 Hello and welcome to today's qualifications webinar, CIM qualifications to launch your marketing career. My name is Nick and I will be facilitating today's webinar. Before we get started, I'd like to go over a few items so you know how to participate. The presentation will last for approximately 40 minutes. You will be able to send text questions to today's presenter by typing your questions into the chat box of the control panel. You may send in your questions at any time during the presentation and we collect and address as many as we can during the Q&A session at the end. Unfortunately, we don't send slides at the presentation. However, the webinar will be available to watch on demand via our Content Hub exchange in the next couple of days. I would now like to hand you over to Andy Sharatt, who will be today's presenter. Thanks Nick and welcome to everybody that's joined us at the moment. Today's webinar, we're looking at using CIM qualifications to launch a marketing career. In particular, we're looking today at the Level 3 Foundation Certificate in Professional Marketing and Professional Digital Marketing as the two qualifications that CIM have at this level. In terms of what I'm going to talk to you about today, we're going to have a look at who the qualification is for, what the benefits are that you will get of studying for a CIM Professional Marketing Qualification at Level 3. We'll have a look at the choices that there are and the modules involved in each of the qualifications, what the entry requirements are, the commitment that you'll have to make if you follow this study route, how you can study, and then, as Nick's just mentioned, we'll take some questions at the end. But I just thought I'd start off giving you a little bit of a background about myself. I'm the principal of Spa Professional Academy, which is a CIM accredited study centre based in the north of England. We have delivery centres in Yorkshire and Cheshire as well as offering distance learning. I've been doing that for quite a number of years in terms of it and also involved in the past in other study centres as well. I'm a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and a Chartered Marketer. I'm also very involved in the Institute and its other elements of it as well as the teaching side because I'm a member of the regional boards in actually in both Yorkshire and the north-west regional boards sitting across two of those. And in the past I have been an examiner and a senior examiner for CIM, although that's something that I relatively recently stopped doing. I think what this is really trying to say is I've got lots of experience of working with CIM, delivering the CIM qualifications at all levels. I've delivered them from the level three right up to the level seven postgraduate study levels and been doing this for a long time. I'm very passionate about marketing and CIM as well. So I do hope that you decide that it's the right route for you to embark on your launching your marketing career through the CIM qualifications. But it'd been really great to know a little bit about those of you that are directly watching the webinar at the moment just to know first of all, are you currently employed in a marketing role? Would be really great to know how many people are an aunt, you know, is it something that you are currently doing on that? So just give a moment to see the results of that if you could just click on the survey there so we can see it. Okay, that's really great. Thanks. It looks like most people that are here are actually currently involved in marketing at the moment. So if you could also now just do this second little survey, if you are in a marketing role currently, how long have you been doing that role? So we've just got three options here of have you been doing it for less than a year between one and three years and three years plus and it might be difficult to find specifically when you started it because people often end up taking on marketing roles but a rough idea is just quite helpful for us to know and I can maybe tailor some of the content that I'm going to talk about coming up as well to relate to it. Right, that's great. Thanks very much. It actually looks like we've got some people with a bit of experience here of marketing. So thanks for completing the survey. We've got a bit of a spread there but people who have got experience of marketing from the professional aspect as well as some newcomers. So thanks for that. Right, in terms of it, what are we talking about here as a level three qualification? Well, CIM have this level three foundation certificate in marketing and so what does that actually mean? Well, it's a level three qualification in England, Wales and Northern Ireland which means that it's equivalent as a qualification to an A level. It's assessed at the same standard that would be the case for an A level. It's approved by Ofqual in England and equivalent bodies around the rest of the United Kingdom but just in terms of the level, whilst we refer to it as a level three qualification, actually in Ireland it's level five and it is a level six in Scotland because the awarding bodies in different parts of the UK use different levels for it. So if you are in either Ireland or Scotland just to make sure you are aware of that and the Ofqual and equivalent approval if you like for the qualification is really significant because it does demonstrate that it's not just a CIM one, it has this external approval from the qualifications regulators in the various countries across the UK and so that's the level that we've got for this one. Who's it for? Who are the intended target audience? Who's the most relevant people for this qualification? One of the things about the level three qualification is that it doesn't assume any previous experience or knowledge of marketing. So quite a few people come into marketing or want to get into a marketing role without having studied it at all, maybe not even done any kind of study in business related areas. So this qualification