A Guide to Marketing Management Degrees

What is a Marketing Management Degree?

A marketing management degree involves study focused on skills and principles for leading & managing marketing efforts for entire organizations, as well as exposing learners to current marketing trends and best practices.

Is marketing management a good degree? Yes—a graduate of such a program holds a major advantage in entering into and succeeding as a professional in marketing, advertising, sales as well as most leadership roles in organizations. The core aspects of the degree revolve around the following:

• Business management principles: Expect to tackle topics around finance, operations, and HR, which help to build a holistic understanding of how businesses operate.

• Marketing fundamentals: This degree also dives deep into the essential parts of a marketing operation—this includes marketing research into consumer behavior, as well as product, pricing, promotion, and distribution as part of building a comprehensive marketing strategy.

• Marketing strategy: Building on the above two principles, a marketing management degree program explores the process of designing actual, comprehensive marketing strategies. This includes marketing or promotion plans, market, and target audience analysis, as well as brand/product/service positioning, among others.

• Communication and public relations: A marketing management degree also includes courses in the area of advertising and PR—this includes topics on the effective use of marketing channels, content creation, and most importantly, the ethical and legal considerations in creating marketing campaigns.

What Can You Do with a Marketing Management Degree?

A marketing management degree equips learners with the skills they need to oversee entire marketing operations—working with associates, assistants, coordinators, and content creators in building effective marketing strategies and related campaigns. They are also able to engage in market research and analysis to aid in the decision-making process.

What Jobs Can I Get with a Marketing Management Degree?

A marketing management degree opens up a wide range of opportunities for employment, as it makes students capable of taking on both marketing-specific roles as well as management or leadership positions, which can be valuable in nearly all industries and is always in high demand. Some of the specific fields and roles in which a marketing management graduate can excel include:

• Marketing Manager: A marketing manager oversees the operations of entire marketing teams. They often initiate and can go so far as to directly execute marketing strategies and campaigns to promote a company’s products or services. They also have perspectives on advertising, branding, and market research information and work with the team to help inform existing or future strategies.

• Brand Manager: Brand managers are focused on creating and maintaining a product or company’s brand identity. This involves building a strategy that unifies a brand’s message, its visibility, and its value proposition through relevant marketing campaigns. Their goal is to increase brand recognition or to establish brand loyalty among consumers.

• Product Manager: A product manager takes charge of the success of a specific product within a company. This starts as early as the development stages, all the way down to its launch and promotions. A product manager would collaborate with the rest of the marketing team to make sure that all efforts are in alignment with the success criteria for the given product.

• Market Research Analyst: A market research analyst allows the marketing team to make decisions based on market trends, customers as well as competitors’ behavior. They allow marketing teams to take a data-driven approach to their campaigns and strategies.

• Event Marketing: A subset of project management in marketing deals with physical events such as trade shows and industry conferences to help promote a company’s products or services. They may also be designing standalone events for the same reasons, which puts them in charge of logistics to ensure the event runs as smoothly as possible and is designed in alignment with the campaign’s goals.

• E-Commerce: Another subset of marketing management is focused on ensuring success in the online space—this includes managing e-commerce, social media, and other digital channels to bring products and services to consumers.

Marketing Management vs Business Management Degrees

A common misconception places a marketing management degree as synonymous with a degree in marketing management. While related, they are two distinct areas of study.

Marketing management is a specialized subset of business management—while marketing management tackles business management principles in its coursework, a business management degree dives into these principles in more detail. Some of the overlapping concepts include finance and HR, but a business management degree might round it out with coursework on supply chain management.

In terms of focus, marketing management looks deeper into how management relates to the consumer through marketing campaigns. This involves making sure that messaging is clear, engaging, and of value to the consumer, to secure their business. A business management degree, however, focuses on internal stakeholders. Their job is to make sure things run smoothly and efficiently at the overall organizational level.

While both degrees come with the leadership training necessary to succeed in most industries, your choice of employment can help shape whether a marketing-focused degree or one that covers a wider scope of the business would be more beneficial to you.

Getting a Marketing Management Degree

Now that we know the definition and scope of a marketing management degree, it’s important to choose a program that best aligns with your goals. Below are some of the institutions you can attend to get started on getting a degree, with some offering online opportunities:

1. Pace University

The BBA in Global Marketing Management at Pace University is designed to teach students skills they need to “lead global corporations, including advertising agencies and marketing research firms.” This includes exposure to global corporations in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Major coursework includes learning about contemporary business practice, micro and macroeconomics, accounting, marketing research, and sales.

They also offer majors in advertising and integrated marketing communications, as well as digital marketing.

2. WGU

The Western Governors University offers an online marketing degree as well—the course is designed to prepare students for careers in marketing management, marketing strategy, brand management, and more. Coursework covers topics like brand management, marketing strategy, and analytics, project and change management, as well as financial and managerial accounting.

3. Arizona State University

ASU offers an Online Bachelor of Science in Marketing degree designed to teach essential marketing specialties, such as advertising and promotion, market analysis and strategy, pricing as well and product and service development. No distinction is made between this and students taking the program in person.

4. Maryville University

Maryville also offers an online Bachelor of Science in Marketing degree—as they say, there’s never been a more exciting time to be a marketer. On top of teaching traditional marketing principles and business practices, the course is designed to teach skills in search engine management (SEM), content management, social media engagement, data analytics, and more.

5. Louisiana State University

LSU’s online Bachelor of Science in Marketing program is offered through their Shreveport College of Business and is AACSB-accredited—essential marketing principles such as sales, advertising, promotion, pricing, product research, distribution, and PR are covered in this course. On top of this, fundamental business principles such as finance, economics, business law, and retail management are covered in the coursework, which will help graduates take on various marketing and management roles across various industries.

6. Penn State World Campus

Penn State also offers an AACSB-accredited, online Bachelor of Science in Marketing degree, similarly blending both traditional as well as emerging practices for a comprehensive set of skills to teach interested students. The program covers marketing concepts and techniques in the context of a modern organization, as well as related tools. It also exposes students to the actual creation process of a marketing plan and teaches them to effectively evaluate performance. Insight into relevant business functions and how they impact other disciples and the organization as a whole is also a key teaching point of this degree.

Make the Most of your Marketing Management Degree with Workamajig

A marketing management degree is a valuable distinction that proves you understand the concepts and have the skills necessary to succeed in leading large-scale marketing efforts. Having the ability to support your team, whether that’s in building a marketing strategy, coordinating the creation of marketing resources, promoting products and services, or analyzing market trends and consumer behavior, allows you to ensure success across the board.

As your marketing team grows, it’s important to have a tool that can help you scale your operations and stay on top of every aspect of your marketing strategy.

With Workamajig, the premier marketing management software, you have an all-in-one solution for planning, organizing, and delegating marketing efforts and easily transitioning between the phases of every project. Easily adjust your schedule or modify task requirements and assignees to ensure efficiency, and use native reporting tools to measure your progress, as well as identify and address roadblocks along the way.