Understanding who your customers are and what they need and want is at the heart of successful marketing strategies. In this course you will explore how to identify and classify customers and the different methods that marketing professionals use to shed light on how they make purchase decisions.
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About this Course
Learner Career Outcomes
29%
17%
Learner Career Outcomes
29%
17%
Offered by

IESE Business School
For over fifty years, IESE, the graduate business school of the University of Navarra, has been at the forefront of management education, developing and inspiring business leaders who strive to make a deep, positive and lasting impact on the people, companies and society they serve.
Syllabus - What you will learn from this course
Course Overview & Week 1
Welcome! Before you start today's videos, please have a look at the syllabus. In this first session, I'll give you an overview of what marketing is all about and why it's key to communicating a company’s value proposition. You’ll also get a grasp of marketing essentials, particularly how to frame challenges and what to think about when making decisions. Objectives: To gain insight into the basic pillars of marketing.
Week 2: Product, Pricing & Channel Design
It’s hard to remember what the world was like before iPods, iPhones and iPads. But when Apple released the first iPod in 2001, it was not an automatic blockbuster. The product was great, but it took a lot of marketing savvy to set it on it’s successful path. All companies – whether selling electronics, gastronomic experiences, or credit cards – need to worry about making product, pricing and channel decisions. In this second session, we will explore what a product really is, how to estimate its demand and manage it. In addition, we’ll discuss the fundamentals of pricing, channel design and channel management. Objective: To gain an understanding of what a product really is, how to manage pricing and make decisions about channels.
Week 3: Building Strong Brands
Strong brands make a great impact on individuals and society; they are key to communicating value and getting the word out about a product or service. In this session we will explore the importance of brands as assets and branding in general. We will define the concept of brand equity and the essence of managing brands for value. Objective: To understand how branding contributes to a company’s value and how to go about developing a strong brand.
Week 4: Communication Strategy
Once a company has a good grasp of its customers, it can now develop a communication strategy to appeal directly to their interests and needs. In this session I will introduce a framework that will show you how to organize your communication strategy in order to successfully launch a product or service. We will also discuss what the objectives and target market of that strategy should be. Mapping the decision-making process is also key since you will need to learn to adapt the message and content to each stage of the customer journey. Objective: To define the elements and list the steps for building a sound communication strategy.
Reviews
TOP REVIEWS FROM MARKETING: CUSTOMER NEEDS AND WANTS
Good understanding of methods to know what customer think and how they think. Useful for anyone doing market related activities. No indepth background needed to get into this course.
This course helped me understand the in-depth concepts that I have just learned on the job. My main output from this course is a step-by-step analysis of a marketing strategy.
I have learned a lot. Thanks to coursera, I have got the opportunity to have access to the knowledge shared by IESE. THANK YOU !!
I have learned a lot. Thanks to Coursera, I have got the opportunity to have access to the knowledge shared by IESE. THANK YOU!!
About the Foundations of Management Specialization
Good management is equal parts knowing and doing. No matter what industry you work in or where you are in your career, a basic understanding of financial, marketing and decision-making principles and other management fundamentals will help you achieve your professional goals - be it getting promoted in your current job, getting ready for a MBA program, or starting your own company.

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