works from that principle of people not having previous experience or knowledge for that. It's ideal for an aspiring marketer or somebody who is new to a marketing support role. So if you are just starting out in a marketing career or not been in it very long and wanting to progress your career in marketing then it is ideal. Is there anybody really who's starting out in the marketing industry generally? And the other category of people that this qualification really does suit actually and I've supported a few people in this position in the past. Are those who are looking at setting up their own business just starting their own business where they are not from a marketing background but obviously one of the things that if you are running a small business or starting a small business marketing is really important and this qualification is great for giving that underpinning knowledge of how to deliver marketing successfully. I think I would say one of the great things about CIM qualifications is that they do look at how to actually do marketing in practice. It's not theoretical. We do look at marketing theories and concepts and models but principally it's all about how to apply those principles of marketing in an industry sector context for it. But why marketing? What is it about marketing that means that it's an important discipline and why you should want to learn more about it on that? Well I think there's a few things in terms of marketing. From my perspective the fantastic thing about marketing is that it is the link between an organisation and the customers that organisation has. It's what attracted me to marketing originally many years ago when I did a degree in it is that marketing represents the organisation to customers and very very importantly represents those customers to the organisation understanding what those customers want. If we put a definition on what marketing is and the CIM definition of marketing is this element the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably. Just to break that down a little bit a management process. Marketing is a process that ideally and to be successful with it should be managed so it doesn't just happen it does need to be a process which is why gaining a qualification really helps because you learn about that process. Protect the thing it's about satisfying customer requirements. Well that's understanding what customers want and making sure that we deliver at least what customers want but to do that we've got to identify customer requirements. The marketing is this thing about understanding customers and identifying what it is that they would like also about anticipating what they would like. If we ask customers what they want they may not really be able to tell us what they might want in the future so there is an element for marketers understanding what is possible, the way industries, markets, environments are going so that we can anticipate what customers will want in the future and be able to provide that. I will just mention the word at the end of this definition of profitably. It's very easy to think of that in terms of a commercial organisation that with a commercial organisation they will be aiming to make a financial profit. If you're looking at marketing in a not-for-profit context or potentially a charity or a public sector area where the motivation is not to make a profit it's about society or portions of society profiting from those marketing activities. So there's a definition of marketing that's what marketing is about and it does cover a lot more than many people who aren't involved in marketing think where generally if I regularly do it ask people who are maybe starting up a business or something or what do you think marketing is and they talk about promotion communication and things but actually to promote and communicate well we've got to understand a lot more about customers that some of which comes through from the definition there from CIM. But why embark on a marketing as a career and marketing a professional marketing qualification? This is a thing from some research that CIM have done for it and if we look at this in terms of a level three professional marketing qualification where people can be working in a marketing role earning money at the same time as learning but an average salary for marketing assistant type level positions is £22,000 that thing qualifies you to move up to the next level potentially of level four where we might be moving towards implementing practical skills and getting much more involved day to day with the marketing where an average marketing exec salary is about £25,000 with further progression up to a level six type qualification which is equivalent to the undergraduate degrees and gives people the skills knowledge and capability to work at marketing manager level for which average salaries potentially are £40,000 and then obviously there are higher level roles beyond that which where salaries can increase fairly substantially from that so marketing financially can be a very rewarding career and there is research that's been done and I can't remember the exact figures off the top of my head but CIM did some research that shows how much over a career somebody with professional qualifications in marketing is likely to earn in addition additionally to somebody without them and from memory it was well over £100,000 over the course of the career so the qualification is well worth having but the marketing career in itself is potentially financially very rewarding. One of the career prospects that you might get from it well if you've got the professional marketing qualification it demonstrates a desire to learn to current or prospective employers it shows that you want to learn and improve your own skills and knowledge and capabilities in relation to your marketing career as I've already hinted with the CIM qualifications it demonstrates professional competence the assessments prove that you know how to actually do it in a in a job so you can talk to an employer and say