The Digital Economy: Selling Through Customer Insight
Uncover new perspectives on the role and behaviour of your customers.
Duration
4 weeksWeekly study
3 hours
The Digital Economy: Selling Through Customer Insight
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No matter how sophisticated your marketing is, if it doesn’t result in attracting customers, then your business is set to fail. This free online course applies fresh thinking to how marketing and selling activities combine to create customers who keep coming back.
Build a holistic view of your customers
Perspectives on the role and behaviour of customers are changing, with marketers drawing on increasingly powerful information systems to build a holistic view of consumers.
In this course, you will develop an understanding of how customer relationship management breeds business development success and will critically evaluate accepted wisdom on how marketing influences customers. You will also learn how selling has transitioned from being a ‘foot in the door’ to having a ‘finger on the pulse’, using insight-driven approaches to win those all-important sales.
Thrive in the digital economy
The Digital Economy: Selling Through Customer Insight is one of four courses from The Open University about the digital economy, designed to help experienced managers get to grips with today’s technology-enabled business environment.
The course has been developed by The Open University Business School – a pioneering institution that is triple accredited by AMBA, EQUIS and AACSB.
Holders of FutureLearn Certificates of Achievement for all four Digital Economy courses can earn 15 UK credits towards The Open University Business School’s flexible MBA by passing a linked Open University assessment module (requiring separate OU registration and fee).
What topics will you cover?
- How technologies such as big data, the cloud and open-source are driving the digital economy
- Insight in the context of sales
- How customer insight is enabled by the digital economy
- Tools and technologies that enable businesses to use big data to access and deliver value
- How digital engagement works, and the importance of personalisation
- How the move to digital selling is being enacted across the globe
- Key trends in the digital economy and the impact on customer insight
Learning on this course
On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.
What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...
- Demonstrate knowledge and critical understanding of how customers behave in the digital economy and describe the role of information systems in creating customer insight
- Apply exchange theory to a range of different business models to create mutual benefit for suppliers and buyers
- Explore and conduct theoretically-informed analysis of decision making in consumer and organisational markets and assess digital marketing communications against research-based criteria
- Apply and use insight-driven selling to improve performance, and engage with relevant ethical issues driven by the digital economy.
Who is the course for?
This course is intended for anyone who wants to learn about attracting and retaining customers. No previous experience of studying sales or marketing is required, but some basic knowledge of how businesses work would be beneficial.
Find further information about OU registration, the assessment module and MBA in the entry requirements. The Open University does not operate in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria. This means that Learners based in those countries will not be able to convert their participation in this Program to Open University course credits.
Who will you learn with?
Hilary is a senior lecturer in executive education with research interests in the economic and cultural role of the creative industries. She researches academic identity and the future of work.
Who developed the course?
The Open University
As the UK’s largest university, The Open University (OU) supports thousands of students to achieve their goals and ambitions via supported distance learning, helping to fit learning around professional and personal life commitments.
Established
1969Location
Milton Keynes, UKWorld ranking
Top 510Source: Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2020
Learning on FutureLearn
Your learning, your rules
- Courses are split into weeks, activities, and steps to help you keep track of your learning
- Learn through a mix of bite-sized videos, long- and short-form articles, audio, and practical activities
- Stay motivated by using the Progress page to keep track of your step completion and assessment scores
Join a global classroom
- Experience the power of social learning, and get inspired by an international network of learners
- Share ideas with your peers and course educators on every step of the course
- Join the conversation by reading, @ing, liking, bookmarking, and replying to comments from others
Map your progress
- As you work through the course, use notifications and the Progress page to guide your learning
- Whenever you’re ready, mark each step as complete, you’re in control
- Complete 90% of course steps and all of the assessments to earn your certificate
Want to know more about learning on FutureLearn? Using FutureLearn
Get a taste of this course
Find out what this course is like by previewing some of the course steps before you join:
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