MSc Digital Marketing Strategy Timetables and Modules
Note: Modules offered each academic year are subject to change. Listed below are the modules and timetable for 2024/2025
Michaelmas Term |
Hilary Term |
Trinity Term |
Electives |
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Michaelmas Term (September to December)
- Digital Design & User Experience
- Digital Marketing Communication
- Digital Marketing Strategy
- Marketing Intelligence & Analytics
- Transformation Management for Individuals and Organisations
Hilary Term (January to April)
Trinity Term (May to August)
- Dissertation or Company Research Project
- This project allows students to showcase the knowledge they have gained and enhance their career potential by specialising in a particular area.
Electives (Not available in Trinity Term)
- Consumer Value Management
- Digital Business Models
- eCommerce
- Entrepreneurship, Creativity & Innovation
- Sales Management
Module Descriptions
Digital Design and User Experience (5 ECTS)
Marketing continues to benefit from an evolving array of technologies that provide a greater understanding of markets, insights into buyer behaviours and more creative ways to reach, engage and interact with customers.
Consumers in both a B2B and B2C context are increasingly online and play a more active role in marketing - no longer passive recipients in communications, customers and prospects are vocal and provide input and feedback; not just to the company’s marketing messages, but also to other customers and prospects. Digital technologies enable tailored or personalised outreach to consumers regardless of where they are located and online activities can often be measured in real time to optimise spend and maximise effectiveness.
To better understand, reach, acquire and engage a target audience, marketing professionals need to understand the underlying technologies and be able to employ them when and where they can be most effective in supporting the success of the marketing strategy.
Having successfully completed this module, the student should be able to:
- Critically examine the key technologies that drive digital marketing practices across the primary channels of search, display, email, social, mobile.
- Introduce and apply a framework for evaluating and improving a product or service digital presences and digital marketing campaigns.
- Build hands on experience with website and digital marketing technologies.
- Understand implications of new technologies (such as generative AI) and changing market environments (depreciation of cookie technology) on digital design & UX and how to leverage and navigate them.
Digital Marketing Communication (5 ECTS)
Digital marketing is continually changing the way organisations communicate and interact with their customers and prospects today. This module focuses on how to develop digital strategies that target customers across the entire customer journey using key digital channels. Key to the module will be understanding how to research, plan, design and implement digital marketing campaigns in real world scenarios. The module content encompasses Digital Strategy, Search Engine and Display Advertising, Search Engine Optimisation, Content Marketing (Organic and Paid), and Measuring the impact of Digital Marketing. The module is practical in nature, and students will use real life digital marketing tools.
Having successfully completed this module, the student should be able to:
- Understand the impact and influence that digital channels have across the customer journey in today’s Omni-channel world.
- Devise and develop digital marketing strategies and plans for a range of business types.
- Research, develop and target customer personas in the digital context.
- Acquire key skills of using digital marketing tools and applications including paid and organic media channels.
- Create an end to end Digital Marketing Plan for a business of their choice.
- Assess digital technologies and applications and present findings.
- Understand how to assess and measure the impact of digital marketing on business goals.
Digital Marketing Strategy (5 ECTS)
This subject is concerned with the changing strategic nature of marketing in the digital era. Digital technologies have transformed the marketing, business and even societal landscape. This course aims to help attendants to grasp the full extent of those changes and comprehend the implications (opportunities and threats) of the digital revolution for entrepreneurs, marketers, brand managers and consumers. Too often, digital marketing is equated to digital communication (e.g. Paid Search Advertising, Display advertising, Social Media Marketing etc…), this is a fundamental aspect of marketing but this course is more concerned with emerging marketing strategy in a digital world. Marketing is primarily concerned with the task of providing consumers with a value proposition that best match their needs (current and future). To achieve this, marketers must understand fully the digital context within which consumers’ decisions take place, they must develop value proposition that serves both consumers (who may use those services for free) and customers (who are willing to pay for a related value proposition). They need to segment, position and brand their offering in a manner that is sometimes fundamentally different than with traditional product or services. Accordingly, this module unpicks the key marketing issues within the digital world and introduces participants to the useful digital tools and meaningful theoretical and strategic new model.
