Marketing Strategy Training Course

Duration 10 days 16 modules · 65 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Marketing Managers, Brand Managers and others
Fee from USD 2,200 KSh 190,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 16 Nov 2026 Course code SD-M-064

Before you join: Participants should have practical exposure to marketing, sales, product management, customer experience, commercial planning, or business development.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Market leadership depends on more than strong campaigns. Marketing teams must choose attractive markets, define where they can credibly win, build offers customers prefer, defend margins, and align sales, channels, service, and investment behind clear commercial priorities. Without these choices, organisations often spread budgets across too many segments, compete on price, launch poorly differentiated offers, and measure activity rather than business results.

This course develops the strategic marketing skills needed to build and execute a market leadership agenda. Participants assess market structure, customer needs, competitive positions, segments, value propositions, brands, portfolios, prices, channels, demand generation plans, and customer journeys. They apply practical frameworks including STP, Porter's Five Forces, the BCG Growth-Share Matrix, Ansoff Matrix, customer lifetime value, marketing ROI, account-based marketing, service blueprints, and KPI trees. The course also addresses the operating disciplines required to turn strategy into action: investment cases, sales alignment, governance, implementation roadmaps, risk controls, and performance reviews.

Delivery combines instructor briefings, sector cases, facilitated analysis, group discussions, simulations, and structured application to participants' own markets. The 10-day programme is available as classroom training in 50+ cities or live online, with training days running from 08:30 to 16:30 and approximately 6.5 contact hours each day. Participants leave with an evidence-based market leadership marketing strategy, including strategic choices, target segments, positioning, portfolio priorities, commercial measures, and a twelve-month implementation roadmap. A certificate of completion is awarded to participants who complete the course.

The course is suited to managers responsible for growth, market development, brand, product, customer experience, sales planning, channel performance, or commercial transformation.

What you will be able to do

  • Diagnose market attractiveness, profit pools, competitive pressure, and leadership opportunities
  • Segment markets and select priority customer groups using value and accessibility criteria
  • Develop positioning, value propositions, message architecture, and distinctive brand assets
  • Design pricing, portfolio, channel, and demand generation strategies aligned to commercial goals
  • Align marketing and sales through shared revenue plans, lead rules, and account-based marketing
  • Build investment cases using marketing ROI, customer lifetime value, and scenario analysis
  • Create implementation roadmaps, governance routines, KPI trees, and measurement dashboards
  • Present an evidence-based market leadership marketing strategy and twelve-month action plan

Benefits of attending

For you

  • A defensible method for setting market leadership priorities
  • Stronger credibility in commercial planning and investment discussions
  • Practical templates for segment, proposition, channel, and pricing decisions
  • Ability to challenge unfocused campaigns and weak market assumptions
  • A completed strategy document applicable to an active business priority

For your organisation

  • More focused investment in priority markets, segments, offers, and channels
  • Clearer differentiation against competitors and reduced dependence on price discounting
  • Improved coordination between marketing, sales, service, and channel teams
  • Better marketing budget decisions using incremental return and customer value evidence
  • Faster strategy execution through defined owners, milestones, measures, and review routines

Course modules

16 modules over 10 days

Participants can define a market leadership ambition and the strategic choices required to support it.

  • Market leadership choices: where to play, how to win, required capabilities
  • Category economics, profit pools, and value migration mapped from market evidence
  • Assess relative market share, share of wallet, penetration, and growth headroom
  • Define leadership ambition using revenue, margin, penetration, and preference measures
  • Competitive advantage tested through customer value, cost position, and defensibility
  • Translate corporate objectives into explicit marketing strategic choices and boundaries

Participants can turn customer and market evidence into commercially useful strategic insight.

  • Jobs to Be Done interviews structured around context, motivation, and trade-offs
  • Voice-of-customer evidence coded into functional, emotional, and social needs
  • Separate stated preferences from observed behaviour, switching triggers, and barriers
  • Design research briefs with decisions, hypotheses, samples, and evidence thresholds
  • Triangulate survey, transaction, service, and sales data before strategic conclusions
  • Create insight statements linking audience tension, evidence, and commercial implication

Participants can identify, size, assess, and prioritise commercially attractive target segments.

  • Segment markets using needs, behaviours, value potential, and accessibility criteria
  • Build segment profiles from firmographic, demographic, attitudinal, and behavioural variables
  • Size priority segments through incidence, penetration, frequency, and average spend
  • Score attractiveness using growth, margin, fit, risk, and competitive intensity
  • Choose target segments using differentiated, concentrated, or account-based coverage models
  • Document segment assumptions, exclusions, and evidence gaps for later validation

Participants can create credible positions and value propositions that distinguish their offer.

