9 credit hours
Marketing Management
BA S 381T | 3 credits | core course
Marketing is the business function that addresses the design and implementation of strategies that serve to create, build and sustain value for the firm’s customers, and to capture a portion of that value for the firm. Successful design and implementation of marketing strategies involves the identifying and measuring customers’ needs and wants, selecting and targeting appropriate customer segments, and developing an appropriate mix of products, pricing, promotion and distribution to attract, retain, and develop customers that help achieve the firm’s performance goals. Learning objectives in this course include developing a structured and disciplined approach to the analysis of marketing problems; sharpening decision-making skills by making and defending marketing decisions in the context of realistic problem situations; appreciating how the elements of a successful marketing program fit together.
Financial Management
BA S 385T | 3 credits | core course
Financial management provides an introduction to fundamental concepts in finance. These concepts provide a framework for analyzing capital budgeting decisions (the investment decision). Examples of investment decisions could include whether a firm should start a new product line or offer a warranty with a product. In order to understand capital budgeting, we must also study several underlying topics such as the goal of the firm, time value of money, financial statements, cash flows, and the cost of capital. This course introduces students to these concepts and their application through a combination of lectures and problems.
Statistics for Marketing
MKT S 382 | 3 credits | core course
This course engages with real-world data using the language of statistics to build models and apply analytical techniques that facilitate business decision-making. You will learn tools and approaches to address a fundamental question: understanding relationships between variables. Linear (and generalized linear) models will be applied in determining the existence of such relationships and in quantifying the strength of the relationship. Particular emphasis will be given throughout the course to enhancing your skill-set with software that facilitates the organization and visualization of data as well as the estimation and interpretation of statistical models.
Average of 14 credit hours taken in the fall
Marketing Analytics I
MKT 382 | 3 credits | core course
This course will provide students with an introduction to a variety of approaches to analyzing firm marketing actions. Specific topics include quantifying customer value, preference measurement, attitudinal and behavioral market segmentation and targeting, customer economics, product management, pricing and advertising response models and digital marketing analytics.
Data Analysis & Visualization
MKT 382 | 3 credits | core course
Modern marketing uses databases extensively. For example, direct marketing uses consumer or business databases to generate customized targeting strategies in order to promote products and services. In this course, we will learn the skills of accessing, manipulating, and displaying marketing databases in order to gain insights into consumer behavior and business practices. This course will offer highly sought-after technical resources for marketers, such as using the Structured Query Language (SQL) to access and manipulate large database, R statistical and programming environment for data visualization and Python for web data scraping.
Data Analytics & Dynamic Pricing
MKT 282 | 2 credits | core course
The aim of the course is to develop rigorous yet practical insights into topics ranging from nonlinear pricing, price customization, revenue management, bundling and versioning, channel pricing and auction designs in dynamic settings. Using real data sets and detailed exercises, these tools and concepts will be applied to diverse contexts and industries ranging from search engines to airlines, hotels and casinos to entertainment, online retailing, utilities, social media and self-improvement products. Beyond pricing issues, another aim of this class is to develop analytical skills that could be applied in diverse setting ranging from business to policy issues to major global issues that confront an informed citizenry.
The Role of Marketing in Societal Bias, Stereotyping, & Social Justice
MKT 182 | 1 credit | elective course
Bias and stereotypes are everywhere, and they’ve been around since the beginning of time. Therefore, it should not be a surprise that they exist (and in some cases flourish) in the field of marketing. In this course we will examine the origins of bias and how it works its way into brands – be it through internal marketing, external agencies, or the media. We will also explore the secret weapon companies are using to combat bias day-to-day, and how it’s changing the way we do business.
Product & Brand Management
MKT 282 | 2 credits | core course
Products (and services) are at the heart of marketing and managing the balance between successful introduction of new products while continuing to market current products is often the key to a firm’s sustained growth. This course will expose students to the principles of product management including assessing the health and profitability of a product portfolio, developing go-to-market strategies for new products, and positioning and repositioning of current products. In addition, the course will address the basic building blocks of growing and managing a brand while integrating it seamlessly into the overall marketing activities of the firm.
Data Visualization & Storytelling
MKT 182 | 1 credit | elective course
Data visualization is becoming an increasingly sought-after skill set in the workforce and a core component to the Business Intelligence processes. This course will introduce data visualization best practices and expose students to Tableau as a tool for visualizing data. Students will develop skills in graphically representing complex data for the purpose of summarizing, interpreting, and deriving business decisions.
