MKTG90004 · Marketing Management
The Complete Exam Bible · S1 2026Marketing Management
Marketing Management is the University of Melbourne's postgraduate strategic-marketing subject — how a manager understands, creates and delivers customer value, then plans for it. It teaches every framework from the marketing concept and customer-delivered value, through the situation-analysis toolkit (PESTLE, SWOT, Porter's Five Forces), the strategic core of segmentation, targeting and positioning (STP), the 7P marketing mix, and on to research, metrics and the client marketing plan. Your subject mark comes from two missions: a 2-hour final exam (50%) that can ask about any week, and a group Marketing Plan (40% across three deliverables) applied to a live client. This guide teaches each framework as a procedure — its inputs, its steps, its output, and the one decision it informs — which is exactly the level postgraduate answers are marked at.
What MKTG90004 covers
Nine teaching topics → one exam-ready map. Each links to its free chapter guide.
How MKTG90004 is assessed
| Component | Weight | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Final examination | 50% | 2 hours · individual · spans the whole subject — application, not recall |
| Marketing Plan Part B | 20% | Group · recommendations (~4000 words) — STP, the 7P mix & metrics for a live client |
| Marketing Plan Part A | 10% | Group · situation analysis (~2000 words) — PESTLE, micro, Porter & SWOT |
| Group presentation | 10% | Mid-semester client / challenge checkpoint |
| Weekly quizzes | 10% | Best 5 of 8, in-seminar (10 questions / 10 min) — confirm the exact split in your subject guide |
Segmentation, targeting & positioning — the signature applied question, step by step
- +2Segment. Carve the market on appropriate bases (demographic / geographic / psychographic / behavioural), and consider a bottom-up feral segment — a cultural group already named in the wild (e.g. a “clean-beauty” community surfaced by influencers). Check each candidate is measurable, substantial, accessible, differentiable and actionable.
- +2Target. Choose using the three lenses — segment attractiveness (size, growth, profit), competition, and company fit — then name the breadth (here, concentrated on one niche). Say what you are not serving and why.
- +2Position. Identify the points of parity (table stakes to be credible) and the point of difference the brand can own; place it on a perceptual map against rivals to find clear space.
- +2Write the statement to the template: “For [target], [brand] is the [category] that is the [POD] so they can [end benefit] because [reason to believe].” Then show one or two 7P moves that deliver that positioning.
Key terms
- Marketing concept
- The philosophy that a firm achieves its goals by being better than rivals at creating, delivering and communicating superior customer value to chosen target markets — an outside-in view that starts with the customer's needs, not the product.
- Customer-delivered value
- Total customer benefit (product, service, personnel, image) minus total customer cost (monetary, time, energy, psychological). Value is the whole equation, not the price tag — which is why a premium brand can still win on value.
- STP
- Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning — the strategic core of marketing. Carve the market into groups, choose which to serve, and design a distinctive, valued place in the target's mind.
- Marketing mix (7Ps)
- The tactical toolkit that executes the strategy: Product, Price, Place, Promotion, plus People, Process and Presence (physical evidence). The unit's ‘cake’ framing stresses the Ps are interdependent — change one and mind the rest.
- ROMI
- Return on Marketing Investment = (revenue from marketing − marketing expense) ÷ marketing expense. It reframes marketing as an investment rather than a cost and is the metric that wins or loses the budget argument.
MKTG90004 FAQ
Is MKTG90004 hard?
It is conceptually broad rather than mathematically hard: the challenge is breadth and application. The exam hands you a fresh brand or scenario and asks you to pick the right framework, apply it and justify the call — so the difficulty is using a wide toolkit precisely under time, not memorising it.
How is MKTG90004 assessed?
By a 2-hour final exam (50%, individual, spanning the whole subject) plus a group Marketing Plan worth 40% across three deliverables (Part A situation analysis ~10%, Part B recommendations ~20%, and a group presentation ~10%), with weekly in-seminar quizzes (best 5 of 8) making up the rest. Confirm this year's exact split in your subject guide.
What is on the MKTG90004 final exam?
Application across the whole subject: run a situation analysis (PESTLE / SWOT / Porter), segment, target and position a brand, defend a 7P marketing-mix decision, and judge the ethical dimension of a manager's choice. Expect to be handed a fresh brand or scenario and asked to choose a framework, apply it and justify it.
Do I need maths for MKTG90004?
Only light arithmetic. A few topics carry simple calculations — a break-even, a ROMI percentage, a weighted competitor score, an NPS — but the subject is conceptual and strategic, not quantitative. The marks are in the reasoning around the numbers.
Is using AskSia for MKTG90004 cheating?
No. AskSia is a study reference written in our own words — we host none of your lecturer's files, and Sia teaches you the method to earn the marks; it does not complete or sit your assessments.
How to study for the exam
Treat every framework as a procedure, not a name to recall: know its inputs, its steps, its output, and the one decision it informs — that is the level postgraduate answers are marked at. Because both the exam and the plan reward applying frameworks to a live case, drill the recurring chain: environment → STP → mix → ethics. The two highest-yield zones are STP (the densest exam topic — know feral segmentation cold, write a positioning statement to the template) and the situation-analysis toolkit (PESTLE / SWOT / Porter, kept at distinct levels so you don't double-count). For every section use one move — analyse → conclude → recommend → justify — and name the framework explicitly; that signposting is what tells the marker you can do strategy, not just describe it.
