A popular method for learning new skills is to return to school and complete a degree in a new field. In this discussion, we’ll explore the industry outlook for marketing and advertising professionals, followed by a breakdown of the opportunities for professional development and growth and a brief review of ten of the most popular university and college-based marketing programs in the United States.
The job outlook for marketing and advertising specialists
In order to consider the state of the marketing and advertising industry, both present and future, we must first recognize just how massive an impact the COVID-19 pandemic had on the industry from the first quarter of 2020 through to the end of 2022.
While the industry experienced an initial drop-off due to businesses universally reconsidering their discretionary spending budgets, shifts in consumer behavior to favor online content and social media channels translated into a 4% growth in the advertising industry compared to the previous year, according to a Nielsen study.
The shift in which channels are most effective for marketing and advertising has translated to a fairly positive outlook for career and employment growth in the coming decade. If you’re working in the industry or considering a career change to marketing and advertising, it’s important that you understand where the opportunities are and which skills you might need to develop.
Marketing specialists are in high demand
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the demand for business and professional services is expected to rise over the next decade, largely driven by a skills-gap in technical expertise across a number of business processes. This includes marketing research and other marketing-focused managed services, and the sector is projected to experience the third-largest employment increase from 2021-2031.
Marketing jobs are projected to expand at a 10% growth rate from 2021-2031, a rate that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics claims will outpace all other occupations. Much of this growth in the field is projected to come from workers leaving the industry or exiting the labor force entirely.
Which roles will employers be looking to fill?
When thinking about the roles that will be most in demand in the near future, consider that many businesses are focused on lead generation and growing their bottom-line revenue in order to protect themselves against future recessions. Here are a few marketing and advertising roles that fit this bill:
- Content creation. With specialists needed for content writing, editing, and proofreading, content creators will be expected to support not only written content, but also digital marketing and advertising efforts, video marketing script writing, and social media content. The focus for writers and content creators will be on creating educational materials and connecting with clients on a personal level.
- Search engine optimization specialists. SEO professionals will almost always be in high demand, as frequent changes to the Google algorithm will require that both technical and nontechnical SEO elements of an organization’s online assets are fully optimized in order to remain competitive and rank in SERPs.
- Social media management. These roles will also be in high demand, as the need to leverage Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social channels in customer engagement, brand management, and content marketing will be vital to a successful marketing strategy.
- Data analysts and marketing analytics specialists. Analytics roles will play a crucial part in managing and analyzing the performance of marketing initiatives relative to customer behaviors and providing strategic data insights to leadership.
- Marketing automation specialists. Professionals specializing in the use of marketing automation tools will be pivotal in allowing lean marketing teams to keep up with demand and execute complex marketing campaigns across multiple channels.
Professional development and growth opportunities
In order to perform effectively as part of a modern marketing team, anyone already working in the marketing industry or considering a career pivot from other professional roles will need to think about the skills that they need to focus on in order to provide value to an organization trying to get the most out of its marketing and advertising team.
- Community building: Communication is vital to multi-channel strategies that will rely heavily upon content creation. Marketing professionals will need to be adept at collaboration and relationship management to help pull influencers and other brands into their organization’s marketing efforts.
- Data literacy: Marketing experts will need to be data literate and understand the causal relationships between a brand’s marketing efforts and the purchasing or engagement behavior of clients or consumers in the target audience.
- Website building and content management: Marketers should have knowledge of user-friendly solutions like no-code development and drag-and-drop tools. These developments allow marketers to manage content management systems (CMS) like WordPress and the associated plugins and online graphic design tools like Canva.
- Product and UX/UI design: Modern marketers should at least be aware of the basic principles behind UX and UI design in order to streamline the customer journey across multiple online assets. An understanding of good UX and UI design can also help maximize lead generation and conversions.
- Digital literacy: Software platforms and automation tools have become integral across every industry and have evolved to support almost every business process, including marketing business processes. A familiarity with these tools and the ability to use them will be critical for professionals looking to work in marketing and advertising
- Search engine optimization: SEO will continue to be a vital skill set for marketing professionals as they are constantly adapting to meet the demands of Google’s algorithm updates. SEO requires an understanding of multi-channel marketing strategies, technical skills, and the ability to analyze and assimilate trends into existing strategies in order to remain relevant.
Valuable marketing courses in degree programs
With such a wide array of marketing strategies in use by professionals, and the field constantly evolving, it’s important to look for an educational program that offers courses that will provide you with relevant and timely skills.
