Qualification - Associate Diploma In Marketing

Course CodeVBS005
Fee CodeAS
Duration (approx)1500 hours
QualificationAssociate Diploma

Why Study Marketing?

This distance learning course in marketing provides you with a detailed insight into marketing.

Marketing Managers are responsible for all aspects of marketing, not just sales (Sales managers deal only with sales). In smaller businesses, the marketing manager may often also be the sales manager, but in large well structured organisations, the Marketing Manager could find themselves in charge of tasks as diverse as stock control and transport, packaging, general promotions, and after sales service, with one or several sales managers heading sales teams working under their direction.

This course aims to train you on a broad basis to undertake anything from a narrow to very broad scope of activities within the realm of business operations, specific to marketing.

 

Modules

Core ModulesThese modules provide foundation knowledge for the Qualification - Associate Diploma In Marketing.
 Business Studies BBS101
 E Commerce Marketing BIT100
 Marketing Foundations VBS109
 Marketing Psychology BPS107
 Publishing I (Publishing Children's Literature) BWR107
 Research Project I BGN102
 Sales Management BBS102
 Sales Skills VBS108
 Advertising and Promoting BBS202
 Event Management BRE209
 Project Management BBS201
 Marketing Systems BBS303
 Statistics BSC304
 
Elective ModulesIn addition to the core modules, students study any 2 of the following 8 modules.
 Bookkeeping Foundations BBS103
 Industrial Psychology BPS103
 Leadership BBS110
 Photoshop VIT202
 Virtual and Hybrid Events BRE218
 Business Planning BBS302
 Copywriting BWR310
 Professional Practice For Consultants BBS301
 

Note that each module in the Qualification - Associate Diploma In Marketing is a short course in its own right, and may be studied separately.


Consider How You might Begin Selling Online
 
Many physical shops have an online presence as well as a shopfront, so you can visit their shop or go online to their website and purchase the same goods.
Online sellers open up their market to a lot more potential customers. If you are a physical bookstore, you can sell books to people who come to your physical shop and buy them. If you offer online sales, you can post the books to customers anywhere in the world, but postage costs may be prohibitive. If you sell eBooks, then customers can buy them anywhere in the world and download them without any postage costs.

The most effective way to sell may depend to some extent upon what you are selling; however more mainstream businesses now sell online than ever; and to ignore the potential for online selling can be a perilous mistake for any business today.

A good example of a physical shopfront business that also effectively utilises an online market is that of Tescos in the UK. Tescos (a supermarket) recently launched a mobile “shopfront” at Heathrow Airport. The billboard style sign allows customers to search through images of groceries and scan barcodes of the products that they wish to purchase and then have those products delivered to their doorstep on arrival either at their destination, or when they get home from their holiday. Anyone who’s ever been on a long holiday knows what it’s like to arrive home either to an empty fridge or one full of mouldy food. This marketing technique fills that need.

As mentioned above, local, regional and even national retailers are coming under increasing pressure from online shopping. Every day traditional retailers are closing down due to this pressure. Department stores in Australia in 2012 are currently identifying a loss in market share caused by customers purchasing goods online from department stores in other countries. Despite the distance, the John Lewis online store in the UK was guaranteeing Australian customers a faster delivery than David Jones was guaranteeing within Australia. Clearly the dynamics of competition, in this instance, were changed by the online shopping phenomenon.

Starting an online business is not a ticket to instant success! Like any other mode of trading an online business, needs to have a business plan and a marketing plan. It also requires knowledge of how the online selling process works, how to capture and retain customers (as already discussed) and how to utilise all the forms of media available at your fingertips to your business advantage. You also need to know the advantages and advantages of operating an online business, plus the associated costs and the potential pitfalls.
What do you need to set up an online store?
There are a myriad of packages available that are fully integrated and simple to install and run prices range from a few hundred dollars to several thousands of dollars a month depending on what you include in your package.

The following are the basic requirements:
  • A registered domain name.
  • A social media presence (social media accounts, active and being used appropriately)
  • A well-designed web page.
  • A business email address.
  • A secure web host.
  • An ecommerce system (including a shopping cart) with integrated analysis (these can be bought as packages).
  • An internet data plan that is appropriate to the size of the business.
  • Electronic security (e.g. SSL [secured socket layer] encryption – this is very important if you are offering customers credit card payments services). SSL certificates are issued (by software providers) according to your business needs.
  • Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM); these will optimise your ranking and your marketing however be wary as this can run to many thousands of dollars – make sure that the package you chose to set up your store has this integrated as part of the software rather than as ‘add-ons’ which are a lot more expensive. This is potentially something you can waste money on, so be sure to engage people with an established track record; and do not let them work on your site until you are certain they properly understand your product and customer demographic.
  • Payment providers such as credit card providers and a merchant bank account
  • Payment gateways (that are integrated into your website) – there are many payment gateways you can use for example such as PayPal, eWay, SecurePay etc. Although not all online stores use payment gateways if you want to accept credit card payments it is far more secure to do so through a payment gateway. Credit card information is very strictly regulated so you must understand these regulations and abide by them (you can source this information by contacting the various banks etc.  that offer credits cards). You need to set up an an account with the payment provider.
  • Appropriate software licenses. Do not try to save money with illegal copies. You are more likely to be caught than what you realize.
  • A delivery system e.g. couriers, postal system etc.


Meet some Of our academics

John Mason

John Mason is one of Australia's most prolific writers. He saw his first work published when at secondary school, where he worked on the school magazine. In 1973 he was writing a weekly column for his local newspaper and by 1975 he was a regular contributor to Australia's national magazine "Your Garden". John was engaged by Victoria's Dept of Youth, Sport and Recreation to write a book on Fun and Fitness Trails in 1978. In 1981 he saw two more books published (one in America, another in Australia), and commenced writing regularly for the Self Sufficiency Magazine, Grass Roots. John is a long term member of the Australian Society of Authors, the Garden Media Guild (UK) and the Horticultural Media Association (Australia). He has written or contributed to over 100 books, many published by international publishers and published more than 2,000 articles across a range of genres (Gardening, Education, Business, Farming, Fitness). In addition, John has contributed to and overseen the development of more than 600 distance education courses which encompass around 20 million words. He has been an avid photographer for 40 years, building a collection of over 100,000 images, which are used to illustrate his work. His marine animal photos are even used by Legoland in England, on their Atlantis ride! Writer, Manager, Teacher and Businessman with over 40 years interenational experience covering Education, Publishing, Leisure Management, Education, and Horticulture. He has extensive experience both as a public servant, and as a small business owner. John is a well respected member of many professional associations, and author of over seventy books and of over two thousand magazine articles.


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