Understanding Your Customer
Northern School of Marketing: Short Course 2:
Course Description
Understanding Your Customer is a practical, interactive course designed specifically for adult learners, professionals, and aspiring marketers eager to master the skills that underpin customer-centric marketing. This course offers a robust foundation in customer insight, behavioural analysis, customer journey mapping, and the strategic use of insight for improved marketing execution. Through real-world examples, actionable toolkits, and reflective activities, learners develop the expertise needed to thrive in today’s dynamic marketing landscape.
Modern marketing success relies on deep customer understanding—knowing not just who your customers are, but what drives their decisions, what they value, and how their experience shapes loyalty and advocacy. This course equips you with the frameworks, analytical tools, and practical skills required to genuinely understand your audience and use this knowledge to power effective, ethical marketing strategies.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
- Define customer needs, expectations, and behaviour, explaining why they are vital to marketing effectiveness.
- Distinguish between functional, emotional, and social needs, and apply this understanding to product and experience design.
- Analyse the psychology behind buying decisions, including the influence of emotional and rational drivers, social proof, habits, and choice architecture.
- Apply customer research tools and insight techniques, such as surveys, interviews, analytics, and social listening, to gather actionable data.
- Develop detailed customer personas that drive segmentation, personalisation, and targeted communication.
- Map the customer journey, identifying key touchpoints, pain points, and opportunities to enhance the customer experience.
- Align marketing strategy with customer insight, including segmentation, personalisation, positioning, and continuous improvement.
- Utilise predictive techniques to anticipate customer behaviour, prevent churn, and personalise offers.
- Measure and strengthen customer understanding, using metrics like CSAT, NPS, retention/churn, and feedback loops for ongoing improvement.
Is This Course For You?
This course is suitable for:
- Marketing professionals seeking to advance their customer insight skills for modern, competitive environments.
- Business owners and entrepreneurs aiming to build deeper customer relationships and drive growth.
- Students and recent graduates preparing for a career in customer-focused marketing roles.
- Professionals in related fields (sales, communications, management, product development) who want to understand and leverage customer insight for greater impact.
Course Structure
The course is divided into three core modules, each broken down into focused lessons:
| Module | Focus Area | Key Activities |
|---|---|---|
| Module 1 | Customer Needs and Behaviour | Microlearning videos, case studies, value quizzes, worksheets, long-form articles |
| Module 2 | Customer Profiling | Persona building, research toolkits, journey mapping, practical exercises |
| Module 3 | Using Insight Strategically | Strategic application, predictive modelling, metrics, improvement plans, worksheets |
Each lesson integrates:
- Microlearning video:Â Concise and engaging visual introduction.
- Long-form article:Â In-depth exploration and real-world examples.
- Practical worksheets:Â Apply learning to real or hypothetical scenarios.
- Resource toolkits:Â Downloadable summaries and actionable guides.
- Assessments:Â Short quizzes and creative extension tasks for reflection and mastery.
Approach and Outcomes
You will engage with real-world marketing scenarios, apply tools used by leading professionals, and build confidence in using insight to shape strategy. Expect plenty of opportunities for reflection, discussion, and practical skill-building—with a focus on becoming not just a better marketer, but a true customer advocate ready to drive positive business outcomes.