CIM LEVEL 7 PROGRAMME

Lead marketing with greater confidence and strategic influence

Develop the strategic judgment, leadership confidence and commercial perspective needed to lead modern marketing more effectively.

The CIM Marketing Leadership Programme is designed for experienced marketers who want to strengthen influence, direction and responsible decision-making at a senior level.

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At a glance

Level: Level 7 Awarding body: Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) Typical duration: 12 months Study commitment: Around 6 to 8 hours per week, depending on study route and pace. Recommended for: Best suited to senior marketers or experienced professionals with substantial marketing responsibility.
CIM Strategic Partner

Professional recognition

Chartered Institute of Marketing qualifications with Professional Academy

Professional Academy is a CIM Strategic Partner and accredited study centre, combining recognised marketing standards with practical learner support.

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The value of this qualification

What You Will Gain

The skills, recognition and confidence to lead marketing at the highest level.

  • Strengthen senior-level marketing leadership capability
  • Apply consultancy approaches to strategic challenges
  • Assess market position and strategic organisational assets
  • Lead responsible and sustainable marketing change
  • Lead change and build organisational commitment
  • Align marketing transformation with wider business goals
  • Evaluate contemporary challenges shaping marketing leadership
  • Think strategically across complex organisational issues
  • Use customer dynamics to identify growth opportunities
  • Develop future-focused marketing strategy
At a glance

Qualification Overview

A structured summary of the qualification, delivery model, and professional context.

Qualification title & level
CIM Marketing Leadership Programme
Awarding body
Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM)
Qualification importance
A high-level CIM route that helps senior marketers strengthen leadership, strategic judgement and professional authority.
Delivery modes
Live online workshops, online learning support and flexible study routes. Selected face-to-face workshops may be available for some programmes.
Typical duration
12
Typical weekly study commitment
Around 6 to 8 hours per week, depending on study route and pace.
Recommended entry criteria
Best suited to senior marketers or experienced professionals with substantial marketing responsibility.
Assessment method & format
Assessment is typically through written assignments and applied work-based tasks. Please check the current qualification route and study option for specific assessment requirements.
Tutor support model
Live tutor-led workshops, guided online learning resources and structured assignment support from Professional Academy.
Enrolment dates
Multiple start points may be available across the year. Contact Professional Academy for current study dates and route availability.
Pass rate statistics
Pass-rate information can vary by route, cohort and assessment window. Contact Professional Academy if you need current performance context.

Build your qualification

Choose the modules that will shape your qualification

Your pathway updates as you choose. Select a study route, make your module choices and we will confirm when your qualification is complete.

Your modules

Modules & What You Will Study

Each module is designed to develop your professional capability and strategic confidence. Whether your focus is marketing, sales, leadership, or wider business performance, these modules combine theory with real-world application to build analytical skill, commercial awareness, and confident decision-making.

Module Overview & Learning Purpose

This module develops senior-level marketers’ ability to identify and evaluate the key contemporary challenges shaping the future direction of organisations. It focuses on understanding how dynamic environmental change, emerging technologies, shifting customer behaviour, and evolving business models influence strategic decision-making and long-term organisational success.

By completing this module, you will be able to apply strategic thinking to analyse emerging marketing challenges, assess their impact on value creation, and develop innovative, resource-led responses. You will gain the capability to match organisational resources and competencies with future market drivers in order to design sustainable, insight-driven strategies.

What You Will Study

  • Analysis of the dynamic marketing environment including macro factors such as political risk, global crisis, Brexit, economic change, urbanisation, health and wellbeing, environmental sustainability, privacy, and security
  • Technological disruption including Artificial Intelligence, predictive analytics, virtual and augmented reality, mobile evolution, wearable and genetic technologies
  • Micro-environment factors including competition, innovation, globalisation, omni-channel delivery, supply chains, and changing customer behaviour
  • Internal organisational factors including resources, capabilities, culture, structure, ownership, purpose, and digital skills such as SEO, PPC, social media, data visualisation, and content management
  • Strategic analysis frameworks including SWOT, TOWS, market dynamics, risk and impact analysis
  • Business drivers of success including Porter’s Five Forces, ROCE, organisational agility, customer centricity, Bowman’s Strategic Clock, and strategic groups
  • Mission, values, and performance frameworks including the triple bottom line, balanced scorecard, and conscious capitalism
  • The role of technological innovation including big data systems, dynamic pricing, market scanning, database management, and testing and learning approaches
  • Prioritisation of emerging challenges using impact analysis, risk assessment, and Porter’s value chain
  • Scenario planning, forecasting, financial modelling, trend analysis, and environmental scanning
  • Frameworks to respond to challenges including budgeting, portfolio planning, new product and service development (NPSD), resource allocation, organisational capability, variance analysis, and growth strategies
  • Engagement with emergent technologies through digital channels and mobile platforms
  • How value is created and measured including market dynamics, buyer behaviour, competitor responses, segmentation, targeting, positioning, and supply chain impact
  • Value measurement through metrics, analytics, resource allocation indicators, and customer brand co-creation
  • Opportunities for value creation using market intelligence, information systems, and the interaction between owned, paid, and earned media
  • Evaluation of response strategies using ranking methods, prioritisation tools, dashboards, and scorecards
  • Designing sustainable strategies for value creation using brainstorming, repositioning, planning, and media-neutral approaches
  • Justifying propositions for value creation using market insight, projective techniques, psychographics, and behavioural psychology
  • Developing value in line with organisational capability using ERBV (Extended Resource-Based View), micro-segmentation, and profiling
  • Developing a data governance strategy including data sources, data mining, privacy in UK/EU/global contexts, eCRM, data cleansing, and integrated analytics
  • Advanced analytical and decision tools including marketing research, reforecasting, big data metrics, social listening, and buzz monitoring
  • Using predictive, prescriptive, and Delphi techniques to generate insight and solutions
  • Creating an integrated approach to insight across online and offline channels, fostering a data-aware culture, and measuring what truly matters, including social media ROI

