Certification in marketing communication

Module 1
Transform your marketing, communications and branding into a profit centre

Pierre Balloffet, Associate Professor, HEC Montréal
Vanessa El Chakieh, Entrepreneur, brand and marketing strategy consultant

This module aims to break down certain mental barriers that limit participants’ understanding of marketing strategy. Using real-life case studies, we will work together to break down the various elements involved in content production and dissemination. We will then investigate how your marketing and communications department could become a profit centre without compromising its core raison d’être. Over the course of the day, you will:

• Get a better handle on the new status of brands as drivers of business success
• Explore the possibility of turning the traditional marketing model on its head – and turning a profit while you’re at it
• Examine the conditions of success and the possibilities open to each organization
• Rethink the connection between marketing, growth and profit
• Study principles and recent examples of the new role of strategic public relations.

Module 2
The “new normal” of marketing, communications and branding and what it means for you

Vicky Boudreau, Co-Founder, Bicom
Gaëtan Namouric, Founder, Perrier Jablonski, and Lecturer, HEC Montréal

These days, it’s all about the brand. Our collective fascination with change has been amplified by our obsession with speed. We want more, faster. And then even more, even faster. How can your company compete in a world gone mad? How do you take a step back to define your own goals? And what can you do to capture other people’s attention? To become a brand, you need to:

• Accept that everything starts, not with you, but with others
• Embrace the complexity inherent in crafting consistent messaging
• Communicate a compelling vision to your customers, partners and staff
• Familiarize yourself with what you need to break into a given market nowadays
• Make sense of a media industry that, while in crisis, still has much to offer
• Untangle the myriad of influences that shape your brand’s path to market
• Grasp the enormous challenges for an inward-facing brand in attracting, recruiting and retaining talent.

Module 3
Harness your organization’s creative power with an effective content production strategy

Marie Eve Gosemick, Lead, Digital Strategy, lg2

How can you structure the development of user-centric content without diluting your brand? How do you measure your branding ROI? Avoid costly mistakes associated with in-house content production by establishing coherent content management rules and ensuring everyone’s roles and responsibilities are set out in clearly worded policies. Adopt a collaborative inbound marketing approach to support your entire content production lifecycle.

• Build user-centric content creation in line with your brand identity
• Put strong content management guidelines into place
• Use clear processes to define the roles and responsibilities of the content development team
• Apply an inbound marketing system to editorial management and distribution
• Plan your human and financial resources and define your ROI metrics.

Module 4
Be your own media company: A vision within reach of every business and organization today

Jonathan Nicolas, Digital Strategist and Founder, GLO

For better or for worse, the marketing communications field is evolving into something quite different from what it used to be. Today’s professionals have to cater to audiences that are more niche-driven, more fragmented, more bombarded by content and more discerning than ever before. And the tools available to connect with them are increasingly sophisticated, yet more readily available. The rules of the game are changing at breakneck speed, but they are also becoming fairer and more inclusive. In other words, smaller players can now compete against the giants – which means leaders need to keep reinventing themselves to stay ahead of the game. So what is the secret to navigating through this brave new world? How can you find your way through the marketing and communications puzzle to make smart choices, identify and stick to your priorities, and use the right metrics to analyze the results?

• Understand the opportunities and challenges related to media logic
• Explore key concepts, new jargon and new
• Build, grow and leverage your own communication channels
• Help your content get noticed, get read and get shared
• Find the right tradeoffs to get the most value for your advertising dollar
• Workshop: Assess your current approach and build a personalized game plan for moving forward

Module 5
Act thoughtfully and build highly productive relationships with external partners

Pénélope Fournier, Partner and President, Montreal - lg2
Élizabeth Henry, CEO, Shareholder, Adviso

Communications and marketing practices are in the midst of a profound change. Some organizations are insourcing this work, while others are taking a whole new look at how they team up with their partners to optimize their business relationships and get the most bang for their outsourcing buck

How can you get a better handle on what your partnership-related needs are? How can you decide which activities to keep in-house and which ones to farm out? What are the factors that will determine the success of your collaboration with your partners? How can you enhance your results while still keeping your expenses under control? Which performance indicators are the best at helping you improve your business relationships and outcomes?

• Define, assess and prioritize your needs in terms of external partnerships and optimize your existing collaborative efforts
• Plan and structure your communications and marketing activities to stretch every dollar you invest in your branding
• Define every person’s roles and responsibilities as accurately as possible
• Identify the required level of transparency with respect to your business data and corporate strategy
• Determine the conditions for success with outside partners
• Collaborate efficiently to make your brand more appealing and impactful
• Establish KPIs that are meaningful to your business
• Assess partners as part of a continuous improvement process

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