  • Positioning statements define target audience, frame of reference, benefit, and reason-to-believe
  • Perceptual maps expose white space, crowding, and credible competitive distance
  • Value propositions connect customer jobs, pains, gains, and proof points
  • Test message claims against customer evidence, competitor claims, and delivery capability
  • Distinguish points of parity from points of difference in buying decisions
  • Craft message architecture for corporate, product, segment, and campaign communications

Participants can strengthen brand preference through clear identity, architecture, and tracking measures.

  • Brand identity systems align purpose, promise, personality, and distinctive assets
  • Keller's Customer-Based Brand Equity model diagnoses salience, meaning, responses, relationships
  • Audit brand consistency across sales materials, service encounters, and digital touchpoints
  • Codify brand codes: names, symbols, colours, sounds, and verbal cues
  • Manage brand architecture across masterbrands, sub-brands, endorsed brands, and offers
  • Set brand tracking measures for awareness, associations, consideration, and preference

Participants can identify and improve customer journey moments that influence growth and retention.

  • Customer journey maps connect stages, tasks, emotions, channels, and moments
  • Identify friction using journey evidence, complaint themes, abandonment, and service data
  • Prioritise moments that shape conversion, retention, advocacy, and perceived value
  • Service blueprints assign frontstage, backstage, process, and technology responsibilities
  • Redesign handoffs between marketing, sales, onboarding, and customer service teams
  • Specify experience standards, owners, measures, and recovery actions for priority moments

Participants can develop pricing strategies that reflect customer value, competition, and margin requirements.

  • Value-based pricing links willingness to pay, alternatives, and quantified outcomes
  • Price corridors compare customer value, competitor reference prices, and cost floors
  • Estimate price elasticity from experiments, historical transactions, and market signals
  • Build price-pack architecture using tiers, features, volumes, and service levels
  • Apply behavioural pricing techniques: anchoring, decoys, framing, and reference points
  • Govern discounts with approval rules, floors, exceptions, and margin visibility

Participants can prioritise products, services, and innovation investments within a market-facing portfolio.

  • BCG Growth-Share Matrix assesses portfolio roles, investment needs, and cash generation
  • Ansoff Matrix distinguishes penetration, market development, product development, diversification
  • Map offer lifecycle positions using adoption, revenue, margin, and competitive indicators
  • Rationalise underperforming offers using strategic fit, economics, complexity, and customer demand
  • Sequence innovation bets through desirability, feasibility, viability, and strategic fit
  • Set portfolio priorities, resource allocation, milestones, and kill criteria

Participants can design channel strategies that balance coverage, control, customer preference, and profitability.

  • Route-to-market design matches buying preferences, economics, control, and coverage
  • Compare direct, distributor, partner, retail, marketplace, and digital channel roles
  • Channel conflict scenarios clarify territories, pricing rules, leads, and account ownership
  • Set partner value propositions, enablement requirements, incentives, and performance measures
  • Plan omnichannel journeys without duplicating contacts, messages, or service commitments
  • Calculate channel profitability using acquisition costs, margins, returns, and support costs

Participants can build integrated demand generation plans tied to defined commercial objectives.

  • Demand generation funnels connect reach, response, qualification, conversion, and retention
  • Select campaign objectives using awareness, consideration, acquisition, activation, or loyalty
  • Media planning balances reach, frequency, audience quality, cost, and timing
  • Content pillars translate positioning into useful themes, formats, and editorial priorities
  • Build integrated campaign briefs with audience, proposition, channels, budget, and measures
  • Apply test-and-learn plans to creative, audiences, offers, and landing experiences

Participants can establish shared commercial processes that improve lead quality, pipeline contribution, and account growth.

  • Shared revenue plans define target accounts, roles, stages, and handover rules
  • Service-level agreements specify lead definitions, response times, acceptance, and feedback
  • Account-based marketing selects buying committees, account insights, plays, and measures
  • Map buying groups by economic buyer, user, influencer, and gatekeeper roles
  • Sales enablement assets connect customer objections, proof, discovery, and next actions
  • Closed-loop reporting links campaign sources to pipeline, wins, and revenue quality

Participants can evaluate marketing investments using commercial returns, customer value, and scenario analysis.

  • Zero-based marketing budgets connect strategic priorities, activities, costs, and expected returns
  • Marketing ROI calculations separate incremental contribution, spend, attribution, and payback
  • Customer lifetime value models integrate margin, retention, frequency, and acquisition cost
  • Scenario plans test budget reductions, competitor moves, and demand shocks
  • Allocate investment using marginal returns, strategic importance, and execution capacity
  • Present investment cases with assumptions, risks, milestones, and decision requests

Participants can anticipate competitive moves and develop practical strategies to defend or challenge market positions.

  • Porter's Five Forces assesses structural profitability and sources of competitive pressure
  • Competitor dossiers compare objectives, capabilities, offers, channels, and likely responses
  • War-gaming tests competitor reactions to pricing, launches, claims, and channel changes
  • Defend leadership through switching costs, network effects, assets, and relationships
  • Challenge incumbents by targeting neglected segments, weaknesses, and inconvenient buying processes
  • Prepare response playbooks for attacks, disruptions, negative publicity, and new entrants

Participants can convert marketing strategy into owned initiatives, governance routines, and implementation controls.

