Master of Science in Marketing

How does the Master of Science in Marketing degree differ from an MBA degree?

An MBA degree from the University of Cincinnati provides you with a graduate-level portfolio of learning in all aspects of business, including finance, accounting, economics, and management. The Master of Science in Marketing program is structured to concentrate on the breadth and depth of learning and experience available in marketing and marketing-related areas. For those who are interested in a degree that concentrates solely on marketing, the Master of Science in Marketing is the more appropriate program

I do not have a business background. How will this affect my chances of getting accepted to the Master of Science in Marketing program?

Students in the Master of Science in Marketing program come from a variety of backgrounds. While some of our students do have undergraduate business degrees, many others have degrees and experience in sociology, design, liberal arts and political science, to name a few. The diversity of background provides a richer and fuller shared experience for all Master of Science in Marketing students.

Can full-time students begin studies only in the fall semester?

Students may begin the Master of Science in Marketing program in either the spring or fall semesters. Students typically start in the fall semester, but it is not required. Some students prefer to start in the spring term in order to complete a few Basic Business Knowledge courses.

MKTG 7012: Marketing Research (4 credit hours)
Students will explore the role of marketing research to solve contemporary business challenges, with a focus on the development and implementation of best-practices on premier research platforms. Students will collect and analyze data to identify trends and generate insights and strategies.

MKTG 7015: Buyer Behavior (2 credit hours)
Consumer behavior is the study of human responses to products/services, and the marketing of these products and services. The topic is of critical importance to marketing managers because the development of successful programs is predicated on developing a rich understanding of the consumer’s values, behaviors and motivations. Students will examine the ways in which understanding consumer psychology assists the marketing manager.

MKTG 7028: Marketing Ethics (2 credit hours)
Graduate students will be provided with a broad, practical overview of ethical issues in marketing. Drawing from moral philosophy and cognitive psychology, students will acquire and refine analytical and managerial decision-making skills through the application of ethical principles to moral dilemmas represented in case examples.

MKTG 7035: Marketing Strategy (2 credit hours)
This course presents a foundational framework for strategic business and marketing planning, starting with the analysis of business and marketing positioning in market through the tactical execution of strategies across a full complement of channels and content. Marketing professionals must understand at a very deep level how a firm competes in the marketplace, and this course will provide you with the ability to analyze a marketing opportunity and create programs that change customer beliefs in a way that is favorable to the organization. Students will learn how to make marketing decisions when faced with ambiguity.

MKTG 7099: MS Marketing Capstone (4 credit hours)
The capstone course is the final course in which the student must demonstrate competency in all areas of the MS Marketing program. The student is assigned an organization (for-profit or not-for-profit), becomes the marketing consultant, and is expected to solve the client’s marketing question utilizing the strategic framework introduced in the marketing strategy course.

BA 7077: Career Management (full-time students only, 0 credits)
Designed for Graduate Business students, this course focuses on helping you develop your brand, position yourself in the job market, resume construction and salary negotiations. It is recommended that you take this course in the semester before you graduate.

MKTG 7014: Innovation Tools (2 credit hours)
This interactive course focuses on creating value and organizational growth through product innovation and market expansion. Students develop innovation ideation skills and apply those skills within the context of a marketing strategy framework.

MKTG 7016: Professional Sales (2 credit hours)
This interactive course uses a combination of discussions, exercises, role-playing, and a simulated sales presentation, which are intentionally designed to improve the student’s understanding of the principles of professional selling and enhance the student’s executional competence.

MKTG 7017: Consumer Insights (2 credit hours)
Students will learn the skills necessary to plan and execute a qualitative research project that uncovers actionable consumer insights.  Through a project for a client, students will conduct research and understand how consumers think and feel about a particular product/service, and will learn the process of how to uncover key insights that can support marketing practice.

MKTG 7019: Product Management (2 credit hours)
This course is an examination of the contemporary economic, technological and political conversations that influence the strategic product portfolio decisions of an organization and the transformational role of product management viewed through the lens of GEIST Analysis.

MKTG 7020: New Product Development (2 credit hours)
This interactive course focuses on using a robust market analysis to outline customer needs, which are then used to direct the development of new products and market launch strategies.

MKTG 7021: Design Thinking for Business (2 credit hours)
This interactive course introduces design thinking as a business problem solving approach.  Students will work with the design thinking model, and will understand innovative techniques that will enable them to practice applying these new skills to classic business challenges. The course fosters creativity and collaboration in the increasingly ambiguous business world in which today’s business leaders compete.

MKTG 7025: Advertising and Marketing Communications (2 credit hours)
Students will learn the key elements of advertising and promotion.  The course is designed from the perspective of managers who make decisions about marketing communications programs as part of the overall marketing mix. Students will learn about topics such as setting program objectives, positioning, target audience selection, creative strategy, media strategy, advertising research and evaluation.