Having successfully completed this module, students should be able to:
- Understand consumer behaviour in the digital context and assess opportunities and challenges for the modern marketing practitioner.
- Identify, and know how to address, the key decisions facing digital marketing managers and marketing decision-makers.
- Gain a full appreciation of the key issues within digital strategy development and implementation.
Marketing Intelligence & Analytics (10 ECTS)
Marketing analytics is one of the key competences that many companies worldwide need to acquire in order to deal with the increasingly dynamic business environment. This module will provide some applied tools of descriptive and predictive analysis to improve decision making in organisations. These tools can be used to analyse data from various sources, such as survey, CRM, mobile, social media data, etc. The major objective of this module is to provide students with a sound understanding of how to organise data analytic process and to equip them with the required data analytical skills for their future careers.
Having successfully completed this module, the student should be able to:
- Develop an analytical strategy for an organisation.
- Identify the appropriate methodology for a given managerial problem.
- Understand the various ways through which organisations gather marketing data and generate marketing intelligence.
- Apply marketing analytics.
- Translate analytical results into substantive managerial advice.
Transformation Management for Individuals and Organisations (5 ECTS)
This subject is concerned with the changing nature of technology and human interaction with technology in the digital era. Our lives and professions are changing or have been impacted already by technology, many people struggle to embrace this change. This course aims to help attendants to grasp the full extent of these changes and comprehend the implications (opportunities and threats) of our evolution in an increasingly digital world.
- We will explore themes like habit formation, ways of thinking, artificial intelligence and its effect on every aspect of our lives.
- We will learn useful frameworks to model change in our lives and careers.
- We will explore how our attention, habits and focus have been threatened due to our use of and reliance on technology.
- We will explore artificial intelligence and how it will radically change the working world.
- We will explore how the world needs creative thinkers and leaders more than ever before and how we need to build human networks more than social ones.
Having successfully completed this module, the student should be able to
- Understand seemingly complex topics in a very simple way.
- Understand the challenges and opportunities that come with emerging technology including business disruption and personal disruption to jobs.
- Understand how the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn is now a competitive advantage.
- Demonstrate an ability to identify and critically review where marketing is going and not just where it is now.
- Understand habit formation and learning and how technology has been manipulated to take advantage of neuroscience to keep us on platforms for longer.
Ethical Business for Digital Marketing (5 ECTS)
Digital marketing giants like Facebook and Google have been plagued by high-profile scandals in recent years, especially since the Cambridge Analytica debacle that led to public outcry and political hearings on both sides of the Atlantic. Such scandals contributed to a plummeting reputation of the industry, to a degree that the New York Times declared: “Silicon Valley is not your friend” (Cohen 2017). Thus, the euphoria that had been surrounding social media and digital advertising for a decade has recently taken a downward turn towards a potentially dystopian future (Tufekci 2018).
Against this background the module aims to provide students with knowledge of the related concepts of business ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), and sustainability and their relation to digital marketing and communications. It further aims to deliver the skills to enable students to critically appraise the history of and current discourse on business ethics, CSR and sustainability, and comprehend the multifaceted nature of these concepts. The forces driving data privacy, CSR, and sustainability initiatives will be explored, their impact on the firm’s marketing and communication practices will be identified, and their relationship with organisational stakeholders and profitability will be assessed.
Having successfully completed this module, the student should be able to:
- Describe and interrelate current social and digital trends by using different theoretical lenses to determine the role of marketing in society;
- Critique a range of key discourses and themes reflecting changes in society, and explain how these changes impinge directly and indirectly on digital marketing decision-making and practice.
- Be familiar with the basics of major ethical theories and current challenges in digital ethics.
- Work effectively both as a member of a team and independently, by actively contributing to group discussions, reflecting on your own thoughts and opinions, and devise different persuasive arguments using oral and written communications.
- Appraise the relationship between digital marketing and society, particularly the good and bad that marketing can bring to society, and justify a way forward as a responsible marketing practitioner.
