What is a Marketing MBA?

A Marketing MBA is a specialized master’s degree program that provides the core competencies needed for students to excel as marketing executives and professionals. These graduate students receive a solid foundation in marketing strategy, consumer behaviors and demographics research. They are also exposed to new ideas and innovative courses, such as database and customer relationship marketing.

Common Courses

Students generally start out studying marketing management and learning how to execute the best marketing efforts to achieve goals and strategies. Students will learn how organization’s benefit from creating value for customers and what analytical skills are needed to understand pricing, branding, targeting and segmentation. A class in integrated marketing planning will focus on actionable strategies related to resource allocation, business competition and marketing mix elements. A class on product and business life cycles will train students to successfully introduce new products, maximize revenue acceleration and extend profitability during the declining phase. Finally, strategic marketing simulation classes will allow students to participate in realistic product management scenarios and strategic marketing management classes will use computer simulations to understand and appreciate the real power of marketing concepts.

Exclusive Workshops

Most specialized MBA programs offer advanced workshops that provide everything from internship introductions to job search strategies to advance classes, according to Investopedia. For instance, workshops may use real-life examples of past promotions and branding techniques to help students prepare for common case questions that are asked during job interviews. Other workshops will expose students to marketing careers outside of brand management and packaged products, such as in the retail, technology and manufacturing sectors. Workshops may offer insight into identifying consumer behavior trends and applying various types of consumer market research. Internship workshops will teach students what to expect and how to prepare for their experiences.

Degree Specializations

Even though Marketing MBAs are already specialized degree, there may be additional concentrations available. For example, a marketing research and analytics specialization is a unique MBA degree that focuses on non-traditional marketing research analysis. This distinctive program combines academics and industry insight to teach marketing intelligence analysts how to perform research, generate customer insights, make tactical business decisions and stay on top of challenging environments. These students may study consumer behavior, data decision models, advanced marketing research and data mining techniques. Other possible classes include experiment design, business forecasting and advanced qualitative methods.

Career Options

Graduates of MBA marketing programs may go on to fulfill traditional roles such as brand, customer and digital marketing manager. Most graduates start work as entry-level graduates, but move on to higher positions and different industries. Those interested in research may work for retailers, manufacturers, retailers and consulting companies. Some researchers move into careers found in related business areas, such as finance, sales support or operations management. Marketing professionals work with sales, client account and customer relationship management. There are limited openings in non-profits, universities and independent research companies that focus on academic-based marketing topics.

Related Resource: Careers Available with a Global MBA

Overall, a Marketing MBA program is a highly specialized graduate program for future marketing professionals.