Assessment Information

This module is designed to test senior-level strategic capability in evaluating contemporary marketing challenges and developing innovative, resource-led solutions. Assessment focuses on critical analysis, strategic evaluation, data-driven insight creation, and the ability to translate emerging challenges into actionable organisational strategy.

  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Total Qualification Time (TQT): 200 hours
  • Level: CIM Level 7 (Marketing Leadership Programme)
  • Module status: Mandatory

Module Overview & Learning Purpose

This module develops your capability as a senior marketer to lead, manage, and influence organisational change in complex and dynamic business environments. It focuses on how marketing leaders harness organisational potential, align resources, and embed sustainable innovation to create long-term stakeholder value.

By completing this module, you will be able to build the strategic case for change, shape a customer-centric and marketing-orientated organisational culture, and apply contemporary leadership practice to guide transformation. You will gain the skills required to manage brand equity and corporate reputation, embed digital capability, and implement structured approaches to planning, measuring, and sustaining change.

What You Will Study

  • Analysis of internal and external stakeholders using tools such as Mendelow’s Power/Interest Matrix and their differing value requirements
  • Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), social values, and the co-creation of stakeholder value
  • Organisational competences, capabilities, and skills needed to generate sustainable value
  • Financial and non-financial measures to support change including P&L, ROI, and ROCE
  • The role of data, information, and insight in enabling change including user-generated content, earned media, big data, and analytics
  • Developing a pan-organisational approach to data collection across customer journeys and touchpoints
  • Attribution modelling, conversion rate optimisation (CRO), multichannel funnel analysis, and customer tracking
  • Database strategy and future-proofing organisational data assets
  • Barriers, benefits, and challenges to change including cultural mismatch, resource constraints, stakeholder agendas, and leadership buy-in
  • Innovation as a driver of value creation including New Product and Service Development (NPSD) and innovation management
  • Creating a culture of continuous innovation through digital disruption, business process re-engineering, and risk management
  • The concepts of brand equity and corporate reputation as strategic organisational assets
  • Measurement of brand equity using customer-based approaches and models such as Interbrand
  • The relationship between brand management, CSR, corporate personality, and reputation
  • Using integrated marketing programmes and digital presence to strengthen reputation and brand equity
  • Managing brand narratives, external expertise, agency relationships, and consultancy partnerships
  • Risk to brand equity including negative PR, reputational damage, and cultural misalignment
  • Translating brand equity across international markets using cultural audits, market attractiveness models, and adaptation strategies
  • Designing customer-facing organisational structures and cultures that support corporate capability
  • Strategies to overcome resistance to change including consultation, leadership support, and internal communication
  • Risk-based approaches to reputation management using monitoring, sentiment analysis, and social media intelligence
  • Creating and shaping a marketing-orientated culture using internal customer champions and cross-functional collaboration
  • Organisational agility through environmental scanning, IT systems, and digital enablement
  • Catalysts for change including technological advancement, HR leadership, and resource availability
  • Change implementation approaches including business process re-engineering, incremental and discontinuous change, and lean processing
  • Embedding strategy through KPI measurement, planning, and tactical control
  • Metrics for evaluating change including brand strength, awareness, engagement, CRO, social media performance, market share, ROI, and staff engagement

Assessment Information

This module assesses senior-level capability in leading organisational change through strategic marketing leadership. Assessment focuses on critical analysis, application of insight, innovation development, brand and reputation management, and the implementation of sustainable, customer-centric change strategies.