this qualification demonstrates that I am professionally competent in it and certainly over all the years I've been teaching CIM qualifications I've had many examples of students on the courses who've come to me and said that that qualification or even just studying for the qualification is really open doors for them whilst we can't promise that it will get people jobs I've certainly got lots of evidence and experience of students that have been told when they've had interviews for jobs that a big part of the reason they were selected for the interview was because they were or had studied for the CIM qualification so it can really open doors that might otherwise be quite hard to to access and and be able to open and it gives that competitive advantage over lots of other people that might be applying for roles it's a differentiator that shows that you are wanting to learn and have that professional competence so something that your career prospects are definitely enhanced by having one of the CIM professional qualifications so let's move on now and have a look at the level three qualifications that CIM do offer and have a look at these in a little bit more detail so the qualifications are very relevant to current marketing requirements with contemporary marketing content with literally what I'm going to talk about in a moment is a revised syllabus that has just been launched following a review of the roles of marketers at the marketing assistant level the expectations of employers at that level to really understand what's happening what's changed in those marketing roles what are the expectations and the qualifications really do provide this clear contemporary marketing content that equips the learners to really understand the current global marketing landscape and be able to work in that situation for it so as I said right at the start of the presentation here there is the foundation certificate in professional marketing and the foundation certificate in professional digital marketing so those are the the two options that there are and I just want to look at how those are made up in terms of what those qualifications are so the foundation certificate in professional marketing has two modules that are required to be completed successfully to get the qualification there is a module and marketing principles and the second one is communications in practice in terms of the foundation certificate in professional digital marketing you'll see here that we've we've also got this same module of marketing principles it's common across both options of qualification at this level but the second module for the digital marketing qualification is digital fundamentals and so that's kind of an overview for it I just want to move on and have a look at specific content that is included within each of each of those modules so the mandatory module that is common across both qualifications of marketing principles really is the title absolutely says what it is all about it is the principles of marketing what is it all about if you like taking that CIM definition that I gave earlier and building upon that to really understand what marketing is how it works and how to apply the principles of marketing in a professional role for it so it's divided into three units the first one of which is discovering marketing so yes that talks about what marketing is about the role marketing has in organizations and how marketing interacts with other parts of the organizations and where we how we got to where we are in terms of marketing currently and how it's developed as a as a discipline and a profession I am to to really understand and discover all of the facets of marketing the second unit looks at the marketing environment I've said in an earlier slide that marketing is the link between the organization and its customers it's about understanding and this unit looks at that environment inside the organization that enables the organization to deliver marketing in addition to what is happening outside the organization so understanding customers competitors very important for marketers to understand what competitive organizations are doing potentially suppliers and other elements of the environment that we interact with on a regular basis as well as wider environmental factors that could influence the organization and its customers and other areas such as political environments social change technology which obviously has been very significant to marketers with the development of all of the digital technologies that has a social implication in terms of the way people live their lives legal changes economic factors that all influence the organization that we need to understand so that we can identify and anticipate those customer requirements to deliver appropriately in the future the third unit is the marketing mix I'm otherwise sometimes referred to as the the marketers toolbox and the marketing mix is referred to as the seven p's of marketing and this third unit of the module really explores those seven p's the tools that the marketers have access to to use so the products we offer the price levels we sell them at how we promote them and other factors like that other is the marketing mix that gets explored in some detail so that when you've completed this module you can understand how what the organization offers at the price level it sells it out and how it communicates it will bring should bring success to the organization if we've got those things right because we understand the role of marketing and the environment that we're operating within so that's the marketing principles module which as I said is common across both the foundation certificate in professional marketing and the certificate in professional digital marketing for the broad approach to this rather than the more focused digital one the communications in practice module is the elective that provides that communications in practice again the title says what it's all about it gets into more depth and detail about marketing communications promotion