CIM courses in Watford

Watford has recently become the third location where we are delivering part-time courses for Chartered Institute of Marketing qualifications, following the success of our Peterborough and Norwich programmes.

Because the courses are delivered on Saturday tutorials, they are ideal for anyone from Hertfordshire and the surrounding area, including Watford, St. Albans, Hemel Hempstead, Rickmansworth, Berkhamsted, Harpenden, Chesham and Amersham.

Learn from your tutors and fellow students

Our tutors are all experienced trainers or academic educators - and are either practising marketers or have a track record of successful marketing achievement. This means that each tutorial includes discussion on theory, but with many practical examples too. Our emphasis on practical marketing also includes learning from each other. Tutorials therefore include group exercises where you can swap stories about the way that organisations you have worked for have carried out their marketing activity.

Among the tutors that deliver our Watford courses are two locally-based marketing professionals:

Marie Page is an experienced marketer with a specialism in all aspects of digital marketing, especialy social media.  After a career in PR, Marie established her own communications consultancy before setting up Musicademy, which grew from a local music school into an international ecommerce business selling music tuition DVDs and online training. Marie is a Chartered Marketer, a Fellow of the CIM, has tutored on CIM courses for many years and is a CIM Examiner - a role in which she marks exam and assignment papers, giving her an excellent insight into how to gain CIM qualifications.

Cheryl Greyson is an independent marketing consultant, specialising in marketing research but with experience across a number of other marketing disciplines. Cheryl is an experienced tutor of CIM courses and co-author of ‘The Marketing Planning Process’, a CIM-approved text book published by BPP Learning Media. Cheryl is a Chartered Marketer.

A programme of Saturday tutorials

To reflect the fact that many people who live in Watford work elsewhere, we are running the courses across a number of Saturday tutorials. We hope that this will give people from across Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire a chance to attend in a relaxed environment, without the stress of rush hour before each session.

There will be three tutorials for each unit in a course. Each one will begin at 9.30 and will finish by 3.30, with tea/coffee and lunch provided. Tutorials will be held at a quality hotel venue in or very near Watford.

Our 'Syllabus Plus' support resources

Each course has its own dedicated website where you and your fellow students will get access to a range of excellent resources. Your tutors will set tasks such as text book reading and specific tasks related to your exam or assignment, as well as giving you links to online resources. There's also a forum that you can use to discuss subjects with your tutor and fellow students. The result is a practical tool to help you to continue studying productively between tutorials.

Our Syllabus Plus approach also brings you at least two masterclasses for each course, delivered by specialists in subjects relevant to key elements of the course. Whether these are external marketers or members of the Marketing Ability team, they add an extra dimension to your studies to back up the core tutoring. (Masterclasses are not included in our Introductory Certificate in Marketing course.)

Study, assignment and exam skills sessions

We also provide specific support (either at live sessions or via online tutorials) on techniques you will need to successfully complete the course, including:

• Study skills - a session early in your course helps you decide how to approach the various challenges of blending studying for a professional qualification with your work and home life.
• Exam skills - we look at techniques for revising for exams and how to tackle the exams themselves.
• Assignment writing skills - we draw on many years of experience of seeing and marking CIM assignments to help you make the right choices about planning and writing your assignments.

Regular assessment throughout the course

Our tutors set questions and exercises so that you can keep track of how well you are doing. Feedback from your tutors will help you to decide where to focus your study. For exam-based units, tutors will give you sample questions so that by the time you get to the real thing you are prepared.

Prepare for your course with our ‘Head Start’ programme

Unique to Marketing Ability, our Head Start programme starts the learning as soon as you enrol for a course. Each week leading up to the course’s first tutorial, we will set you some reading and practical activities to help you ease into the learning. It’s entirely optional of course, but you may welcome the chance to make a start with some gentle activity ahead of the course itself.

Course schedules for 2011/12

The Professional Certificate, Professional Diploma and Diploma in Digital Marketing courses are due to start in 2012 - please contact us for more information.

Find out more

Please visit the Professional Certificate, Professional Diploma or Diploma in Digital Marketing course pages.

Please contact us for aditional information, to talk to our Watford programme manager, or to enrol for a course.

"Having been a student at various other establishments, it was a great pleasure to finally find a course that was delivered with excellent teaching techniques, fantastic student support and all within an excellent learning environment. It's been a real pleasure learning with Marketing Ability."
Joe Barrasso, Diploma student