CIM Diploma in Marketing
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:
- departmental manager,
- product/ brand manager,
- marketing manager,
- account manager,
- marketing executive,
- business development manager.
Open our information pack or read on for detailed course information.
CIM complete info v10
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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:
- people management,
- budget management (bidding for budget),
- team leadership and management,
- assessing risk,
- project management,
- resource co-ordination,
- delivering the value proposition and marketing success,
- managing marketing intelligence,
- problem solving,
- implementing the strategic business/marketing plan,
- measurement and control,
- channel management,
- leading on NPD and innovation,
- communications – internal and external,
- agency management and account handling.
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:
- apply the marketing planning process to a variety of organisational contexts and sectors,
- relate the challenges posed by a changing marketing environment to the planning needs of different organisations and devise positioning strategies in response,
- evaluate the role of the planning process and marketing plan implementation in a range of contexts, including the organisation’s strategy, culture and broader marketing environment,
- evaluate the interconnectivity between corporate, business and marketing objectives and consider the impact of the external environment and organisational resources on their development and achievement,
- conduct a marketing audit, including a detailed analysis of internal and external marketing environments,
- assess the findings of the audit and develop a strategy-appropriate marketing plan that is responsive to change,
- critically assess segmentation, targeting and positioning, their interaction, and develop effective strategies for them,
- use a range of positioning platforms (including price, quality, service and brand perception) to establish an organisation’s marketing positioning strategy,
- be sympathetic to retaining existing customers when developing new strategies and plans.
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:
- apply the marketing mix and determine strategies that deliver highly effective and competitive marketing activities that meet customer needs and organisational objectives, in different organisational contexts and sectors,
- be aware of both domestic and international contexts for these activities,
- develop and manage a brand and product portfolio in the context of the organisation’s marketing strategies and objectives,
- develop and implement an effective and efficient channel management strategy which reflects the needs of stakeholders and considers the impact of the external environment,
- develop an effective and innovative communications strategy and plan which clearly delivers the organisation’s proposition to the market, through effective segmentation and targeting of internal and external markets,
- use an innovative and effective integrated marketing mix to reinforce the organisation’s brand values and overall marketing proposition and competitive advantage,
- determine customer requirements for product and service delivery to ensure the marketing proposition is customer-focused, efficient and effective.
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:
- recommend how a marketing function should be structured to deliver competitive advantage, marketing and organisational success,
- assess a range of approaches that can be used to manage the marketing function on a day-to-day basis,
- prepare plans for showing how a team should be structured, selected, formed, managed and developed to demonstrate effective performance against objectives,
- critically assess the organisation’s resource needs and capabilities for the marketing team and manage its marketing activities effectively and efficiently,
- prepare appropriate budgets and accounting documentation to support the financial management of the marketing function and associated activities,
- critically assess the ongoing financial situation including manageability of the budget, financial stability and success of the marketing function.
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:
- identify the organisation’s information needs, scope of research projects and resource capability to underpin the development of a business case to support marketing projects,
- develop an effective business case, complete with justifications, financial assessments and consideration of the organisation’s resource capacity and capability to deliver,
- undertake a risk assessment programme with suggestions on how to mitigate for risks facing the organisation and the achievement of its business and marketing objectives,
- design, develop and plan significant marketing programmes, using project management tools and techniques, designed to deliver marketing projects effectively, in terms of quality, resource and delivery,
- integrate a range of marketing tools and techniques to support the development and implementation of a range of marketing projects,
- monitor and measure the effectiveness and outcomes of marketing projects through the end-to-end project process.
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:
- the CIM Professional Certificate in Marketing (either the 2002 syllabus or the 2008 syllabus).
- an appropriate business or marketing Bachelors or Masters Degree (or an equivalent qualification) from a provider that’s formally recognised by the appropriate official body and by CIM where a minimum of one third of the credits come from marketing (i.e. 120 credits in Bachelors degrees or 60 credits with Masters Degrees).
- experience in a marketing management role that has provided you with the ability to evidence that you can meet the learning outcomes of the CIM Professional Certificate in Marketing if required to do so and is sufficient to pass the entry test to Level 6.
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.