Social Media Marketing (5 ECTS)
In today's digital age, Social Media Marketing has revolutionized the dynamics of audience engagement and reshaped business strategies. With consumers holding significant power in defining an organization's objectives, the traditional modes of customer interaction have been eclipsed. Social media not only amplifies consumer voices and opinions about a brand, but the proficiency with which a business harnesses this realm can often determine its success or downfall. This module delves deep into the world of Social Media Marketing, blending theoretical foundations with hands-on applications. Key areas of focus include:
- Content Marketing: Crafting impactful creative content tailored for a defined social media audience.
- Consumer Behavior: Understanding and predicting how consumers behave in social media platforms.
- Influence & Engagement: Understanding the role of influencer & engagement strategies to amplify brand messages and engage with audiences effectively.
- Platform Analysis: In-depth exploration of major social media sites and their unique functionalities. Focus on ad management platforms to implement success social media advertising campaigns.
Having successfully completed this module, the student should be able to:
- Define, understand and critically evaluate key social media marketing concepts and frameworks.
- Understand consumer behaviours and motivations within the social media context.
- To understand the practical business requirements to successfully audit, critique, strategize and implement at a tactical level.
Consumer Value Management (5 ECTS)
While many different marketing actions can help to create value for customers (e.g., developing superior products, building brand equity through advertising, or setting up a unique distribution structure), the options to extract value are more limited. Leaving aside purely financial operations (e.g., investing excess cash in financial markets), the only source for profit and ultimately shareholder value creation are a firm’s customers who pay a given price for specific products or services. This makes the concepts of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Pricing Strategy and Tactics the key building blocks of any firm's value extraction strategy. This course aims to shed light on these two elements and provide insights into how firms should profitably manage customers and set prices to ensure an optimal and sustainable level of value extraction.
Having successfully completed this module, the student should be able to:
- Summarise and contextualize the main strands of contemporary marketing and strategy thought, including social media marketing, consumer behavior, and marketing communication.
- Apply proven strategic frameworks and applicable toolkits for the optimization of real-world marketing decision-making and to function as a successful, accountable, and global digital marketing practitioner.
- Address real-life problems within the process of digital marketing strategy development and execution by evaluating key issues and applying analytical models or critical decision-making tools to offer practical solutions.
Digital Business Models (5 ECTS)
This course will describe and analyse various digital business models and outline new trends in different competitive landscape and industries. It begins with an overview of how the Internet and digital technologies have affected firms’ Strategies and business models. Major strategic framework and digital business models are then discussed before analysing today’s challenges and formulating prospective diagnosis for pure-players and bricks-and-mortars. There will be a comprehensive introduction to Business Models Canvas and Value Networks, focusing on how they are impacted by a Digital Era. Upon completion the course, participants will have a solid understanding of the foundation on business modelling techniques and tools and will be able to analyse digital business models using the appropriate framework. Ideally, they will be able to use business modelling techniques to integrate them in a business plan for their own venture.
Having successfully completed this module, the student should be able to:
- Identify and describe the specific characteristics of digital business models.
- Understand the operational challenges around managing and maintaining a Digital Business Model performative.
- Critically analyze real cases through consulting methods.
- Improve collaborative attitudes applying frameworks to existing cases.
- Develop a prospective approach on digital business models.
Since the outbreak of Covid-19, eCommerce has seen massive growth across the world. A brief return to a sort of normality has been followed by uncertainly and inflation. What impact will this have on online retail? This module will take a very practical approach to generating an understanding of the position of eCommerce within the broader digital marketing space. By now most brands or businesses are selling directly online and for many, eCommerce success is the culmination of their digital marketing efforts. It is the area that can give them the most tangible return on marketing investments through a number of measurable KPIs.
eCommerce is a very accessible aspect of digital marketing as it is one that the vast majority of students will have participated in. Even if they have not, the principles of online retail are very similar to those of offline, albeit using web-based technology. The focus of the module is to look at the factors which determine the success or failure of eCommerce operations, focusing on strategy, consumer engagement, omni-channel commerce, on-site conversion, use of big data and analytics and cross border eCommerce. Using case studies and examples taken from leading eCommerce companies, such as Amazon, eBay, Taobao and local companies, the module examines why these companies continue to grow revenues while many traditional retailers struggle to replicate offline success online.
Having successfully completed this module, the student should be able to:
- Define, understand and critically evaluate key eCommerce concepts and their place within a digital marketing framework.
