Coursework Syllabus

Branding

This area will teach on the various aspects of creating a brand — one that will set you apart from your competition, finding your relative strength, and positioning your brand. For a convenient, printed version, click this link.

Market Strategy and Brand Position

• Week 1
• Overview, discussion of the principals of marketing, and building strong brands.
• Strategic marketing for your brand: What make you valuable?
• Market positioning: Finding and targeting your most lucrative brand segment.
• Week 2
• Positioning Statement: Positioning your brand in a few short words, relative to your competition.
• Finding your brand mantra, the “heart and soul of your brand.
• Connecting experience to your brand: Creating brand loyalty.

Customer Decision Making and the Role of Brand

• Week 3:
• Understanding the shopping experience from the customer point of view. Positioning yourself to be in their minds when at the point of making a buying decision.
• Buying “triggers,” providing variety but not choice overload, and connecting the online-offline buying experience.
• The purchase state: Selection and conversion-to-sale, pricing and other enticements.
• Post-purchase satisfaction, social media and what makes for viral sharing.

Effective Brand Communications Strategies and Repositioning Strategies

• Week 4:
• Conveying brand message, and the customer perception of your brand.
• Strong and persuasive brand elements; choosing a good brand name.
• Week 5:
• The various elements of a brand, and making it work together.The choice of colors; the basics of good taglines, and packaging.
• Repositioning a brand: When is it necessary, and how is it done?

The Importance and Art of Client-centered Focus

This area will teach client-centric focus — that coming shift from product-centric focus to customer-centric focus.

The Limits of Product-centric Thinking 

• Week 6:
• What is product-centric focus? –And some of the cracks in this traditional pursuit.
• Moving from product-centric to customer-centric focus, and the critical importance of this as we move into the future.
• Data-driven business, and the increasing importance of this.

Opportunity and Challenges of Customer Centricity

• Week 7:
• Understanding customer centricity, and celebrating the different customer groups.
• Selecting the specific customers that should be focused on, and maximizing value to the company.
• Should your company even pursue a customer-centric approach?

Can Customer Centricity Be Profitable?

• Week 8:
• The data of customer-centricity –Show me the money!
• “How to” on cross-selling and upselling; increasing frequency, and premium pricing. Referrals.
• Customer acquisition, development, and retention — where should you spend your next dollar, and why?
• Discussion of “customer lifetime value”: what it is, how to select for it, and how to measure it.

Go to Market Strategies

This area encompasses the internet; the various aspects of marketing, and creating an Internet-based business.

Omni Channel Strategy and Online-Offline Interaction

• Week 9:
• Go to market strategies, and introduction. What would be your next “hot” product. And four unstoppable market trends.
• The specific benefits of the online world; search and geographic friction, and goods and information.
• Online/offline competition and why offline is still important.
• Week 10:
• The world of selection, and what makes for strong Internet sales — the Long Tail.
• How Internet retailing startups grow, and how influence spreads.
• When and how to compete with offline stores: The concept of preference isolation.

How to Find Lead Users and Facilitate Influence and Contagion

• Week 11:
• The differences in digital marketing: goals, tactics, and the things to avoid. How to attract and retain digital customers.
• Reputation and Reviews.
• Product life cycles: Who buys what, and when.
• Week 12:
• More on how information spreads. And the power — and limits — of your influence.
• Digital spread: Targeting neighborhoods; how influence spreads.
• Referrals and contagion.

Targeting and Messaging, Pricing to Value, Customer Access, and Distribution

• Week 13:
• Pricing and price setting: Sensitivity and competitor issues.
• Pricing strategies: What makes price sensitivity vulnerable, and what works to isolate it.
• Distribution strategies for the flow of information and goods.
• Week 14:
• Challenges and conflice between the online-offline marketplace. When they will shop in a store and purchase from you — and vice-versa. And which shopping categories are most vulnerable.
• Trends in media spending: TV, digital, print, radio, outdoor advertising, others.
• Summation: Markets, Message, Mission, Message design, Media strategy, Money, and Measurement.
• Conclusion and wrap-up.