MKTG 7026: Influence Strategies (2 credit hours)
This course examines the principles of social influence, leveraging noted psychologist Robert B. Cialdini's authoritative book "Influence: Science and Practice." Students will learn the psychological secrets underlying powerful persuasion techniques used by advertisers, sales professionals, direct marketers, politicians, religious cults, and others.

MKTG 7027: Digital Marketing Tools (2 credit hours)
Students will explore the use digital technologies for the purpose of understanding customer digital behavior and using that information to market, sell, and distribute products and services. New developments unfold rapidly in this arena; hence the course content changes as appropriate.

MKTG 7030: Branding Strategy (2 credit hours)
Students will cover a range of issues related to strategic brand management including brand equity, brand positioning, the design and implementation of brand strategies, and the management of brand equities across geographic boundaries. Emphasis is on the application of strategic brand management theory to practical applications and case studies including consumable and non-consumable products, services, retail outlets, people, organizations, places, and even political or social causes.

MKTG 7032: Sales Management (2 credit hours)
In today’s organizations, sales and marketing teams collaborate on the development and execution of marketing programs, leveraging digital platforms and databases to identify the highest value leads and implement strategies to cultivate interest. You will learn about and experience contemporary sales processes and management strategies as an indispensable aspect of a marketing career.

MKTG 7033: Retailing Strategy (2 credit hours)
This course gives an overview of the retailing industry focusing on theoretical and managerial perspectives, with a special emphasis on the most current developments in the industry. Students will learn about topics such as graduate level principles of retailing, retailing research, retail atmospherics, customer service, CRM and technology, and the globalization of the retailing industry.

MKTG 7036: Consumer Decision Science (2 credit hours)
To influence consumers’ decisions, marketers first need to understand how those decisions are made. Such decisions would be quite easy to understand if we assume consumers (1) are perfectly accurate information processors, and (2) always choose options that maximize their happiness. In this course, you will learn how and why both of these assumptions are rarely true. Specifically, we will look at how things like risk and uncertainty, heuristics and biases, feelings and emotions, contextual factors, and even our evolutionary history lead consumers to both systematically deviate from traditional notions of rationality, and even define new ways in which we think about rationality itself.

MKTG 7037: Digital Marketing Strategy (2 credit hours)
This course explores the use of digital marketing — the integrated use of demand generation digital platforms and multiple social channels — to create digital conversations that enable brands to send the right message, to the right person, at the right time. A digital conversation is a sequence of communications, or "touch points," that nurture a prospect through each of the marketing funnel stages. It is the execution of the brand’s storytelling in a digital format, addressing the prospect's “moment that matter” in each funnel stage, and progressively profiling the prospect to optimize content delivery. The goal is to quickly connect with the prospect, reduce the time it takes to convert them to customers, and create long-term loyalty.

MKTG 7038: Digital Marketing Analytics (2 credit hours)
Digital Marketing Analytics refers to the analysis of quantitative and qualitative data associated with digital marketing touch points. Students will understand the role that digital marketing analytics plays within organizations, perform analysis of digital data, and create a plan that includes data architecture, integration and measurement for digital marketing touchpoints that support retailing, marketing, and advertising strategies.

MKTG 7040: Marketing Performance Metrics (2 credit hours)
This course examines the tools and approaches for gauging the impact of marketing actions—short and long term. You will learn about currently available marketing metrics, how to determine the most appropriate marketing measures (Key Performance Indices—KPI) for a specific company, and whether that data is available or needs to be created, and how to construct a marketing measurement system (or dashboard) to enable return on marketing investment (ROMI).

MKTG 7041: Marketing for Social Change (2 credit hours)
In this course you will learn the foundations of cause marketing and how a well-designed, brand-aligned program can be beneficial to an organization. Both financial and reputational benefits to the organization will be considered.

Study Abroad courses are also available and vary each year (prior locations include Italy, Chile and France).

Many students elect to intentionally focus their graduate work in a specific area and may choose a maximum of 6 credits of electives from other Lindner College of Business graduate programs, or, other University of Cincinnati colleges' programs (prior approval may be required).

MS Marketing applicants must demonstrate basic business competency when applying to the program, either through undergraduate curriculum or demonstrated business and marketing experience. Should the admission committee determine that a candidate meets the admission criteria for the program but additional business knowledge is required, the applicant may be directed to take any or all of the pre-requisite courses.

MKTG 7000: Marketing Foundations (1 credit hour)
This course is an introduction to the fundamentals of Marketing at the graduate level. Students are exposed to the essentials of consumer and market analysis, basic marketing planning and messaging, and basic executional tactics such as segmentation, targeting, positioning.

ECON 7000: Economics (2 credit hours)
This course is an introduction to the fundamentals of economics at the graduate level. Students are exposed to the essentials of both microeconomics and macroeconomics including supply and demand mechanisms, the impacts of regulation and taxation, production cost variances, changing market structures, measures of the aggregate economy, sources of economic growth, and the impact of governmental policies.

