessed through an integrated assignment alongside the Consumer Behaviour module.

Customer analysis and insight have become very important domains in the marketing domain. Understanding these areas allows senior managers to develop an innovative marketing strategy based on real customer insights that emerge through strong analysis.

This module recognises that professional effectiveness is not limited to individual performance. Working with others - leading teams, influencing stakeholders, navigating conflict and building collaborative relationships across diverse cultural and organisational contexts - is at the heart of what employers expect of managers, analysts, finance professionals, supply chain leaders, procurement specialists and marketers. The module accordingly gives substantial attention to leadership development, emotional intelligence, negotiation and the interpersonal dynamics of professional life. Storytelling - the ability to structure and deliver a compelling professional narrative - is treated as a distinct and teachable skill that connects self-awareness to effective communication in interviews, pitches and stakeholder interactions alike.

This module aims to provide students with the ability to analyse and present relevant data that will support evidence-based decision making.

Business analysts are frequently asked to gather, review and analyse business and industry data to produce robust, meaningful recommendations to senior managers. This requires the combination of a range of knowledge, skills and behaviours. For instance, the selection of quality data, building reliable databases and models, applying statistical models, deriving and communicating meaning from the findings.

The aim of the Accounting and Finance module is to introduce a number of traditional and contemporary accounting approaches that will increase the visibility of financial information and support management decision making. It aims to integrate basic financial knowledge in the management of a business organisation.

The aim is for students to understand the role of CRM and CE in the overall business strategy as well as the marketing mix. As a result of this Module students will be confident in their ability to conceive a CRM and or CE programme.

In many businesses, from consumer goods to industrial services, the primary assets are increasingly intangible. First amongst these is the brand, whether this consists of a portfolio of branded businesses or the corporate brand itself. In both instances, the brand asset needs to be managed to build customer loyalty and resourced so that the competitive advantage it generates can be sustained.

Similarly, one way the equity that lies in the brand can be leveraged is by appropriately extending the brand. Managing the brand, therefore, requires insights into brand preferences and repeat purchasing patterns. It also requires a clear understanding of the levers of successful brand strategies and the tenets of managing brands in the new digital world. The course covers each of these aspects, and brand management is discussed both in a national and international context.

The purpose of this module is to provide students with concepts and tools that are critical for B2B customer management. It will benefit those who aspire to work in B2B marketing or sales (which includes advertising agencies and other professional services), and also those who aspire to B2C marketing roles, where an understanding of supply chain collaboration will be helpful.

The aim of the module is to enable students to understand and critically apply the various aspects of marketing communications from initial analysis of the market through to the development of strategies incorporating an expanding range of communications techniques. As a result, they will be able to write their own marketing communication plans and critically debate contemporary issues in marketing communications.

The subjects covered are communications theory, communication campaigns, marketing communications planning, implementation and evaluation, and coordination, integration and orchestration of the marketing communications mix with particular reference to advertising, publicity and digital media (i.e. paid, earned and owned media). The module may incorporate an industry guest speaker.

The aim of this module is to enable you to understand why digital marketing is critical to all organisations and to investigate how this is constructed. On completion of this module, you will be able to competently create a digital marketing plan for organisations.

The module is primarily designed to provide you with an understanding of what is required to undertake successful academic studies and to conduct research in business contexts considering that todays’ managers:

• are paid to make decisions
• are expected to make ‘informed’ decisions (i.e. based on evidence)
• are evaluated on the basis of the outcomes from their decisions

Therefore, understanding the process of producing evidence will ensure you have the core skills to inform management decisions.

This is an integrative module allowing you to apply that which you have learnt to date in a practical manner. You will work in your learning teams and role-play a management consulting team competitively against the other learning teams. All teams will address the same brief: a genuine business opportunity for a particular company. You will have one week to understand the brief, gather the relevant data, use appropriate tools / frameworks and generate innovative, pragmatic and achievable recommendations. Your presentations will be judged by a panel that includes a company marketing executive dealing with the problem.

The aim of the individual project is to train you to undertake a major marketing, retailing or sales-related research project independently and to present an individual project, which meets university requirements. This will require you to demonstrate project management abilities, develop skills in critical appraisal and research methods, as well as the ability to present your thoughts clearly.

Each student is allocated an individual project supervisor (either Cranfield staff or Cranfield registered teacher).

The individual project can have one of three possible formats:

• An empirical individual project
• A company-sponsored (empirical) individual project
• A systematic review of a suitable area of the marketing, sales or retailing literature