To Market, To Market

CityU students take on retooled marketing for the new economy

By Anna King

Velocity Contributor

Leah Schedin lost her job last year. With 20 years management experience in Northwest marketing firms, Schedin, 45, of Snohomish, Wash. expected to land a new gig without trouble.

Unfortunately, she didn’t anticipate the drastic change in the industry - Facebook now replaced newspaper and television marketing - and it hurt her career search. With so much marketing being done in the social media space, Schedin was faced with a steep learning curve.

“When I started marketing, we were using scissors and glue and putting together art,” Schedin says.

She also learned employers now put a stronger emphasis on hiring college graduates. Just having years of experience wasn’t enough and Schedin didn’t have a bachelor’s degree. Three months later and still jobless she needed a very different plan.

“I was being screened out of positions because of my lack of a degree,” she says. “When I would call back on jobs I lost, they [employers] told me that they were getting 300 to 400 resumes.”

Today, Schedin is gaining her competitive edge as a student in City University of Seattle’s new Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing. The program allows people to sharpen their career focus and jump to the industry forefront. They learn from expert faculty members how to take advantage of the latest online tools and social networking strategies to compete in this new economy.

“I’ve had some fabulous CityU instructors that have a wealth of experience in real life situations,” Schedin says.

For many years, students sought out CityU of Seattle for its business degree program with a marketing emphasis. However, because of recent public demand, the university created this new program specifically focused on marketing principles. Busy students also can get their marketing degree by completing classes online. Some of the 10 marketing courses include: Advertising and Sales Promotion, Understanding Consumer Behavior and Brand Development and Management.

According to Corrine Holden, CityU’s marketing program director, today’s online marketing is mainstream and messages have to be sharply attuned to intended audiences. She says CityU teaches students essential skills to break through the din and be effective.

“It’s about having an effective message that people can hear,” she says. “There is a lot of noise out there and people tune it out.”

Holden says nearly all CityU marketing courses integrate the latest technology and strategies in new media. Courses include: E-Marketing, Principles of Marketing and Integrated Marketing. Faculty adjust each class to the students in that course, their experience and what they are most interested in learning.

“One of our cornerstones is using practitioner faculty, or people in the field, to teach courses,” Holden says. “It means that someone that is teaching marketing classes is working in the field all day long. They are seeing what’s out there every day.”

But most importantly, CityU gives students the fundamentals to be successful in the dynamic and demanding field of marketing, Holden says.

“The wiz-bang stuff isn’t going to help,” she says. “It’s the fundamental building blocks of a good marketing program that will help your business succeed.”

Still, many students worry their new degree won’t help them in this radically tightened job market. However, according to Audra Jackley, a Seattle-based professional marketing account director, marketing firms have plenty of room for fresh minds and hard workers.

“If you are a new grad entering this place and knowing that this economy is all wonky, you just need to keep going and not get discouraged,” says Jackley of TMP Worldwide Advertising and Communications. “Things will get better. Be willing to work hard. You need to show that you’re willing to get your hands dirty.”

Specifically, Jackley says marketing firms are looking for people who have some work experience and understand new media and online marketing. That’s where many businesses are focusing their dollars and energy, she adds.

Instead of radio and newspaper ads, Jackley says her clients almost exclusively use social media sites, particularly Facebook. Clients also favor Web tools, such as meta tags - keywords assigned to information (ex. bookmarks, images or files) in a Web page by the site’s creator that can be located through browsing or searching.

They also launch advertising campaigns on online search engines like Google and Bing.

“I think the Web is only going to get bigger,” Jackley says. “[Consumers] no longer want to seek out content, they want it to come to them.”

Jackley says the most rewarding thing about being a successful marketing professional is identifying a problem, implementing a plan and then seeing the results roll in. Most recently, she helped increase online visibility for a friend’s lawnmower business.

“I was able to show them how to get a higher ranking on Google on the cheap and they recruited more business,” she says. “When you get to help businesses accomplish a goal, that’s really warm and fuzzy.”

Schedin says her CityU experience has helped her develop a different set of skills for a changed world.

“It’s exciting to be on the crest of this [digital marketing] wave,” she says.

For more information about the Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing, please visit the program overview page.