- Articulate the factors critical to eCommerce success.
- Understand the key operational and legal aspects of eCommerce.
- Understand the role of market places as a platform to facilitate eCommerce.
- Appreciate the factors that have shifted retail power to the consumer and from the retailer.
Entrepreneurship, Creativity and Innovation (5 ECTS)
In this class, we will learn several techniques to become creative entrepreneurs and leading business executives. Using digital marketing as an empirical context, the class introduces you how entrepreneurs would use different decision-making logics to generate new venture ideas, objectify the ideas, and transforming the ideas into workable ventures. We take you through the journey of new venture creation and help you develop capacities to address grand challenges in your next steps of your career choices. We apply several cutting-edge theoretical lenses to real-life cases in the goal (1) to observe how successful entrepreneurs generate, select, and implement opportunity ideas based on their imagination; and (2) to create your very first new venture from scratch!
Having successfully completed this module, the student should be able to:
- Understand the main theories in the entrepreneurship field.
- Apply the theories and develop skills to create new ventures or to address challenges in your next career steps.
- Get acquainted with the entrepreneurial mindset: creating something from nothing, engaging with stakeholders of interest, embracing contingencies, etc.
- Take a first step to develop your own venture in groups.
How customers engage with businesses continues to evolve and adapt as the business environment responds to new digital technology, new competitors, changing buyer behaviours and political issues. Addressing such challenges, this course presents the principles and practical applications of successful personal selling and sales management within the business environment. The course will cover the importance of the sales process, leadership, sales management, sales strategy, the principles of buying and selling, selling methodologies, sales ethics, the linkage between sales and marketing and go-to-market strategies in the context of the customers buying journey and digital technologies.
Having successfully completed this module, the student should be able to:
- Understand and critically evaluate fundamental principles of buying and personal selling.
- Understand how personal selling and sales management is changing as the business environment involves embracing new digital technologies and new ways of engaging customers.
- Evaluate the linkage between sales and marketing as part of the customers buying journey.
- Recognize and critically assess the role of leadership, ethics, sales process and sales strategy.
- Recognize the importance of digital technology on sales.
The Digital Marketing Strategy Final Dissertation or Company Project (30 ECTS)
Dissertation
The completion of an academic dissertation immerses and trains students in the fundamentals of social science research and enables students to further develop their research / writing skills to a level which demonstrates their research competence at a master’s level. Emphasis is placed on completion of an in-depth literature review, developing a research question, understanding and selecting an appropriate and well articulated research design and methodological approach, collecting, analysing and interpreting data and presenting research findings which make both a theoretical contribution to knowledge and which have important implications for business/marketing practice. The focus in completing an academic dissertation is on developing the requisite skills in i) planning, conducting, writing up academic research ii) identifying and accessing literature using online tools where required, managing and critically reviewing this material, and referencing it appropriately iii) analysing data in order to generate objective findings and iv) academic writing.
Dissertations may cover a wide spectrum of academic research questions, Examples include (but not limited to) questions which explore developments or shifts in marketing theory and practice, questions that challenge existing assumptions in marketing, and questions which generate new ideas in the field of marketing. Research questions can explore ideas from a consumer perspective- e.g. consumers tastes, preferences, perceptions, motivations; an organisational perspective- e.g. market orientation, marketing management, brand management, or a market perspective; e.g. emerging/global market trends, competitive strategy etc
Having successfully completed this module, the student should be able to:
- Define, introduce and outline a research question, contextualise the topic in its wider research area, demonstrate the motivation for the research and indicate to whom it is relevant.
- Demonstrate an ability to identify and critically review relevant theory via academic literature, and information via practitioner orientated publications, industry reports and other relevant secondary data sources using the techniques and tools learned in the programme
- Describe the methodology being applied (including data collection and analysis) and justify that it is appropriate to the research question under investigation.
- Collect, analyse and evaluate secondary and/or primary data (including but not limited to company/industry specific data, descriptive statistics, interviews, cases, graphs etc. and present it within a coherent, rigorous and analytical framework).
- Apply the appropriate organization and management skills required to design and execute an individual learning task of substantial scope and depth that is largely self-directed and self-motivated.
- Produce an individual written document in adherence with professional and academic standards.