By Natasha Bright

Want to do the things you already do on a day-to-day basis, such as go on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube? Yes? Now, how would you like to get paid for it? Even louder yes? Then getting a marketing degree may just be the college path for you to follow. You can start with a Bachelor’s degree, and then progress to a Master’s degree or even a doctorate degree.

As most people know, Facebook has surpassed Google in sheer numbers. According to Facebook’s own statistics page, there are more than 500 million active users. The average user has 130 friends and, more importantly, he/she is connected to 80 community pages, events or groups. Twitter has experienced its own growth spurt, with more than 105 million registered users who send in excess of 55 million tweets per day. Many users are accessing the applications using their mobile phones. This is where the know-how from your marketing degree kicks in. In large organizations, marketing is often separated into specific functions; while in smaller companies, marketers often wear many hats.

Diligent research prior to launching products or services helps companies avoid costly mistakes down the road. Marketing research is one route you can pursue with your marketing degree. If a company is in the product development stage, you can use your background researching the target market to determine who buys what, who they’re influenced by and how quickly they buy, among other things. To accomplish this quickly and easily, you can set up online polls and surveys within targeted groups on the company’s page.

Once the basic information is gathered, it then goes into the brand or product management stage. You can use your marketing degree to discern what current products to keep or pitch, whether to upgrade a product or replace it as well as how to deliver a product. For example, when considering delivering a book, does your audience prefer a paper book, an ebook, an audio book or a combination? Also, should it be made available through brick-and-mortar, online, both? How you promote it is also important. Setting up a Facebook fan page and tweeting work well for certain audiences.

Pricing is another important marketing function. Your coursework can show you how to determine inherent as well as perceived value. Other factors to consider are what your competition’s pricing is, whether or not to offer free samples, how long to offer special promotional pricing and what type of bonuses or premiums to include during the launch for quick-to-act buyers.

When pursuing your marketing degree, it’s essential to learn how your role will interact with advertising and public relations to create a cohesive promotional campaign. You could purchase targeted ad space on Facebook, send out free publicity on Twitter or create a video and post on YouTube. If it’s interesting, hilarious or outrageous enough, it may even go viral.

Similarly, you’ll also work closely with sales to generate traffic and get hot leads with your marketing degree. You’ll learn how to develop a pitch for the salesperson, and work with him/her to track and manage leads, customers and non-buyers. You can help develop a program to up-sell, down-sell and cross-sell buyers. Marketing is also responsible for putting non-buyers into a sales funnel to keep communicating to them and sell to them down the road. You can talk to them on Facebook, Twitter or in an opt-in email campaign. Tracking where leads and customers come from is imperative. There are plenty of good, free tools available, such as Google Analytics. You can’t manage your marketing dollars if you don’t track and measure where the buyers are coming from.

Discover for yourself how versatile a marketing degree is. Your diverse background can be used to perform research, create a brand management strategy and develop a promotional campaign inexpensively and with extreme precision. With a marketing degree, you can use offline mixed with online resources, social media and other technology to contribute directly to a company’s bottom line. You can even choose to go to college online! Jump start your education today by searching for the right online marketing college for you.

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