Marketing Foundations

Marketing is more than communications—it's the strategic function that helps organizations understand customer needs, design valuable offerings, and deliver meaningful experiences that drive growth. In this course, author, professor, and marketing executive Dr. Marta Dapena Barón covers the role of marketing in organizational success, explaining how to analyze markets, customers, and competitors, and apply key frameworks to design compelling value propositions. Marta explores how to develop products and services, set pricing strategies, and evaluate integrated communication plans that reach audiences effectively. Along the way, she shows you how AI and digital channels integrate into a marketer’s work, emphasizing the importance of measuring impact and adapting to change. When you finish this course, you’ll be ready to start implementing what you’ve learned to develop a marketing strategy that contributes to business performance and customer satisfaction.

Learning objectives
Understand why marketing matters to the success of any organization.
Know what marketers do and how marketing teams are organized.
Explain the building blocks of any marketing strategy.
Analyze market systems, organizational resources, customers, competitors, and external market factors.
Explain how marketing has developed as a discipline and how digital and AI tools are reshaping the landscape.
Design value propositions that align with customer needs.
Evaluate product, pricing, and service strategies in relation to brand positioning and customer value.
Develop integrated marketing communication plans that include content creation, channel strategy, and measurement.
Implement marketing insights and tools to support data-driven decision-making and long-term business success.