A firm's adeptness in understanding markets and creating customer value is a primary determinant of its growth and sustainability. As market structures and communication technologies evolve, managers face new challenges in their efforts to market products and services. Strategic Marketing Management provides participants the opportunity to actively study the concepts that are critical to building the winning marketing strategies that help garner market leadership. Most importantly, this program offers a framework for market definition and evolution that will help participants integrate learned concepts into a coherent and comprehensive strategy and action plan.

• General managers with a need to improve their performance in contributing to the customer value creation process.
• Emerging marketing managers (with basic marketing principles) who need to develop strategic marketing applications to help formulate solid marketing strategies.
• Mid- to senior-level marketing managers seeking to enhance their planning and implementation skills through a structured approach to market analysis and strategy development.
• Recently appointed marketing professionals with a career in the sales/marketing function.
• Senior and middle managers in any functional area who need to develop a proficiency in strategic marketing.

Participant titles may include, but are not limited to:

• Brand Manager
• Business Intelligence Manager
• Director of Business Development
• Director of Operations
• Financial Analyst
• General Manager
• Marketing Director
• Marketing Manager
• Senior Marketing Manager
• Vice President of Marketing

Participants will:

• Become familiar with core concepts and frameworks that will contribute to strategy making.
• Evaluate their own businesses relative to new organizational models and online threats.
• Explore theories associated with successful business endurance.

• Applying Customer Lifetime Value to Strategy Formulation
• Building, Monitoring, and Using Brand Equity
• Cost and Share Leverage Principles
• Customer and Competitor Analysis
• Positioning and Value Creation
• Product Life Cycle and Market Evolution
• Product Portfolio Analysis
• Second-Generation e-Business Model
• Segmentation and Targeting
• Strategic Pricing Analysis

• Pricing and Strategy-Building Simulations: Multiple interactive simulations provide the opportunity to practice strategy development and witness the immediate impact of decisions. Participants compete in teams to explore pricing/supply/demand to the best balance.
• Marketing Strategy Toolkit: Participants will return to the workplace with an essential toolkit for developing successful marketing strategies, including an online resource that can be used to help create pricing scenarios.

Q. I am a senior manager in finance, looking for a better understanding of marketing. Can this program help? 
A. Yes, it can. Although the primary audience for this program is marketing managers, it can benefit senior and middle managers in functional areas other than marketing who would like to gain the understanding of strategic marketing needed for top management positions.

Paul W. Farris
Landmark Communications Professor of Business Administration, The Darden School, University of Virginia.

Ervin R. Shames
Visiting Lecturer, The Darden School, University of Virginia.

Robert E. Spekman
Tayloe Murphy Professor of Business Administration and Area Coordinator, Marketing, The Darden School, University of Virginia.