Getting A Unique Mix Of Skills With A Marketing Bachelors Degree

A marketing bachelors degree can be a key to many doors. Just about every big company that sells anything to consumers today has a marketing department, as well as an ad agency (or several ad agencies), a public relations agency and even specialized marketing consultants who offer advice on ecommerce, reaching ethnic markets, product placement and other cutting-edge areas.

Companies who provide these services are all potential employers if you have a marketing college degree. They run the gamut from very large to one or two person shops, and they’re spread geographically all over the country.Click to see schools that offer a marketing bachelor's degree online

Marketing jobs can be very analytical to quite creative, depending on which career direction you take. Online advertising has become an area that’s highly analytical, as companies have taken advantage of the possibilities the Internet offers for measuring how much it costs to get someone to visit a website as the result of an ad, how many of the visitors actually make a purchase or request information, or even what age group or geographic area the site visitors come from.

At the same time, even traditional marketers now use software products to analyze how many people recognize their brand names or mention them on Twitter or Facebook as a result of an ad campaign on TV or in magazines.

Creativity Still Needed
But some things never change in marketing. One big one is the need to come up with creative messages and ads to drive people to buy a product. As gilded age millionaire John D. Rockefeller once said: “Next to doing the right thing, the most important thing is to let people know you are doing the right thing.” As a result, there’s a still lot of demand for people who can do the more creative jobs creative jobs involved in building ad campaigns from coming up with the basic strategy to writing the ad copy or shooting a TV spot. Most these jobs are done by ad agencies, which are important employers to look at once you get a marketing bachelors degree.

Earnings in this category vary widely – it’s not unusual for a marketing expert to ultimately become the CEO of a company in many businesses. While Payscale.com estimates that the median salary for grads with a marketing undergrad degree is about $73,000 per year, people who actually sell marketing ideas to clients can earn more than that, while a media planner – a first job out of college for many in this specialty – may earn closer to $35,000.

What You’ll Study
Programs vary from school to school. But a marketing college degree generally provides you with an understanding of consumer behavior, and how to stimulate it through promotion and sales campaigns. Key subjects include purchasing dynamics, elements of market research, demand estimating, cost/profit analysis, product pricing, strategic planning, market advertising strategy, direct sales, public relations and retailing. There’s often a good deal of the study of psychology underlying all these different topics.

In truth, however, the study of marketing and actually working as a marketer both involve a mix of elements that’s a bit unlike most other specialties. No matter what you do in this area, you’ll do better if you develop good writing and communication skills. It’s no accident that many marketing degree programs require you to take at least four English courses. Other non-marketing courses that are required can include finance, statistics or economics. After getting a marketing bachelors degree, many in this specialty work for a few years and move on to an MBA to boost their earnings further.

Strayer University
Associate in Arts Marketing and a Bachlor of Business Administration (BBA) Marketing. Program offers teaching in marketing concepts as well as broader business decision-making concepts.

Colorado Technical University
Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, Marketing. The school's accelerated program can be completed in 15 months in some cases, depending on education status at entry.

American Intercontinental Online
Bachelors Degree In Marketing

Sullivan University Global E-Learning
Bachelor of Business Administration - Concentration in Marketing. A degree "completion" program. You will need to have an associate's degree or equivalent number of credits for admission.