On a mission to refresh and sharpen my mapping and marketing skills, I drew and shared the six maps below in the last months of 2020, whilst studying the Marketing Week Mini MBA with Mark Ritson. The course is a popular 12-module program for marketing grown-ups, with a lively LinkedIn community which connects learners across dozens of countries around the world. Mark’s lectures were engagingly delivered and tightly structured, which always helps in creating clearer mind-mapped notes. They may be of interest to past, current or future learners in the course, or indeed for anyone refreshing their knowledge of marketing core concepts. These six maps come from the strategically-focussed first half of the course, starting from market orientation and research, through the holy trinity of segmentation, targeting and positioning and out the other side to the marketing strategy itself. I’ve left out any further commentary to let the maps speak for themselves. If you like your words in complete sentences, there’s also a favourite quote from each module, and a suggested soundtrack for those who like to whistle while they work! Module 1: Market orientation □ Soundtrack: ‘Human Behaviour’, by Björk It is the whole business seen from the point of view of its final result, that is, from the customer’s point of view.” Peter Drucker “Marketing is not only much broader than selling it is not a specialized activity at all. □ Soundtrack: ‘It’s Not About You’, by Scouting For Girls Go to the jungle.” AG Lafley (on ethnographic research and understanding customers) “If you want to understand how a lion hunts, don’t go to the zoo. □ Soundtrack: ‘Pick A Part That’s New’, by Stereophonics “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do” Michael Porter □ Soundtrack: ‘You’re the One’, by The Vogues It is an analytical process driven by customer needs, which helps maximise resources, emphasises business strengths over competitors, and enables more effective and better targeted marketing programs to be developed.” Sally Dibb “Market segmentation has been described as the cornerstone of modern marketing. “Positioning is not what you do to the product it’s what you do to the mind of the prospect.

It’s how you differentiate your brand in the mind. Positioning focusses on the perceptions of the prospect not on the reality of the brand.” Al Ries and Jack Trout Positioning compensates for our over-communicated society by using an over-simplified message to cut through the clutter and get into the mind. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat” Sun Tzu “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory.

The second half of the course switches to tactics, looking at distribution, product, pricing, integrated marketing communications and brand.

Treenity mind map