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CIM's Diploma is intended for people who have already been working in marketing for some time and have earned some seniority, or who are entering work with a strong academic background in marketing.

You start at this level if, for example, you are a marketer with operational responsibilities and on a management career path. Perhaps if you are a:

Open our information pack or read on for detailed course information.

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How the Diploma helps you

The Diploma focuses on career progression within the marketing function: on you moving from roles where understanding is needed, to ones where you will start to provide direction and momentum. It provides knowledge, skills and “ability to do”, and is a hybrid of marketing practice and management skill, preparing you for tasks in, for example:

Study programme

The Diploma has four units; a unit is a self-contained course of study which has its own syllabus and which leads to an assessment. You must pass all four to achieve the Diploma.

It's best to do the units in the order that they're shown here, though it can be helpful to start with the unit that is closest to your strengths. You should always do Project Management in Marketing last, however.

The Marketing Planning Process (Course 371)

This unit provides a detailed understanding of marketing plans, the planning process and its links with the delivery of marketing strategy. It considers the nature of the marketing environment and its impact on developing marketing plans to achieve strategic outcomes and competitive advantage in the market place. It also considers segmentation, targeting and positioning with a view to developing sophisticated approaches to targeting customers and the development of effective positioning strategies, based on an assessment of market segment opportunities and value. It will prepare you to be able to:

Delivering Customer Value Through Marketing (Course 372)

The unit focuses on the development and execution of marketing activities designed to achieve customer satisfaction and meet organisational objectives, through marketing mix strategies which also deliver stakeholder value. It includes development of the product portfolio, managing marketing channels, managing the communications mix, and managing the service expectations of customers. It will prepare you to be able to:

Managing Marketing (Course 373)

This unit focuses on developing a managerial skillset, including the knowledge and understanding required to develop and manage the marketing infrastructure and the organisation’s talent development, capability and capacity. This includes developing effective quality systems and processes to support compliance and approaches to measuring and monitoring marketing activities. It also includes developing and managing marketing teams, co-ordinating the human, financial and physical resources within the team effectively. An important aspect is a detailed understanding of managing the financial side of the marketing function in order to ensure that it is consistent, reliable and effective. It will prepare you to be able to:

Project Management in Marketing (Course 374)

This unit focuses on the valid and systematic creation, implementation and control of marketing projects, including the use of research and information and preparing proposals and briefs to identify needs. It includes evaluating marketing project proposals and prioritising them on the basis of fit with market conditions, organisational capacity, competitor activity and strategic management, while concurrently managing the associated risk of implementing particular plans. It also covers the implementation of marketing proposals, including an in-depth view of project management, but also integrating knowledge from the other units at this level. It will prepare you to be able to:

You need to have

The Diploma is similar in level to an Honours degree, which means you will need to meet at least one of these criteria to study it:

Note: qualifications over ten years old might not be considered.

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 Diploma typically takes between 9 to 14 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. The Marketing Planning Process has a work-based assignment involving the preparation of a marketing plan; Delivering Customer Value Through Marketing has a three-hour exam based on pre-seen case material; Managing Marketing has a work-based assignment; Project Management in Marketing has a work-based project requiring an in-depth study of a specific and focused area of business activity.

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.

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Extra study

We run courses that, if you do your part, set you up for a safe pass. It is recommended (in getting higher grades) and a stated CIM expectation (to show professionalism, for example) that you regularly spend some time keeping up with developments in marketing and business. You can do this 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.