8 Things You Can Do With a Master's in Marketing

In as few as 12 months, you can complete a Master's in Marketing (MSM). After graduation, the looming question becomes “What can you do after you’ve fine-tuned your marketing skills, and acquired knowledge in key areas like pricing strategies, market research and product innovation?”

To answer this question, we asked marketing leaders and professionals who have received a Master’s in Marketing about the things they’ve done. 

Here are eight things that you can do with a Master’s in Marketing. 

• Turn Fresh Insights into Meaningful Business Solutions

• Use Data Insights to Communicate Value 

• Build Marketing Communications Plans for Startups

• Help Clients Achieve Their High-Level Business Goals

• Managerial Consulting

• Start a Marketing Agency

• Competitively Position Yourself in Any Sector

• Pursue Doctoral Education + An Academic Career in Marketing

Turn Fresh Insights into Meaningful Business Solutions

Marketing has to resonate with the organization strategy and customer habits, where data analytics tools can be of great assistance. With a master’s degree in marketing, you can be equipped with advanced quantitative skills that turn data into fresh insights, creative strategies, and meaningful business solutions.

As the Internet gives all companies an information-rich environment, there are very attractive opportunities for quants in marketing (WSJ, 2007). A master’s training can open up a wide variety of career possibilities. In the past few years, many bright graduates have pursued careers such as data analyst, business intelligence analyst, SEO/SEM specialist and content manager and strategist, etc.

Xinying Hao, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Eller College of Management, the University of Arizona

Use Data Insights to Communicate Value 

There is so much data in marketing and never enough people who can interpret it and package it into a concise story. A master’s degree can help craft those storytelling skills through various presentations, group projects and tests. There are so many jobs in brand management and marketing insights that rely on these skills every day. Getting repetition and practice in an academic setting is extremely valuable, especially after working for a few years before going back to school. One of the best parts about completing a master’s degree is the opportunity to learn how to use marketing tools such as Tableau, Amazon MTurk and IBM SPSS. The experience using these tools and learning how to present clear findings from large sets of data will prove valuable in almost any field of business. 

Evan Reed ’14 BSBA (Marketing and Management), Associate Category Development Manager, The Wonderful Company 

Build Marketing Communications Plans for Startups

An undergraduate degree in marketing is an excellent accomplishment to achieve. However, if you want to work for some of the most elite, global technology companies, a Master’s in Marketing gives you a competitive edge over a talented pool of candidates. Eller’s Master’s in Marketing program places heavy emphasis on working with cutting edge software such as Stata, Tableau and Qualtrics to give you crucial skills for today’s career opportunities. In addition, you work on building integrated marketing communications plans for startups to create measurable results. 

I am challenged to face relevant problems and develop real-time solutions for today’s most pressing issues. I have had the pleasure to collaborate with people who come from a variety of different backgrounds, industries and expertise which will prepare me to work with various teams throughout my career.

Madison Smith ’21 MS (Marketing), Incoming Sales Development Representative, Qualtrics

Help Clients Achieve Their High-Level Business Goals

The Master’s of Science in Marketing program gave me a strong foundation for comprehensive marketing—and ultimately—business strategy. Working at a destination marketing agency, I had a deep background in digital marketing. Getting a master’s gave me the next-level situational framework to understand, analyze and consider higher level business needs. In my role, I understand the challenges our clients face and provide solutions and performance to achieve the goals they must hit to be a successful business. 

Sarah Hupp ’18 MBA (Marketing), Vice President of Account Strategy, Madden Media

Managerial Consulting

The MSM program has given me very relevant coursework in courses that I am directly looking to pursue as a career. For example, I enjoyed taking a digital marketing course where my team of five graduate marketing students acted as marketing consultants for a local business. Also, Google Analytics and Google Ads certifications were required assignments, and it is exciting to know how significant these will be in my future.

Additionally, I will be taking a managerial consulting course and partnering with a national business this upcoming spring. While working with a diverse team of MBA and MSM students, we will work with an engineering consultancy to present solutions to the company’s dilemmas. I desire to work in managerial consulting or a marketing campaigns role, and the graduate coursework is providing me with relevant experience to make this possible!

Kirk Williams ’21 MS (Marketing), Assistant Coach, University of Arizona Wheelchair Tennis 

Start a Marketing Agency

In my opinion, there is no limit to the things you can do with a master’s degree in marketing as marketing is central to every facet of doing business. For example, setting a good marketing strategy involves understanding everything from how the business makes money to how consumers interact with and think about the brand to how products are packaged and ultimately sold and delivered to end-users, which means a good marketer needs to be plugged into what every other division (strategic planning, operations, sales, finance, business development, IT, etc.) in the company is doing. Accordingly, the true gift getting a master’s degree gave me was the ability to think critically about how the marketing decisions I am making help to craft and support a company’s overall vision, which led me to start my own marketing agency. So, if you ask me, the real question is, what can’t you do with a master’s of marketing degree?

Amy Zwagerman ’94 BSBA (Marketing), Founder and CMO, The Launch Box

Competitively Position Yourself in Any Sector

My perspective might be a little different than most given my approach to my career. Rather than identify one thing you can do with a master’s in marketing, I want to acknowledge the breadth of skills one develops and how one can strategically leverage those skills for any number of potential opportunities. For example, similar to creating and sustaining a corporate brand, successful professionals create and sustain a tailored professional brand for themselves that is responsive to their target audience (i.e. potential employers). Understanding how to effectively communicate, individuals with advanced knowledge and understanding of marketing practices and principles are then the best-prepared candidates to articulate their brand while helping others see how good a fit they are for any particular role. In these ways, individuals with master’s in marketing can competitively position themselves for any number of opportunities in the industry (e.g. PR and marketing firms), government (e.g. government affairs), business (e.g. marketing department) and non-profit (e.g. community engagement) sectors.

Joel A. Muraco ‘14 PhD (Family Studies and Human Development), PhD Career Counselor, The Graduate College at University of Arizona

Pursue Doctoral Education / An Academic Career in Marketing

There’s other options besides getting out of the classroom and into the job market faster. Completing a Master’s in Marketing may cultivate an interest in pursuing an academic career in marketing and doctoral education with a PhD in Marketing. Some of my post graduate career has interfaced with PhD students in marketing research projects, and I’m a little envious of the opportunities these students have in mastering skills like marketing theory formulation and research design. Regardless of the path a student takes after graduation, higher education can lead to a long-lasting career pushing the boundaries of what defines “marketing.” 

Brett Farmiloe ’06 BS (Accounting), CEO and Founder, Markitors

Terkel creates community-driven content featuring expert insights. Sign up at terkel.io to answer questions and get published.