Introduction
This popular and successful program provides a thorough and concentrated overview of strategic marketing – systematic and proven ideas and approaches for those wanting to increase the effectiveness of their marketing strategies and a refresher for those with marketing experience. Dr. Sexton was one of the designers of the Columbia Marketing Management Program, rated for several years by the Financial Times as the number one marketing executive program in the world. This program includes the strategic marketing material designed by Dr. Sexton for that program.

Course Objectives
Provide managers with the concepts and tools to build marketing strategies that will be highly effective in achieving financial objectives.

Learning Objectives Participants will:

• Explore key characteristics and trends in the competitive environment and how they may affect organizations and their strategies.
• Consider state-of-the-art concepts in marketing for understanding customers and competitors.
• Examine how marketing and customer-driven strategies can be utilized to achieve business objectives such as profits and growth.
• Apply a process of systematic approaches to develop marketing plans for products and services, with special attention to identifying and selecting target markets and to determining competitive advantage and positioning.
• Understand how competitive conditions change over time and the implications of these changes for all components of marketing plans and strategies.

Who can benefit

• Business managers.
• Product or service managers.
• Marketing managers.
• Brand managers.
• Marketing communications managers.
• Finance managers involved with marketing decisions.

Teaching Methodology
A variety of teaching techniques are employed, including lecture/discussions, workshop sessions, case discussions, and role-playing simulations.

• The lecture/discussions are designed to provide the participants with a framework for developing marketing strategies.
• During workshop sessions, participants work in teams to apply proprietary techniques to specific marketing issues such as identifying markets or determining competitive advantage.
• Case discussions engage the participants in examination of specific marketing problems.
• Role-playing simulations engage the participants in interaction with each other.
• Multi-media Illustrations. All modules are supported by an unmatched collection of thousands of video and print ads from numerous countries and for numerous products and services.