  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Total Qualification Time (TQT): 200 hours
  • Level: CIM Level 7 (Marketing Leadership Programme)
  • Module status: Mandatory

Module Overview & Learning Purpose

This module develops the advanced professional skills required to operate effectively as a marketing consultant, either within a large organisation supporting key clients or as an independent specialist. It recognises that senior marketers build deep insight into marketing challenges through experience and shows how this expertise can be translated into a structured consultancy proposition.

By completing this module, you will be able to define and position a sustainable consultancy offering, build a credible personal brand, diagnose complex client problems, and design, implement, and embed solutions that deliver measurable organisational value. You will gain the capability to manage client relationships professionally while leading change through structured project delivery.

What You Will Study

  • Defining a sustainable consultancy proposition including clarity of message, benefits delivered, segmentation, targeting, positioning, and reason-to-believe statements
  • Building strategies to engage potential clients using professional networks, research events, directories, and digital channels
  • Project management procedures, stakeholder management, and mapping client needs to ensure successful delivery
  • Developing a strong personal brand through thought leadership, positioning, professional reputation, and track record building
  • Soft skills development including persuasive writing, presentation skills, organisation mapping, and relationship building
  • Creating and sustaining long-term client relationships using CRM systems, corporate identity, and relationship-based engagement rather than transactional selling
  • Developing strategic partnerships to enhance consultancy capability and market reach
  • Championing customer value using T-shaped leadership and customer-centric consultancy approaches
  • Assessing environmental factors influencing client organisations including micro and macro forces, competitive analysis, market positioning, and customer behaviour
  • Identifying organisational barriers to change such as culture, size, history, digital maturity, and attitude to innovation
  • Evaluating organisational resources including financial health, skills, stakeholder involvement, partnerships, and performance metrics
  • Producing professional client briefs that clearly define problems, scope of work, and terms and conditions
  • Developing client solutions using idea generation, data analysis, business cases, and innovation techniques
  • Planning implementation using project management tools such as Gantt charts, critical path analysis, scenario planning, and KPI frameworks
  • Risk identification, resource planning, deliverables management, and contingency planning
  • Designing systems-based change using CRM, financial modelling, and analytics platforms
  • Developing detailed project plans using objectives, KPIs, design thinking, and process-led frameworks
  • Managing suppliers, tender processes, contracts, schedules of work, and future partner selection
  • Creating digital solutions including functional specifications, testing plans, stakeholder management, and web updates
  • Establishing contingency strategies using decision trees, scenario planning, variance analysis, and prioritisation models such as MOSCOW
  • Embedding solutions through structured work packages, facilitation, negotiation, and objection handling
  • Achieving senior stakeholder and C-suite buy-in and documenting operational processes
  • Developing staged project measurement systems including progress metrics, internal marketing, and communication planning
  • Sustaining change using manuals, training programmes, super users, reporting procedures, CMS platforms, and web analytics

Assessment Information

This module assesses senior-level consultancy capability in diagnosing organisational problems, developing commercially viable solutions, managing complex projects, and embedding sustainable change. Assessment focuses on critical evaluation, professional practice, and the ability to translate insight into measurable client outcomes.

  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Total Qualification Time (TQT): 200 hours
  • Level: CIM Level 7 (Marketing Leadership Programme)
  • Module status: Elective

Module Overview & Learning Purpose

This module develops senior marketers’ capability to design and deliver sustainable business growth strategies in complex and competitive markets. It focuses on understanding how market dynamics, customer behaviour, organisational competence, and stakeholder relationships interact to determine growth potential and long-term performance.

By completing this module, you will be able to evaluate growth opportunities critically, align organisational capability to strategic objectives, and recommend practical approaches that maximise strategic fit. You will gain the ability to translate market insight into actionable strategies that drive value creation, competitiveness, and profitability across different organisational contexts.