Undergraduate marketing coursework can be offered as part of a marketing-focused degree or as a part of a business degree. The three primary bachelor’s degree paths for marketing professionals are:
- Bachelor of Science in Marketing
- Bachelor of Science in Business Marketing
- Bachelor of Business Administration
These programs generally focus on economics and finance classes, and also tend to include coursework around current trends in business and marketing core principles.
Business-focused coursework
Marketing is integrated deeply into the core of modern business success, and overlaps with a number of business processes. When looking at marketing degrees, you should expect to see courses that give students a rounded understanding of how businesses operate and are managed. Here are some examples of common marketing courses to look for:
- Principles of Finance and Accounting
- Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Consumer (B2C) Marketing
- Public Relations
- Business Management
- Communications
- Statistics, Economics, Quantitative Analytics
Core marketing principles
The marketing-focused elective courses students can choose from to round out their undergraduate programs are as diverse as the various marketing tactics in use by modern businesses. While the course titles differ from program to program, courses focused on core marketing principles include such topics as:
- Market trend research and data analytics
- Consumer behaviors
- Brand creation
- Product and service pricing relative to market conditions
- Customer relationship management
- Business ethics and best practices
Coursework becomes more specialized and in-depth in more advanced Masters and Doctorate programs, delving further into global marketing trends, eCommerce practices, product and service innovation and optimization, advanced data analysis, logistics and supply line management, marketing models, and behavioral marketing courses.
The Top 10 Best Colleges and Universities to Get a Marketing Degree
Our list of the top U.S. marketing programs is based largely on U.S. News and World Report research. We break down the top 10 colleges and universities below, with a brief description of what sets their marketing programs apart from other institutions.
1. University of Pennsylvania
Founded in 1740, this private institution has the top-ranked business program in the country, with its associated marketing program ranked second overall. Housed in the Wharton School, the undergraduate marketing program is a concentration and can be combined with the marketing and communications and the marketing and operations management joint concentration programs.
The program requires coursework on consumer behavior and marketing fundamentals, as well as elective topics that range from business decision making, probability modeling in marketing, marketing data analytics, and more.
Some of the more diverse course offerings include product management, marketing across technology platforms, advertising management, retail marketing, visual and new product marketing, and even the psychology of consumer behaviors.
There’s a mix of half-semester and full-semester courses, allowing students to drill down into their interests in ways other programs don’t.
Students graduating with a concentration in marketing from the Wharton Business School often become entrepreneurs or transition professionally into roles in brand management, advertising and sales, and market research consulting.
2. New York University
This urban-based institution was founded in 1831 and offers a wide range of programs; the institution’s business and associated marketing programs are ranked fifth in the country and are housed within the NYU Stern School.
The school leverages its location in New York City to foster a unique link between the marketing and advertising industry and academic study, especially in the marketing research community.
The Stern Marketing Concentration helps students adopt a strategic mindset that empowers them to create sustainable competitive advantages for the businesses they work with. The program includes essential coursework on consumer behavior, customer insight research, and industry specialties such as publishing, advertising, social media, sports, and entertainment.
Electives also cover specialization in data analytics, branding, product development, and other disciplines that support businesses navigating the modern economy.
3. University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill
This suburban campus was founded in 1789, and is home to a highly-ranked business program with a highly-regarded marketing concentration. The marketing undergraduate program is offered by the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School.
Known more for its graduate programs, the Kenan-Flagler Business School offers an undergraduate degree in business with a curriculum that allows students to have up to two areas of emphasis. This is accomplished through electives within the department that help drill down into a specific business-related interest.
UNC Kenan-Flagler’s marketing management and sales area of emphasis (AOE) allows students to take nine elective credits from a mix of full- and half-semester courses that are broad in their approach, with topics including consumer behaviors, digital marketing, data insights and analytics, marketing research design and analysis, retail and eCommerce marketing, and B2B marketing. This concentration is designed to prepare students to continue into Kenan-Flagler’s various master’s programs in marketing.
4. University of Michigan – Ann Arbor
The University of Michigan is a state institution founded in 1817, and is widely renowned for the Michigan Ross Business School, which is home to a bachelor of business administration degree that is considered the top marketing program in the country.
While the Ross School has a very defined marketing doctorate program and the MBA allows students to specialize in marketing, it’s most known for the marketing education that’s folded into the undergraduate bachelor of business administration degree that the school offers. The catalog includes a wide array of coursework dedicated to marketing and advertising core knowledge and principles.
What sets the program apart is the deep marketing-focused community within the business school, including the BBA Marketing Club. This club provides students with real-world marketing experience and opportunities. The program also requires seniors in the BBA program to complete a capstone multidisciplinary action project, which gives students the opportunity to create strategic marketing solutions to problems faced by actual businesses.
