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
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.
brand & Growth strategy
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.
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.
Clients, consulting, & communication
MKT 182 | 1 credits | elective course
Marketing analytics and strategy efforts tend to involve collaboration with cross-functional teams. Whether engagements involve internal or external consulting, developing shared understanding of goals, workflows, and timelines is critical to delivering results that exceed expectations. This course focuses on developing and refining skills related to managing effective engagements. This includes unpacking client asks, setting and managing expectations, as well as improving effectiveness and efficiency in client and project management and delivering presentations with impact.
Consumer Well-Being
MKT 182 | 1 credit | elective course
This course examines questions around how consumer happiness aligns with business goals of productivity and profit. Marketing seeks to meet consumer needs. However, these are often conceptualized as local or narrow needs such as faster processing, lower prices, or higher quality. This course focuses on broad global, human needs such as the need to love or be loved, pursuing passions, and locus of control as opportunities for brands and firms to create value in the marketplace.
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.
Experimental Design
MKT 182 | 1 credit | elective course
This course introduces students to the principles and practices of experimental research in marketing and related fields. Students learn how to frame research questions, develop hypotheses, and design controlled experiments to test causal relationships and analyze the data generated through experiments. Emphasis is placed on real-world applications including field experiments online (A/B testing), offline (in-store, service environments) and also conceptual (laboratory experiments). Students will additionally learn to identify and avoid common pitfalls such as confounds and bias. Through hands-on exercises, students gain experience in designing, implementing, and interpreting experiments that generate actionable insights for marketing strategy.
Human Insights
MKT 182 | 1 credits | elective course
Qualitative research cultivates human insights that provide the secret sauce to successfully build brands, create products, and inspire human-centric businesses. These methods explore the “why” elements embedded in quantitative results revealing insights to change hearts and minds. This course will introduce you to qualitative research methods to uncover key consumer experiences, attitudes, beliefs, and unmet needs. These skills provide complementary perspectives to quantitative approaches allowing you to triangulate and develop deeper insights.
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 282 | 2 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 covers 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.
Market Data & Demand Modeling
MKT 282 | 2 credits | core 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.
Consumer Behavior
MKT 282 | 2 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.
Ai in Marketing
MKT 182 | 1 credit | elective course
This course introduces artificial intelligence (AI) applications for marketing including predictive analytics, data mining, machine learning, and generative AI models. The course focuses on practical applications and developing an understanding of how these models complement and improve analytical resolution as well as the limitations of AI in developing analytical insights.
Marketing Analytics III
MKT 182 | 1 credit | elective course
This course covers advanced topics related to marketing analytics building upon and extending the skills developed in Marketing Analytics I and Marketing Analytics II. This course focuses on techniques and methodologies relevant to those pursuing analyst, data science, and marketing science career paths.
Marketing Channels
MKT 182 | 1 credit | elective course
This course covers the design and management of marketing channels. Channels are analyzed as systems of inter-dependent firms that simultaneously collaborate and compete with other channels systems. The emphasis is placed on understanding the economic and behavioral factors that influence the actions of these firms, as well as on the relationships between the firms in a channel.
The Role of Marketing in Societal Bias
MKT 182 | 1 credit | elective course
Bias and stereotypes are everywhere—and they also permeate the field of marketing. In this course, students examine the origins of bias and how it infiltrates brands (via internal marketing, agencies, or media). The course also explores the strategies companies use to combat bias and how this is changing the way business operates.
SQL
MKT 182 | 1 credit | elective course
This course builds on topics covered in Data Analysis, providing a deeper dive into writing SQL queries for marketing and business analytics purposes. Explore topics such as SQL statements for manipulating data, database capabilities, and data modeling. Additional topics include unstructured data, geospatial data, query performance, and data privacy and security.