IDM Essentials of Direct Marketing (online course)

Benefits to you and your employer

Benefits to your employer:

Learning online is a convenient and easy way to study:

• You can learn at your own pace wherever you live or work, without having to travel for traditional classroom-based tuition
• This minimises staff down time while you improve your skills and your business

By the end of this seven-hour online training course you will have covered the following modules:

• Module 1: Marketing Planning in the 21st Century
  • Topic 1: What is direct marketing and how is the digital revolution changing marketing?
  • Topic 2: Strategic planning – obtaining, storing and using customer insight
• Module 2: Campaign Development and Implementation
  • Topic 1: Planning an integrated acquisition campaign
  • Topic 2: Customer retention and development
  • Topic 3: Budgeting, measurement and evaluation
• Module 3: Direct Marketing Support Functions
  • Topic 1: Working with direct and digital marketing service providers
  • Topic 2: Commissioning and evaluating creative work

Benefits to you:

To be a successful 21st century communicator, you must understand and embrace all aspects of marketing.

You will:

• Understand the principles and techniques of best practice direct marketing
• Be exposed to vital digital marketing perspectives
• Experience a range of B2C and B2B examples
• Have been taught how to develop and evaluate your own campaigns
• Be ready to progress to more advanced levels of expertise with further courses
• Undertake supporting activities and exercises to enable you to measure your progress and grasp the many tools and techniques you will be introduced to
• Have enjoyed a highly interactive and involving experience that gives you a thorough grounding in present day best practice

Who should study:

The IDM Essentials of Direct Marketing online course is designed for newcomers to marketing. You will find this course an invaluable introduction that will set you on the path to a successful career.

This will include:

• Marketing executives
• Account executives
• Marketing managers
• Digital executives
• Digital managers
• Sales executives

Previous delegates include:

• Marketing Manager (Ernest & Julio Gallo Winery Europe)
• Sales Executive (Lloyd James Group)
• Marketing Executive (Holidaybreak)
• Account Manager (Caspa Marketing)

Programme outline

The IDM Essentials of Direct Marketing course is a seven-hour online course giving you a robust introduction to direct marketing.

It comprises three key modules each taking approximately two hours to study.

The programme has many case studies and examples that will reinforce your learning plus checklists and summaries that you can download and use in your work.

Each module ends with a question and answer session that you can use to assess your progress and understanding.

Look at the online demo to see how easy it is to use and study online. If you have any questions please call 020 8614 0277 or email customerservices@theidm.com

Here is the programme outline for this course:

Module 1: Marketing Planning in the 21st Century

Module learning outcome

In this module, you’ll understand the background to direct marketing, how it developed, the impact of digital communications and information tools, and why direct marketing is essential for any organisation wishing to be competitive today.

Competencies developed

You’ll be able to:

• Identify opportunities to deploy direct and digital marketing in both strategic and tactical situations
• Assess the importance of a powerful brand
• Understand the growing importance of environmental and privacy issues
• Plan and evaluate integrated customer communications strategies using offline and online media
• Appreciate the power of rich customer data in providing true customer insight

What’s in this module?

Successful marketing today requires a broad appreciation of both offline and online communications and how these work together.

In this module you will explore the differences and similarities between offline and online marketing; this will highlight established direct marketing principles that are central to all successful campaigns. You will start to explore the growth of customer power, and the influence of social networking. Although direct and digital marketing are very powerful, you will see how they work even better when integrated with a powerful brand. The environment is becoming more of a concern to many organisations and their customers – you will explore current and potential future issues. Finally in Topic 1 you will review current privacy and data protection concerns.

Customers today are besieged with marketing messages from all directions. Only those that are truly relevant to the individual will be read and acted upon. To achieve relevance the marketer must gain a clear understanding of all aspects of customer interests, attitudes, beliefs and behaviour. This is what we call ‘customer insight’. In Topic 2 you will see the various techniques modern marketers use to gather the data that enables them to build this understanding, and the way this is used to develop communications that cut through the clutter. We also highlight the crucial role of segmentation in increasing relevance, and containing costs and will introduce some useful strategic planning tools. This topic closes with an introduction to the essential stages of planning an e-commerce strategy.

Module 2: Campaign Development and Implementation

Module learning outcome

The basic principles of good marketing are mainly to do with acquiring customers and managing your relationships with them. After completing this module, you’ll have a good appreciation of the strategies and tools required to enable you to do this successfully.

Competences developed

You’ll be able to:

• Judge the appropriate acquisition strategy for a specific organisation or
  market situation
• Appreciate the value of integrated marketing communications (IMC)
• Identify and evaluate media options, and understand the power of testing
• Select and deploy a variety of campaign planning tools
• Distinguish between various retention strategies
• Understand the principles of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and customer loyalty
• Recognise the various measurement and evaluation techniques available to direct and digital marketers

What’s in this module?

Acquiring customers is vital to any business. But it is essential to focus on gaining the right sort of customers. This requires the right acquisition strategy. So we’ll start by exploring successful strategies.

You will then tackle the intricacies of integration. There are many communications media, with different strengths and weaknesses – both individually and in combination. One of the key benefits of direct communications is the ability to test alternatives: different media, propositions, creative approaches, and so on. You will see how these powerful techniques can generate huge increases in response and revenue. Topic 1 closes by introducing some useful tools for planning campaigns.

Topic 2 is concerned with retaining and developing customers. Thanks to the Internet, all customers tend to ‘shop around’ these days. However, customers who perceive good value in a relationship are much less likely to stray. So in this topic, you will consider retention strategies and the effect of loyalty programmes. You’ll also explore the wider subject of CRM and customer journeys. You’ll see examples of how a well designed website can be the ultimate relationship builder, and how an effective retention strategy can reduce the pressure on acquisition targets.

Finally, Topic 3 covers the various methods and tools for costing and measuring your direct marketing campaigns.

Module 3: Support Functions

Module learning outcome

However large the organisation, there will be some marketing functions that are better out-sourced, even if only during the initial phases. This module will equip you with the basic knowledge to locate, select and manage a variety of external suppliers.

Commissioning and evaluating creative work is generally less tangible than managing tasks performed by, say, a call centre or fulfilment house. This crucial direct marketing skill is covered as a separate topic.

Competencies developed

You’ll be able to:

• Identify the functions that can be outsourced successfully
• Locate, select and manage external suppliers
• Brief your suppliers so they fully understand your requirements, and deliver their required contributions

What’s in this module?

This module starts with a review of the functions that can easily be outsourced. You will explore the various ways of locating and vetting suppliers, from mailing houses to web design and hosting services. Running complex projects with multiple suppliers can be challenging. You’ll see how to minimise difficulties and encourage a range of suppliers to work together in your cause.

Good supplier delivery starts with sound briefing. We’ll cover how to construct and deliver a clear, comprehensive brief in the most effective way.

The second topic in this module concentrates on outsourcing creative projects. You’ll start with a review of the general principles of successful creative work; then the specific requirements of producing and delivering a creative brief, so your creative suppliers produce outstanding creative work whilst conforming to your corporate standards. Finally, you’ll explore the various methods of measuring and evaluating creative executions.