Institute of Commercial Management | Qualification Subject

Strategic Marketing Management

ICM Professional Diploma Unit

Introduction to Marketing Management

  • The nature of marketing
  • The management process
  • A modelling approach
  • Strategic decisions and the nature of the strategy
  • The marketing/strategy interface

Marketing Auditing and SWOT Analysis

  • Marketing audit – its meaning
  • Reviewing marketing effectiveness
  • Role of SWOT analysis
  • Characteristics of effective audits

Segmental Productivity and Ratio Analysis

  • Costs categories
  • Marketing costs analysis
  • Segmental analysis
  • Marketing experimentation
  • Customer profitability analysis
  • Nature of productivity
  • Use of ratio

Approach to Competitor Analysis

  • Meaning of competitor
  • Competitive relations evaluation
  • Identifying competitors objectives
  • Competitors strengths and weaknesses
  • Competitive responses
  • Competitive information system

Approach to Customer Analysis

  • Model of buyer behaviour
  • Factors influencing consumer behaviour
  • The buying decision process
  • Organisational buying behaviour

Mission and Objectives

  • Purpose of planning
  • Establishing corporate mission
  • Influences on objectives and strategies
  • Setting objectives and targets
  • Development of strategies

Structural, Market and Environment Analysis

  • Analysing the environment
  • Nature of the marketing environment
  • Micro and macro-environmental analysis
  • Approaches to environmental analysis

Market Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning

  • Nature and purpose of market segmentation
  • Bases for segmentation
  • Approaches to segmenting industrial markets
  • Market targeting
  • Product positioning

Formulation of Strategy

Analysing the Product Portfolio

  • The development of strategic perspective models of portfolio analysis
  • Market attractiveness

Generic Strategies for Leaders, Followers, Challengers and Nichers

  • Types of strategy, Porter’s strategies
  • Identifying potential competitive advantages
  • Strategies for market leaders, market challengers, market followers and market nichers
  • Dangers of strategic wearout

Pricing Policies and Strategies

  • Role and significance of price
  • Approaches to price setting
  • Pricing objectives
  • Pricing methods
  • Using price as a tactical weapon
  • Offensive pricing

Promotional Plan

  • The promotional mix
  • Integrating the elements of the promotional mix
  • Advertising plan
  • Planning for personal selling

Distribution Plan

  • Distribution audit
  • Distribution objectives
  • Distribution strategies
  • Evaluation and control

Criteria of Choice in Decision Making

  • Financial and non-financial criteria
  • Multiple criteria, modelling approaches
  • Financial and non-financial plans

Strategic Implementation and Control

  • Marketing feedback and control systems
  • Basic control concepts and their application throughout the planning and implementation process
  • Problem areas and organisational considerations
  • The role of internal marketing, management controls, budget, networks, performance evaluation, ratio analysis, corrective responses, bench-marking
  • The auditing process

Example Candidate Response Booklet

Example Candidate Response (ECR) Booklets are a source of crucial information for Centres and Candidates as they use real candidate responses. We ask Senior Examiners to comment on five or more responses in terms of why the mark was awarded with commentary about how to improve the answer (if necessary).

Recommended Reading

Main Text:

Strategic Marketing Management: Planning Implementation & Control – Wilson, Gilligan & Pearson (Butterworth Heinemann)

Indicative Text:

Alternative Text and Further Reading:

Marketing Management – Philip Kotler (Prentice Hall)

Marketing Plans: How to Prepare Them, How to Use Them – McDonald MHB (Butterworth/Heinemann)