5. Indiana University – Bloomington
The home of the Hoosiers, this public educational institution was founded in 1820. While it’s well known for the multiple sports teams it fields in the Big Ten Conference, several of the school’s academic programs are also recognized on a national scale. Both the business and marketing degree programs at Indiana University rank among the top 10 programs in the nation.
Offered by Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, the bachelor of science in business combines liberal arts with business and economics courses to provide a balanced knowledge-base to help graduates succeed in modern marketing roles.
The program requires 18 credit hours of marketing fundamentals, ranging from marketing research to marketing data analysis, as well as sales management and marketing strategy generation.
Electives are divided between professional sales skills and marketing focused topics, allowing students to hone in on their desired specialization in marketing. The school also offers a more client-focused marketing and professional sales marketing major.
6. University of Florida
Founded in 1853 in Gainesville, this suburban university has a very well-known marketing program, ranked tenth in the country. The institution’s marketing curriculum is a focus option for their bachelor of science in business administration, and allows students to gain a broad knowledge foundation of business skills with a focus on how businesses market their brands.
Offered through the Heavener School of Business, the BSBA-MKG program provides coursework on fundamentals such as economics, finance, accounting, and technology skills, while also rounding out student’s experiences with operations management and marketing skills.
The core of the marketing-focused curriculum includes courses in pricing and promotions, product distribution strategies, and customer relationship management tactics for meeting the needs of both organizations and their stakeholders.
The program also supports and encourages students to gain practical work experience through internships and campus organizations, and to participate in research projects and to take part in the Florida Leadership Academy program.
7. University of California – Berkeley
Founded in 1868, the University of California, Berkeley is home to 14 different schools and colleges ranging across a number of disciplines.
The Haas School of Business is home to the undergraduate business program, and helps students develop a mix of critical thinking skills and effective communications skills, all while allowing students to develop solutions to strategic and organizational challenges.
The school prepares their undergraduate students to continue on to the graduate program, where students benefit from the school’s proximity to San Francisco-based corporations and businesses through the experiential learning program.
8. University of Texas – Austin
Founded in 1883, the University of Texas at Austin is one of the largest educational institutions in the United States. Of the 13 separate schools, the McCombs School of Business is ranked fourth in the nation for marketing programs.
As part of the bachelor of business administration offered by the McCombs School, the marketing degree program prepares students to survive and thrive on the cutting edge of the modern business world.
The program focuses on fundamentals such as data acquisition and product development and presentation, and prepares marketing graduates to step into roles as account executives and representatives, consultants, product managers, and analysts.
9. University of Wisconsin – Madison
Just south of Lake Mendota in Madison, Wisconsin, the public institution was founded in 1848 and is one of the top-ranked marketing schools in the country. In an effort to show how education can influence and improve lives beyond the classroom, the institution is well-known for championing public service and making contributions to the local community.
The undergraduate marketing degree at the university’s School of Business is specifically designed around preparing graduates for real-world marketing career paths.
Here, the curriculum is divided between consumer-focused topics and brand-marketing topics. These courses include audience targeting and segmentation, understanding consumer behaviors, creating appropriate sales strategies, building online presence, market research, data analytics, and more.
This program also takes a broad view on product innovation, global and international marketing and positioning, logistics and supply chain management, and product development. The curriculum addresses a number of technology-focused challenges, ensuring graduates have the technical skills necessary to succeed in the modern marketing and advertising industry.
10. University of Virginia
Founded in Charlottesville by Thomas Jefferson in 1819, this school’s history is filled with rich traditions and historical figures. The campus’s library of special collections houses one of only 25 remaining original copies of the Declaration of Independence.
The marketing experience offered by the McIntire School of Commerce is one of the most unique on this list, as it’s designed as a two-year program with a prerequisite of 54 credit hours during a candidate’s first two years of higher education.
The comprehensive curriculum includes a strong focus on strategic marketing techniques and data analytics, and is supported by student organizations such as the Advertising and Marketing Association, which provides students access to career guidance and industry best practices.
Is a career in marketing and advertising right for you?
Before you go through the hassle of filling out financial aid paperwork and seeking on-campus enrollment to make the leap from your career to become a full-time student, or if you are even just considering pursuing a degree via a part-time or an online degree program, consider your options.
For example, you could take advantage of accreditation through online training programs popular with working professionals.
It can also be helpful to check out the websites of some of the leading B2B digital marketing providers and advertising agencies UpCity has partnered with to get a better idea of the services they offer their clients. Another way to keep up with current marketing trends is to browse through our marketing and advertising resources, written by some of the industry’s leading marketing experts.