  • Strategy-on-a-page links ambition, choices, initiatives, measures, and governance
  • Translate priorities into quarterly objectives, key results, owners, and dependencies
  • RACI matrices clarify decision rights for campaigns, pricing, brands, and channels
  • Build implementation roadmaps with workstreams, milestones, resources, and critical paths
  • Identify execution risks using likelihood, impact, early signals, and mitigations
  • Run marketing operating rhythms through reviews, dashboards, decisions, and escalation

Participants can define measures and review routines that connect marketing activity with business outcomes.

  • Balanced scorecards connect leading indicators, commercial outcomes, customer measures, and learning
  • Define KPI trees from enterprise goals through marketing drivers and activities
  • Attribution models compare first-touch, last-touch, multi-touch, and incrementality evidence
  • Design controlled experiments with hypotheses, comparison groups, sample logic, and guardrails
  • Dashboard specifications state metric definitions, sources, cadence, owners, and actions
  • Use post-investment reviews to retain lessons, stop waste, and revise assumptions

Participants can build, review, defend, and present a complete market leadership marketing strategy with a twelve-month implementation roadmap.

  • Integrate market diagnosis, segmentation, positioning, portfolio, channels, and investment choices
  • Complete evidence-backed assumptions, risks, dependencies, and measurement architecture
  • Construct a strategy-on-a-page and twelve-month implementation roadmap
  • Defend strategic choices against competitor scenarios, budget constraints, and stakeholder challenges
  • Peer review tests coherence between ambition, customer value, execution, and economics
  • Present a market leadership strategy with clear decisions and governance

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Market leadership strategy-on-a-page template
  2. Segment attractiveness and target selection scorecard
  3. Positioning statement and value proposition template
  4. Integrated demand generation campaign brief
  5. Marketing ROI and customer lifetime value model
  6. Twelve-month marketing implementation roadmap

Who should attend

  • Marketing Managers — need to convert business goals into focused market and growth plans
  • Brand Managers — need stronger positioning, brand architecture, and portfolio decisions
  • Product Managers — need to align offers, pricing, lifecycle choices, and customer value
  • Business Development Managers — need market entry, targeting, channel, and competitive strategy skills
  • Sales Leaders — need shared demand plans, lead governance, and account-based marketing approaches
  • Customer Experience Managers — need to connect journey improvement with market differentiation and retention

Skills and tools covered

Market segmentationStrategic positioningBrand portfolio managementValue-based pricingMarketing investment analysisCommercial execution planning

Tools and standards

STP framework, Porter's Five Forces, BCG Growth-Share Matrix, Ansoff Matrix

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to introduce strategic methods, followed by market cases, facilitated analysis, group exercises, competitive simulations, and structured application planning. Participants work with realistic commercial situations such as declining category share, new market entry, pricing pressure, channel conflict, weak brand preference, and stalled demand generation. Trainers use examples relevant to the cohort's sectors and encourage participants to test assumptions against customer, competitor, financial, and operational evidence. Time is reserved for peer review and refinement of each participant's market leadership strategy.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical exposure to marketing, sales, product management, customer experience, commercial planning, or business development. They should be comfortable discussing customers, competitors, revenue objectives, budgets, and basic performance measures. Experience with marketing plans, campaign planning, account management, or market research is useful. This is an intermediate course, so it does not teach introductory marketing terminology from first principles. No formal marketing qualification, advanced mathematics, specialist research software, design skills, or prior experience with every framework is required.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

Participants need practical familiarity with marketing, sales, product, customer experience, or commercial planning. The course assumes participants can discuss customers, competitors, revenue objectives, and budgets, but no formal marketing qualification is required.

Participants should bring non-confidential information about a market, customer segment, product, service, competitor, campaign, or commercial challenge they want to address. A laptop is useful for working on strategy templates, calculations, and implementation plans.

It is designed for experienced marketing, brand, product, business development, sales, channel, and customer experience professionals. It is particularly relevant for managers expected to turn growth ambitions into focused market plans.

This course focuses on strategic choices that determine market position, commercial priorities, investment, and execution. It goes beyond campaign channels and introductory concepts to address segmentation, positioning, pricing, portfolio, competition, sales alignment, and marketing ROI.

Participants develop working components of a market leadership strategy throughout the programme. These can be adapted for annual planning, market entry decisions, portfolio reviews, pricing proposals, demand plans, or commercial transformation initiatives.

The first part builds the market diagnosis, customer, segmentation, positioning, brand, pricing, portfolio, and channel choices. The second part focuses on demand generation, sales alignment, investment, competitive response, execution, measurement, and the final capstone presentation.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.