so advertising and all of the other elements of marketing communication but it starts off with an understanding of customers if we want to communicate successfully with our customers we've got to understand our customers so the first unit of who our customers helps to to explore the different types of customers that organizations can have so we can look at that fairly simply between the difference of an organization in a business to consumer context where its customers are individuals and as opposed to an organization in a business to business context where its customers are other organizations purchasing for their own use there's then lots of other breakdowns and other categories to those in terms of customers that is important to understand because if we understand those customers we can then communicate in the most appropriate ways for the the customers that we would like as an organization so the second unit is communicating with our customers looking at all of the different methods of communication so say advertising public relations and all sorts of other things and it explores both the online and offline communication methods with this so just to mention there that obviously the alternative elective has a very clear digital focus digital is included as an integral part of this communications in practice elective module and final unit is creating a customer communications plan so that we understand how to not just do a bit of communication and random ad hoc elements of communication but creating a plan to deliver more effective customer communications for the organization. The alternative elective module the one that gives the foundation certificate in professional digital marketing has obviously got this more digital focus to it I am with again a hopefully self-explanatory title of digital fundamentals it looks at the fundamentals of digital marketing what are we talking about when we say digital marketing and understanding what it really means what it encompasses and how how we might define it and to get that thorough understanding so that we can apply digital marketing effectively. The second unit is digital marketing tools so this starts looking at all of the different tools that exist from obvious things like websites but through all the social media capabilities email is still a very very important digital marketing tool for organizations to for many organizations to utilize we look at all of the different tools and how they can be used in different ways so is it for specific advertising for promoting sales offers of the kind of buy one get one free type activities and how we can use the different digital marketing tools across a range of communication and similar to the communications in practice module that I just talked about the final unit of the digital fundamentals module is about developing digital communications campaigns obviously what it has is this focus on the digital elements of a communication plan and communication campaign and again just making sure that we aren't doing things in a random ad hoc basis but actually having a clear plan for what to do and just to mention there of course that making sure that plan has the flexibility to respond because that particularly with digital is is one of the key things that we might need to respond very quickly in real time to things that are happening that digital absolutely enables in a in an easier way than maybe offline communications activities and so yeah those are the the module choices that you've got with most study centers certainly through spell professional academy the way we do it is that when people sign up you don't have to make an absolute choice right at the start between the two electives because we've got this common mandatory module of marketing principles some people going through that and decide that they do want to look at the broader approach that the communications in practice will give whilst others might decide that actually they really need for their role their organization getting a clear understanding of of the digital in depth through the digital fundamentals module is the right way to go so you don't typically have to make that decision before you embark on the qualification it is something that can be done a little bit later normally so those are the modules and the requirements for the the qualification I just wanted to quickly give an overview of the entry requirements and actually to say that there aren't any specific entry requirements for the level three qualification as I said earlier on that it doesn't rely on having any level of experience and or other qualifications to do this and the only reasonably specific requirement that there is is to have the right level of English language capability and so if English isn't your first language then having the IELTS academic module with a score of six and a half or its equivalence is a requirement because the assessments do all take place in in English language so that's about the only specific entry requirement there is and the other thing that I did want to mention in relation to this because it's a question many people do ask is how are you assessed for for this qualification what do you have to do in terms of that or for the marketing principles module it's an online multiple choice exam you'd agree with your study centre a time and date for taking that exam within windows that CIM set and then an organised venue with your study centre and for that and then the appropriate time go along and take that exam nice thing is it's multiple choice so the correct answer is in front of you provided you have done the study and understand the the elements that are included within the syllabus for the module and then it makes it eminently passable on that basis obviously provided you get it so yeah a good assessment method for the fundamentals the principles of marketing if you like that any marketer should know without being able without needing to go to a book to reference it the other two modules the communications in practice