ACCT 7000: Foundations in Accounting (2 credit hours)
This course is an introduction to the fundamentals of finance and accounting at the graduate level. Students are exposed to the essentials of the accounting process including development and analysis of financial statements, using accounting information to support management decisions, and using time value of money techniques to evaluate capital asset decisions.

BANA 7011: Data Analysis (2 credit hours)
This course is an introduction to the fundamentals of data analysis and statistical methods at the graduate level with focus on practical decisions using quantitative models in a spreadsheet environment. Students are exposed to the essentials of source data development, descriptive and graphical statistical methods, probability, distributions, sampling and sampling distributions, estimation, confidence intervals, and hypothesis testing.

The RN-BSN programs offered at the University of Cincinnati are a necessary step for associate degree-prepared nurses looking to continue their education for personal and professional advancement. The college was seeking assistance in adapting to industry changes while continuing to ‘win’ in the marketplace.

Arizzona focused on understanding where students, both past and present, found opportunities within their education and the industry to further leverage ideas. She collected information through surveys, evaluations of current marketing efforts, and considerations of students’ beliefs and motivations.

From this collected data, Arizzona acquired three primary insights:

1. Despite the highly competitive nature of online RN-BSN programs worldwide, UC’s program is considered one of the best, given the staff’s care for their students.
2. All three unique behavioral segments chose UC’s RN-BSN program for the same reasons — its flexibility, support and credit transferability.
3. UC’s RN-BSN program satisfies several emotional values of students — self-respect, self-fulfillment, accomplishment and respect from others.

Arizzona recommended that the program continue to focus on the excellence of their online RN-BSN program, alongside maintaining its flexibility and community connectivity. The RN-BSN online program at UC was able to better articulate their prestige as a nursing institution, providing students with unparalleled experience, knowledge and status.

NeuroCoaching is a modern approach to coaching that turns good managers into great coaches to better connect with their employees. The primary physician, Dan Docherty, PhD, wanted to improve awareness of the service by increasing the number of keynote speakers to 15-20 each year.

Emma conducted research finding that communication strategies and an expanded digital presence were required by NeuroCoaching in order to effectively achieve the goals outlined by Docherty.

From collecting this data and completing these requested tasks, Emma acquired three primary insights:

1. Spend time getting to know your client personally, because it will employ a sense of deeper understanding and appreciation for the completed work.
2. Understand that there is a balance between giving the client exactly what they want versus what they need in order to be successful long-term.
3. Identifying a personal ‘why’ for the organization makes the project more interesting and engaging.

Emma recommended that the NeuroCoaching team should tailor their messaging towards managers seeking to foster stronger employee relationships, create a specified content plan for blogs and social media, and refresh their website. Due to her work, NeuroCoaching gained greater understanding of how consumers interact with its content and implemented strategies that increased awareness, conversions and engagements.

The Village Players of Fort Thomas (VPFT) is a performing arts theater that offers a variety of community theater options while promoting general community and preservation of the arts. VPFT was seeking assistance with the expansion of its business operations in order to increase membership and engagement, and understand if a name change would benefit the company. Kelly and her capstone partner focused on surveying the target audiences, conducting employee interviews and utilizing Qualtrics to observe notable quantitative and qualitative data.

Kelly and her partner were able to acquire three primary insights:

1. There was an overwhelming lack of awareness with regards to the facility, with few people having heard of or visited the business.
2. There were far more competitors within the Cincinnati community theater market than initially expected.
3. The name ‘Village Players’ holds major brand equity, so a change-of-name would not be feasible.

Kelly recommended that VPFT launch an awareness campaign, host a street fair, celebrate cultural awareness months and nominate members to be monthly brand advocates. VPFT was able to obtain new supporters while maintaining existing members, allowing the expansion of their offered programs. It also increased awareness of the arts, culture and historical importance of theater.

The Executive Coaching Client, early in the launch of their practice, wanted to create an executive consulting company that provided guided self-help coaching to interested individuals. The client wanted detailed information regarding the competitive landscape in order to proceed with the implementation of testing from the research Temple conducted.

Temple completed first-person interviews, company audits and secondary research to collect data while creating insights.

From the data collected, Temple acquired three primary insights:

1. The overarching ‘self-help’ industry was heavily saturated, requiring the client to narrow the presentation of their brand.
2. The majority of executives have a feeling of ‘wariness’ and concern over changing the structure of their business, requiring the client to focus on the alleviation of these concerns.
3. Within a start-up, it’s not all black and white, and this project required a lot of focus within the gray in order to find success.

Temple addressed her client's needs by recommending that the company diversify their offerings and authentically connect with personal networks in order to build awareness. The company went on to create a thorough testing plan that allowed the founders to refine their business development and create core competencies to attract prospective clients.

Here are some of the employers who have recently hired Lindner graduates: