CIM Introductory Certificate in Marketing
CIM's Introductory Certificate is aimed at people interested in finding out more about marketing, whether they are in a job that involves marketing or not. It provides information about what marketing is and aims to develop knowledge and skills in basic marketing tasks for people who are working to support others. This includes:
- junior marketing roles,
- administrative roles in the marketing department,
- people in jobs with some marketing duties,
- people working in marketing-related environments such as event management, customer service, call centres,
- non-marketers wanting to understand marketing or to move into a marketing role.
Open our information pack or read on for detailed course information.
CIM complete info v10
Estimated Size: 683 kb
How the Introductory Certificate helps you
The Introductory Certificate provides a strong starting point. You don’t need any previous experience or knowledge of marketing, and you can choose to study to suit your requirements and time available: you may already be working and therefore want to study around work commitments, or you may be looking for a job and therefore will not have time to study during the day.
By the end of your studies you should, for example, be able to:
- understand the function of marketing and its role in an organisation,
- know about the seven Ps (product, price, place, promotion, people, physical evidence, and process) and how to apply the marketing mix,
- understand more about customers and managing customer relationships,
- be able to communicate with both internal and external customers using a variety of different means.
Study programme
The Introductory Certificate has two units; a unit is a self-contained course of study which has its own syllabus and which leads to an assessment. You must pass both to achieve the Introductory Certificate.
The units are best done in the order shown here, with What is Marketing? coming first, and Understanding Customer Relationships second.
What is Marketing? (Course 351)
This unit provides a starting point in terms of what marketing is and how it is defined. It focuses on the purpose, work, and role of marketing; its cross-functional importance and its contribution to business success. It also looks at the role of marketing as a service provider within the organisation. It will prepare you to be able to:
- define marketing in the context of an exchange process, determine the importance of marketing as a cross-functional activity contributing towards business success,
- explain the importance of understanding the organisation’s marketing environment and the impact it has upon an organisation’s ability to satisfy customer needs and wants,
- identify each element of the marketing mix in the context of customer needs and achieving customer satisfaction, and
- apply the marketing mix to a range of different organisational sectors and contexts.
Understanding Customer Relationships (Course 352)
This unit focuses on developing an understanding of internal and external customers, and considers how a knowledge and understanding of customers can help in designing appropriate marketing activities to engage and support customers to achieve long-term customer loyalty. It will prepare you to be able to:
- explain the importance of understanding customers, and how marketing information supports the better development of marketing activities to achieve customer satisfaction,
- explain the value and importance of internal and external relationships of the organisation, and the importance of networking, collaboration and co-operation in order to develop and maintain relationships,
- recognise the importance of internal relationships as an aid to the marketing function establishing its cross-functional presence,
- explain the different ways in which to communicate with both internal and external customers in order to develop, maintain and strengthen customer relationships,
- explain the requirements for developing effective and efficient customer service and customer care in order to maintain successful relationships.
You need to have
The Introductory Certificate is an “open” qualification, which means you do not need any previous qualifications or marketing experience. General business and/or marketing experience will help you put your learning into context.
If English is not your first language, you will also need to provide evidence of at least IELTS 6.5 proficiency or Trinity ISE III/IV.
What to expect
The Introductory Certificate typically takes between 4 to 6 months to study, though every student is different and some fall a long way outside this range. If you have a good idea of how much study time you’ll have each week on average, check the diagram for a closer estimate (a "session" is about an evening's work, i.e. two to three hours).
Assessment
Each unit has its own assessment; each assessment is different. What is Marketing? has a one-hour online exam, Understanding Customer Relationships has a written project made up of a number of short work-based marketing tasks. All the assessment is practical: based on either your own workplace or on real-world situations described to you.
There’s more on assessment on our CIM assessment page.
CIM fees
Our fees cover our course; you will have additional CIM fees. CIM charge a membership fee which you pay each year. This varies with where you are in the world. CIM also charges assessment fees. These can vary according to the type of assessment you are doing (exam style or assignment style). CIM will inform you of their fees; note that their fees tend to change each summer.
There’s a full CIM course information pack on our Downloads page and a direct link to our course fees below.
CIM course fees v10
Estimated Size: 109 kb
Extra study
We run courses that, if you do your part, set you up for a safe pass. It is useful (in getting higher grades and showing professionalism, for example) if you reserve some time to keep up with developments in marketing and business. You can do that through newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, the Internet and the advice in your course materials. It will always help you if you look out for real-world examples of the things which you’re studying.