What You Will Study

  • Evaluating the robustness of internal and external data sources including internal data, published research, and secondary datasets
  • Market scanning, market research techniques, and insight generation from multiple information sources
  • Competitive analysis including market size, market share, positioning, share of voice, and market attractiveness
  • Assessment of internal, micro, and macro environmental influences including legislation, uncertainty, and scenario planning
  • Understanding sector complexity including differences between B2B, B2C, NFP, SME, and multinational environments
  • Analysing customer buying behaviour including DMU structures, involvement levels, perceived risk, and evolving digital behaviours
  • Channel management, the role of intermediaries, and the impact of emerging digital distribution channels
  • Creating integrated communications strategies using IMC, relationship marketing, and media planning
  • Understanding value creation through cost sensitivity, pricing, ROI, ROCE, profitability, and Customer Lifetime Value
  • Recommending how organisational competence and dynamic capabilities can be developed to meet future objectives
  • Evaluating organisational culture, skills, structures, and sourcing strategies that enable effective performance
  • Using Marketing Knowledge Information Systems (MKIS) and informal networks to inform strategic decision-making
  • Assessing organisational agility, ambidexterity, and the impact of emerging digital technologies
  • Developing positioning strategies using segmentation, targeting, innovation, and new product development
  • Creating international market entry strategies considering cultural, ethnic, and market selection factors
  • Understanding how organisational characteristics shape market positioning and competitive advantage
  • Identifying and prioritising connected stakeholders based on their strategic value to organisational performance
  • Developing marketing dashboards, metrics, and value propositions to manage stakeholder relationships
  • Establishing reporting processes including key account management, process mapping, and contingency planning
  • Embedding marketing as the champion of the customer through internal marketing and organisational communication
  • Designing and managing strategic partnerships including agencies, consultants, trade bodies, and alliances
  • Using outsourcing and business ecosystems to enhance customer value and competitive positioning
  • Implementing customer relationship programmes including eCRM, complaints handling, and retention strategies
  • Defining KPIs and dashboards to monitor organisational, customer, and market performance

Assessment Information

This module assesses senior-level capability in diagnosing growth opportunities, aligning organisational capability with strategic ambition, and developing structured approaches to stakeholder and partnership management. Assessment focuses on critical evaluation, strategic reasoning, and the ability to convert insight into sustainable business growth.

  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Total Qualification Time (TQT): 200 hours
  • Level: CIM Level 7 (Marketing Leadership Programme)
  • Module status: Elective

Our options

Flexible study options to suit you

Choose the level of support that works best for your goals, schedule and learning style.

Lite

  • Onboarding welcome meeting to get you started
  • Personal Support Tutor guidance by email, plus a set number of Teams sessions
  • Access to our Learning Management System, including online learning resources
  • Marked draft assignments and practice exams with feedback
  • Progress reporting to keep your learning on track
  • 100% Pass Guarantee
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Premium

  • Everything in Lite
  • Live workshops via Teams, with in-person attendance when available
  • More Personal Support Tutor sessions than Lite

Platinum

  • Everything in Premium
  • Face-to-face workshops
  • More Teams-based Personal Support Tutor sessions than Premium
  • Career guidance

Study support you will receive

You’re never studying alone

Our expert support, flexible resources and personal guidance help you stay motivated and achieve your goals.

  • Personal tutor support
  • On-demand learning resources
  • Study planner and progress tracking
  • Exam preparation and guidance
  • Career advice and next steps

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Fees & funding

Build a route that works for you

Your fee is shaped around the modules and study support you choose.

What your personalised fee includes

The Qualification is modular by design. Your total course fee is built around your individual learning pathway, so you never pay for content you do not need.

  • Your chosen qualification route
  • The modules you select
  • Your preferred study mode
  • Any exemptions or prior learning credits
  • Your payment structure and funding options

Always included

Learning materials and LMS access, tutor support, assessment marking and assignment preparation workshops.

Funding support

Employer-funded study, interest free monthly payment plans, corporate invoicing and professional development budgets.

Membership and Assessments

CIM Marketing fees are paid direct by the learner, other awarding bodies are included in our fees. For specific membership durations, talk to our team.

Free programme guide

Find the right level. Take your next career step.

Turn your ambition into a clear next step. Answer a few quick questions to discover a recommended study level based on your experience and previous qualifications. Prefer to explore first? Request your free brochure and compare your options at your own pace.

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Learn from industry experts

Our course delivery team bring practical workplace insight, structured guidance, and supportive feedback to every stage of learning.

Frequently asked questions

Questions people often ask about our Professional Qualifications

Course fit
Who is 2025 CIM Marketing Leadership Programme suitable for?

The recommended entry criteria on this course page describe the expected starting point. An adviser can help you confirm whether the course fits your current experience and intended next step.

Study and assessment
How is 2025 CIM Marketing Leadership Programme delivered?

The available delivery options are shown on this course page and can vary by programme and schedule.

How long does 2025 CIM Marketing Leadership Programme take?

The typical duration is The typical duration is shown in the qualification overview on this course page.. Actual completion time can depend on the study route, schedule and individual progress.

How is 2025 CIM Marketing Leadership Programme assessed?

The qualification overview on this course page explains the assessment method and format.

What support is available while I study?

The course page explains the tutor support available during the programme.

Explore your options

If you need to strengthen advanced marketing practice before moving into wider leadership, compare the CIM Diploma in Professional and Digital Marketing. If your priority is capability across a department, explore development for your marketing team so the learning can be considered alongside organisational goals.

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Build marketing capability with a route that fits the person and the outcome

Talk to Professional Academy about the next step for you, your team or your organisation, and we will help you compare the most suitable marketing development routes.

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