Course Review: Developing a Marketing Strategy

28 March 2012

Caroline Brown, School of English, Communication and Philosophy

Blas speaks to Caroline Brown, School Manager in the School of English, Communication and Philosophy, who recently attended the first of the University’s new communication workshops on ‘Developing a Marketing Strategy.’

Why did you go on the course?

I went on the course in order to be able to feed into the development of a marketing strategy for undergraduate and postgraduate programmes of study in the School of English, Communication and Philosophy (ENCAP)

What did you learn?

Academic staff from the Business School - Dr Tony Ellson, Dr Fiona Davies and Dr Eleri Rosier - provided a valuable grounding in the key principles of developing a marketing strategy. The sessions covered guidance on undertaking a marketing audit, and aligning vision and mission, provided a constructive approach for getting the most out of benchmarking against comparators and competitors, and presented an effective toolkit for implementing and evaluating strategy.

In utilising the expertise available in the Business School, the course really built on my understanding of the theoretical and practical aspects of marketing in a higher education context and also provided an excellent opportunity for meeting colleagues in other Schools with similar interests and responsibilities.

Why would you recommend the course and for whom?

The course would be very helpful for staff responsible for or involved in developing a marketing strategy for their School, department or research centre, and who would benefit from practical guidance.

What’s coming up?

Forthcoming courses include Managing Media Relations (17 April 2012) which will give practical advice on how to effectively work with the press media to promote stories and deal with media enquiries, and Maximising Social and Digital Media which will introduce participants to the basics of social networking and the potential of video and podcasting.

To find out more about the communication workshops and other courses available visit the staff development web pages.