Design Thinking
MKT 282 | 2 credits | core course
In the face of intensifying and diversifying competition, many companies, from start-ups to large corporations, are now looking to infuse their marketing efforts with a human-centered design discipline in an effort to become innovation leaders in their respective industries and create true value for their customers. This course will focus on the overall design process, along with specific research tools and evaluation methodologies to build empathy and define key customer problems to solve. We will also explore best practices for idea generation, prototyping potential solutions, and testing through iterative cycles.
Average of 13 credit hours taken in the spring
Marketing Intelligence Capstone
MKT 382 | 3 credits | core course
The marketing intelligence capstone course is a hands-on learning experience aimed at pulling together all of the different tools and frameworks learned across the MSM curriculum. Students work in teams with an organization on a real marketing problem. This gives students the opportunity to tackle a problem with imperfect data, uncertainty, a constantly changing environment, and real deliverables. Students will work under the advisement of the faculty member, as well as with individuals from the “client” organization. In addition to a deep hands-on experience, the course includes workshops and case studies with practitioners from several different organizations providing students with exposure to cutting edge techniques and best practices.
Marketing Analytics II
MKT 382 | 3 credits | core course
The effectiveness of marketing decisions highly depends on the information obtained through marketing analytics. Marketing analytics allows companies to gain an advantage by serving customers better than competitors do. The course Marketing Analytics II builds upon Marketing Analytics I and will cover a number of advanced analytics problems focusing on methodologies and their implementations.
Students will enhance their knowledge and understanding of how marketing analytics is applied in practice and can benefit marketing decision-making. There is a high level of “hands-on” knowledge and active learning involved, so that students will be able to implement the techniques in their future careers. Teamwork is an important part of this course as well. Students collaborate with team members on projects covering an array of practical business settings and communicate findings and recommendations in written reports and in-class presentations. Different research designs, methods of model estimation (Bayesian and frequentist), marketing models and analyses are discussed and applied in individual and team projects. The course helps students to gain hands-on knowledge of marketing analytics and how to use and interpret the information it provides. The scope will range from qualitative to experimental and quantitative analyses used to support marketing decisions. Projects focus on topics such as experimental design, conjoint analysis for new product development, resource allocation in the context of customer satisfaction, market segmentation, brand positioning, pricing, new customer acquisition, and customer retention.
Consumer Behavior & Experimental Design
MKT 382 | 3 credits | core course
This course will introduce behavioral marketing, both as a topic and a way of thinking and gathering data. We will both read about research and conduct our own experiment, including gathering data and analyzing the results.
Digital Marketing & Measurement
MKT 382 | 3 credits | core course
In today’s world, it is difficult to imagine running a business without an online presence. Consumers spend a significant portion of their time online, and, when buying a product, they may collect information from the web, make a purchase on the web, or both. For many companies, the web has become a crucial component of their marketing strategy. This course is designed to provide students with knowledge pertaining to these strategies. This course has three main objectives. (1) Students will gain background knowledge to navigate Internet Marketing topics including online advertising, search, social media, and online privacy. (2) Students will learn to design, implement, and evaluate an experiment to measure the effectiveness of online business decisions. (3) Students will become certified users of HootSuite, a social media management platform. Additionally, students will learn and apply best practices for social media marketing.
Market Data & Demand Modeling
MKT 182 | 1 credit | elective course
This course exposes students to industry data that are used by marketers to understand consumer demand from both an aggregate (retail outlet) and disaggregate (individual household) perspective. Students will gain experience developing insights from data that are used to guide business decision making. Specific emphasis in the class will be given to building demand models that incorporate elements of the marketing mix for the purpose of attribution analysis. The course will be taught using the R statistical computing environment. Both project-based and individual performance assessment will be aspects of the course. This course is useful for individuals seeking careers in brand management, retail analytics, management consulting, and product management.
SQL
MKT 182 | 1 credit | elective course
Advanced SQL for data analysis. This course builds on material introduced in Data Analysis & Visualization. Topics include advanced SQL SELECT techniques, joins, index use, transactions, database schemas, and data modeling. Emphasis is on practical queries and navigating schemas.