on the digital fundamentals modules are assignment based on a given scenario and an organisation and there is actually a case study for the communications in practice assessment that is used for application of the the answers that are provided but they are professional based assignments so equivalent to the kind of tasks that you may well be asked to do in a marketing assistant type role within an organisation and they have a word limit on them that is is clearly expressed when you see the brief for those and so it is you know there are defined limits for that and but it is a professional document that many students on the courses find is very useful within their organisation at the time and the organisation that they work for if they are working in a marketing role can really benefit from them taking those assessments and what level of commitment do you have to give in relation to to your own time for for studying for this the level three foundation certificate qualification typically takes six to eight months it depends a little bit on when you start and when you take assessments I am because CIM have assessment sessions which are time for April, July and December each year and we would generally always recommend that people work on the marketing principles for the next assessment session from when they start and then do the the second module towards the one after that so it does depend a little bit on your start date if you've got time to to do one module before the next one and for instance at the moment when mid-september it would be absolutely possible to start in the next week or two and maybe a little bit longer and do the marketing principles for the December assessment meaning that the the second module could be done for the April one so we'd actually be finishing in if my maths is right in off the top of my head here about somewhere between seven and eight months on that it does depend a little bit on the start date and while studying the each module has a hundred and twenty hours total qualification time which means that both the through the learning that you get through your study centre and the the work and study you need to put in yourself and the time to prepare for and submit the assessment it's about 120 hours in total I think a lot of people typically end up doing sort of three to five hours a week but it obviously varies a bit by individual and it tends to ramp up a little bit more towards the assessment session but that's the kind of commitment that you'd be looking at for it. In terms of how you study it depends where about you are in the country but there are or in the world actually there are accredited study centres around the world that can support you in your studies and if you visit the CIM website and go to on the qualifications tab there is a study centre finder and we'll find the ones that are close to you and study options typically are face-to-face learning and sort of classroom style which can typically be quite interactive and you get learning from groups and you get a note typically face-to-face workshops or evenings or weekends is the way most study centres including my own deliver that. There's blended learning which might have shorter face-to-face sessions supported with online learning and self-study and then there is also the online learning options where all of the support is delivered through online learning modules which provides much more flexibility because you can study at your own pace and wherever you might be but obviously it doesn't have kind of the group interaction that a face-to-face one would so it depends what suits you where you are and who you want to study is to what's there but have a look at the options talk to a range of study centres I would always say you know have a chapter one or two of them see how they deliver it and which one is which one feels like it would suit you best for it so that's how to study in terms of costs there are three elements or potentially four elements of costs involved with the taking the qualification there are tuition fees which you'll pay to the accredited study centre that you study with and there are two lots of fees that are paid to CIM sometimes through the study centres but more often generally directly to CIM and that is a studying member fee a registration fee to have access to all of the resources CIM provide and to provide a studying membership level within CIM and then there are assessment fees for each assessment that you take so provided you're successful in both of them there are two assessment fees and for that details of the studying member fee and assessment fees are on CIM's website and obviously each individual study centre sets its own tuition fees according to that and the other element of cost that you should always consider is the potential purchase of recommended study texts for the modules they can vary in price and it's always possible potentially to buy secondhand copies of books but again your study centre will be able to provide some advice for you in terms of the study texts and I just wanted to also have a finish off really by providing you a few studying tips for this if you do go ahead and choose to study for the foundation certificate or other qualification from CIM it's really good to start out with a clear purpose what are you doing why are you pursuing the qualification do make sure that you find enough time to study and obviously face to face gives you a discipline of going at a particular time but you still need time for additional studies beyond that and do ensure that you create that time to study and to gain the real benefit from it equip yourself to study to get get a bit of space paper books and things like that and get ready for for studying make sure you plan your time well there's an assessment date and make sure you use the time in the run up to that assessment date effectively with a clear plan as to where you need to be when for your studies again study centres will be able to help you with that do read around the subject marketing