On this microcredential, you’ll develop critical marketing skills and knowledge to make better business decisions. You’ll benefit from case studies and insight from a range of sectors, including manufacturing, retail, professional services and healthcare, with examples from international brands, local charities, and social enterprises. By the end of the course, you’ll have learnt how to use digital and offline marketing techniques and tools to solve management problems across diverse professional contexts, whether you work in a commercial or non-commercial industry.
Key features
- Learn practical skills that you can apply to your work straight away
- Interact with co-learners and a course mentor to further support your learning
- Created by academic experts from The Open University’s triple-accredited Business School (AACSB, AMBA and EQUIS) with input from industry experts
- The course has a global focus and delivers transferable skills for diverse sectors and organisations
Register
Warning
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| Start |
End |
Fee
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Register |
| 04 Jul 2026 |
Oct 2026 |
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| Registration closes 03/07/26 (places subject to availability) Click to register
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This module is expected to start for the last time in January 2027.
What you will study
This undergraduate microcredential will help you build a practical marketing toolkit that you can use throughout your career. During this 10-week course, you’ll cover the following topics.
- Understanding and influencing consumer behaviour and decision making
- Choosing your customers, distinguishing between different groups and how to competitively position your offer
- Creating winning propositions to help you stay ahead of the competition
- The principles of the marketing communications mix
- Delivering value through distribution to meet the needs of a range of different stakeholders
- Pricing strategies, assessing price sensitivity, price discrimination and customers’ perceptions
- Marketing in a complex world, external factors and how to evaluate them
- Gathering and interpreting data through research, including information-gathering methods
You will learn
By the end of this Continuing Professional Development (CPD) course, you’ll be able to:
- solve a range of commercial and non-commercial marketing problems using appropriate tools and concepts
- apply the latest tools of product and service design, distribution management and pricing to real situations
- collect relevant information for marketing decision-making
- interpret a variety of different types of information from different information sources
- evaluate and implement appropriate exchange methods, including relationships in different situations.
Skills you will gain
- Identifying customers’ motivations and responding to them
- Analysing the environment to identify marketing opportunities
- Establishing effective relationships with stakeholders
- Interpreting and using data to inform marketing decisions
- Managing customers’ willingness to pay
- Developing communication strategies appropriate for your product or service
- Positioning your offer to attract the right customers
- Building compelling business and personal brands
- Identifying customers’ perceptions of risk and addressing them
- Leveraging relationships with distributors for marketing success
- Differentiating your offer from the competition
Vocational relevance
Materials include real-world examples and industry insight, ensuring your learning is relevant to the workplace. The course will particularly benefit:
- professionals who would like to progress to management level
- those who are new to a marketing role or work in marketing but lack formal qualifications
- senior professionals looking to develop their marketing and management skills
- self-employed professionals looking to develop their skills and knowledge of marketing.
Created by leading academics from The Open University’s triple-accredited Business School
- Haider Ali is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the OU’s Business School. Haider has consulted and taught globally and published in the Journal of Marketing Management.
Entry
This undergraduate-level microcredential is ideal for business professionals who wish to broaden their understanding of marketing and develop knowledge and skills to improve their performance at work. You don’t need any prior experience or qualifications to enrol. All required skills and foundational knowledge are covered within this microcredential.
Please note
- The course material doesn’t assume learners are working. Past experiences will be just as relevant.
- All teaching is in English, and your English proficiency needs to be adequate for undergraduate study. As a guide, this corresponds to Level 5.5 of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). However, you won’t need to provide a formal English language score to enrol.
Course length
This 10-week course will take around 10 hours of self-paced learning each week, adding up to about 100 hours to complete.
If you have a disability
The course is delivered online and makes use of a variety of online resources. If you use specialist hardware or software to assist you in using a computer or the internet, you can contact us about the support that can be given to meet your needs.
To find out more about what kind of support and adjustments might be available, contact us or visit our disability support pages.
Study materials
What's included
All learning materials, exercises and activities are delivered entirely online.
While certain content can be downloaded, some content is exclusively accessible online, requiring a reliable internet connection for viewing. Please consider this if you are travelling.
Computing requirements
- Primary device – A desktop or laptop computer. It’s possible to access some materials on a mobile phone, tablet or Chromebook; however, they will not be suitable as your primary device.
- Our OU Study app operates on supported versions of Android and iOS.
- Operating systems – Windows 11 or latest supported macOS. Microsoft will no longer support Windows 10 as of 14 October 2025.
- Internet access – Broadband or mobile connection.
Teaching and assessment
Study support
- Learn 100% online on the OU’s learning platform with a mix of video, audio and written materials
- Engage in interactive learning through self-assessment questions, polls, tasks and reflection
- Share ideas and experiences in discussion with other learners, building skills, confidence and knowledge
- Receive support from mentors who guide discussions and answer questions
- Study at a time that suits you with the flexibility to access the course from your desktop, tablet or mobile device
Assessment
You’ll take part in weekly tasks and discussions with co-learners to support and consolidate your learning. Towards the end of the course, you’ll submit a project or assessment demonstrating the skills you’ve acquired. This will be marked and graded by subject matter experts and make up 100% of your final mark.
What you will gain
10 UK credits at undergraduate level from The Open University*. Academic credits are awarded on passing the final assessment. These will be at undergraduate level 6 of the Framework for Higher Education (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) / level 10 of the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework.
*Academic credit may be used towards selected OU qualifications. For more details, including eligible qualifications, visit Counting microcredentials towards OU qualifications. The credit awarded may also be used at another university, subject to the agreement of the receiving institution.
Students also studied
Students who studied this module also studied at some time:
Future availability
Business management: marketing principles and practice typically starts twice a year – in January and July. This page describes the microcredential that will begin in July 2026 and January 2027.
How to register
To register a place on this module return to the top of the page and use the Click to register button.
Regulations
As a student of The Open University, you should be aware of the content of the academic regulations which are available on our
Student Policies and Regulations website.