MARKETING (MAR2011) is a course at Gulf Coast State College that teaches students how to improve their marketing skills, learn the main principles of marketing, and understand how marketing is apart of our daily lives. While this course mainly aims at students in business and entrepreneurship programs, students from all career paths can benefit.
Professor Emmanuel Hernandez, who teaches this course, describes how Marketing is an introductory course to the main principles known as the “marketing mix”. Professor Hernandez says, this course “involves market research, how to do customer profiles, what are the variables involved with customer profiling, the basic marketing mix which is product and then how we define or design a product that relates to the customers.” Overall, the skills learned in this course are useful for any student.
Marketing from a business perspective
The main reason to understand marketing is businesses survive on sales, and marketing helps achieve that. After all, without marketing your business’ name, no one will know to buy from you. The four marketing principles taught are promotion, product, pricing, and place. The combination of these characteristics is how you create marketing advantage for your company.
A current student of this course is Jonathan Wernli — a retired Air Force veteran and full-time student. Wernli says, “one of the biggest shocks was you go into this thinking marketing is advertising, but marketing is so much more. It’s the entire customer relationship of it and this class is all about showing you all those pieces that add into it.” Wernli also says he wants to be an entrepreneur, and understanding the marketing mix has helped focus on the areas needed to open his business.
Average person’s experience with marketing
Understanding how marketing works also benefits you as a consumer. We connect to marketing every single day from the grocery store to the library. Knowing the tactics that marketers use can help you have a better grasp of the influence companies have. Professor Hernandez says, “marketing is so embedded in everything we do these days, and it’s more of a psychological scheme more than anything.” Every day we have our senses stimulated by marketers; this course shows you how to use and recognize those tactics. Professor Hernandez tells of an article he read where marketers have started using smell in stores. This tactic is to enhance the experience while shopping to influence you to buy.
Looking at the textbook
The Marketing textbook is a free resource included within the Canvas page. Each week covers a new chapter of the textbook. Students may have an initial idea of what marketing is before they take the course; however, there is more to marketing than what one may think. Professor Hernandez says, “we think about marketing, everyone thinks promotion, advertising, billboards, commercials, that’s our thing and that’s just one element of marketing. There’s more scientific processes attached to it.” The textbook takes these concepts and expands on them a lot more.
Course structure and options
Marketing is only offered online at this time for full-length semesters in both Fall and Spring. The course is self-paced with two main projects throughout the semester. These projects are the midterm and final for the course and consist of a case study. When asked how involved the midterm case study was, Wernli says, “as far as the activities in the class, the case study midterm was kind of the most involved.” Each week there is a module in Canvas with weekly assignments, a study plan for the module, and a quiz. Wernli estimates he spends 6 to 8 hours weekly on coursework for this course.
There is another course option that students may consider when taking Marketing. SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING (CGS2069) focuses on hands-on application of marketing skills to a business’s social media accounts. This is done through a digital simulation each week. Wernli took this course and says things that he learned in Social Media Marketing have helped in the coursework for this marketing course. Wernli says, “I think they’re interchangeable as long as you stay focused.” So, this is also a great option for students to take as an elective.
Overall, Marketing (MAR2011) is beneficial to any students going into a field that may require them to use marketing principles. Even if your career is not in the focus of marketing, having additional skills in this field can help build your resume.
Choosing elective classes as a student can be quite a chore. To see a complete listing guide to all Gulf Coast State College classes, go to: https://www.gulfcoast.edu/catalog/current/courses/index.html.
The GCSC’s cheap and low-cost textbook listing here: https://www.gulfcoast.edu/academics/library/aim.html.
Interested in Digital Media? Get involved! https://www.commodorewaves.com/2020/09/28/digital-media-at-gcsc/.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sophie Theiss
Student Author - Spring 2021
Sophie is a Digital Media B.A.S. student at Gulf Coast State College. She is the Student Government Internal Affairs Liaison and 21-22 President-Elect. Sophie is an active supporter of getting students involved with campus and student life.