happens all around us all of the time and it's in the news it's in online and all sorts of things then read around the subject see what is happening and again all of that experience that the world provides in terms of marketing you know if you see adverts on TV or anywhere else have a think about how does that relate to the the content that you're learning while studying what is the organization that's put that advert together trying to convey as a message and why are they doing it who are they aiming it at and things like that consolidate your learning it might have units and learning outcomes within it but they all link together make sure you make those linkages between and the learning you've got and take advantage of your study centre and any tutorial input you've got and working with tutors to learn as much as you can as you go through things and that finish is what I was wanting to cover there so I'm now going to hang back to Nick who has got the questions there that I will then try and answer yeah thank you Andrew right everybody else we just like to say if you've got any questions there's plenty of time to submit them we have a few questions but please feel free to submit anything if there's any points you need clarifying or if there's a question that's individual to you please feel free to submit them so I start with one that we do have what job roles could I consider applying for after this qualification and I would say probably marketing doesn't have clearly defined job titles that apply absolutely across organizations but a really common one that this enables people to do would be a marketing executive role and I know many people kind of organizations might regard it as business development in some sectors so it could be a business development executive as well but it's kind of a once you've got this qualification you would be able to go for a and towards middle level of marketing career marketing roles in an organization so not the not the absolute marketing junior sort of thing but more that middle marketing exec type level is is what I would say there thank you Andrew another question I studied marketing at university is part of my business administration degree is this the correct level that I need to be coming in on and if you did a degree that included a level of marketing I would actually probably almost certainly recommend the the level four certificate rather than the level three foundation certificate level and what would be worth doing there is a diagnostic test that CIM have which I think is accessible through CIM's website but certainly through study centers if you talk to a study center they would be able to give some specific advice and the diagnostic test would also help on that but probably with a degree with an element of business and particularly marketing within it level four is probably better rather than maybe relearning stuff that you've already got thank you Andy next question how are the hours tracked and recorded for each module and really just by the individual in terms of that once we talk about the 120 hours of guided learning there isn't a specific tracking of that I think some people probably spend more time than that and some people probably probably do less than that and obviously the actual learning input whether that's face-to-face workshops or online learning will take a certain amount of time to go through but beyond that the all of the self-study elements that are involved in it aren't specifically tracked and it's not there isn't a minimum number of hours that absolutely have to be done to gain the qualification it's all down to how well people do in the assessment that actually gets them that thank you Andrew another question can I do this qualification if I don't work in marketing yes absolutely it can be done by people that don't work in marketing and the marketing principles module the learning materials you will get from a study centre will give you what you need along with as I've just mentioned looking at the world around to see what's going on and would be great for that and there are case studies available as I mentioned we'll talk about it for the communications in practice modules so that there is an organisation to base that on and but we've had plenty of people that have done the qualification as a way to get into marketing who aren't doing it and maybe aren't even working at the time and and for for example the digital fundamentals module and you can choose a different organisation charities are often very grateful for somebody saying yet to do the work the assignment around what they do or small businesses that might be local or whatever so there's plenty of opportunities for that and there isn't an expectation that people are currently working in a marketing role or even working at all when it comes to the the level three qualification thank you Andrew I know more questions at the moment so we'll just give everybody a minute to submit one it could be about anything to do with your study could it be about the support you receive whilst you're studying so I'll just give everybody about a minute to publish one hello oh right we have a new question can I move on to level four as soon as I finished on this level three qualification yes absolutely um let the level three absolutely qualifies you to to do the level four and even to the extent that there is a little bit of a delay between submitting an assessment and potentially start then receiving the result and it's fine to move on to the level four even whilst awaiting a result for your second module from from the level three qualification so yes it it's a direct following on that thank you Andrew unfortunately that's all we have time for today thank you for presenting this webinar and thank you to everybody for attending today once you leave today's webinar you will receive a survey on the presentation and we would appreciate it if you would provide your feedback on behalf of CIM thank you for joining us today and we hope you enjoy the rest of your day thank you