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Would college marketing classes benefit an aspiring IMer?

by Dyer402
18 replies
Hey everyone,

I have been contemplating whether or not it would be beneficial to take some marketing classes at the community college I go to. Some of the classes range from intro to marketing to entrepreneurial marketing and a few others. I was wondering if anyone here has ever taken any marketing classes that has taught them something they couldn't have learned through IM courses or youtube or blogs, etc. Any help is appreciated!
#aspiring #benefit #classes #college #imer #marketing
  • Profile picture of the author utuxia
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    • Profile picture of the author ImWendy
      Originally Posted by utuxia View Post

      It depends. I think to get a general idea it might help. I majored in Marketing in college and I suppose I can apply some of it to IM. What I've found is to be successful you really have to be clever and find opportunities where most people don't look. I don't think they teach this in school.

      I agree. Also, I think that marketing courses mostly prepare its students to go out to work for a marketing firm in the Madison Ave. sense of the word. Nothing wrong with that of course. I think that IM and regular marketing are two totally different breeds of animal.

      What may sell well in billboards and magazines may not do as well online. You may be able to pick up a trick here & there from a classroom but I think the skill you can learn free (or for the low cost of a wso) can go a lot further
      than what you can get from a classroom.
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      • Profile picture of the author honestim
        While marketing lessons in college will give you the basics of marketing, I would not depend upon that to succeed in IM. You got to learn IM by doing it. In my opinion college marketing lessons are good to have and not a must have for IM success.

        Cheers
        HonestIM
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  • Profile picture of the author Devin X
    Banned
    Marketing classes helped me. But I can only speak for myself.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kal Sallam
    I would think so, since it will provide you with core foundations
    Of marketing & how to run a real business which IM is no different.
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    • Profile picture of the author cashp0wer
      I would think they could help you out quite a bit. You certainly will not learn everything you need to know but you will learn some things and be a step ahead of people that have not taken any college classes. They sure can't hurt you!
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      • Profile picture of the author myob
        Taking marketing courses in addition to learning other core skills for running a business such as writing, accounting, management, technology, etc would be invaluable in the long run. It is short-sighted to view IM as significantly different from a real world business model, as best practices are very often applicable to both. And nowadays, even community colleges do in fact offer internet marketing courses including SEO.
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  • Profile picture of the author utuxia
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    • Profile picture of the author Devin X
      Banned
      Originally Posted by utuxia View Post

      I don't think you'll find an internet marketing class that covers SEO.
      So what of it? The principles of business are more important. Plus, why do people treat SEO as the god of IM? It isn't what it used to be. You have to produce content to please people, not the search engines. Being social is more important than ranking #1 on page 1 of Google.
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    • Profile picture of the author Rod Cortez
      Originally Posted by utuxia View Post

      I don't think you'll find an internet marketing class that covers SEO.
      You couldn't be more wrong. I did a presentation at a local University for a marketing class about SEO & Paid traffic at the Professor's urging (a friend of mine) because they had a whole chapter on just organic search.

      RoD
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  • Profile picture of the author fedor50
    Originally Posted by Dyer402 View Post

    Hey everyone,

    I have been contemplating whether or not it would be beneficial to take some marketing classes at the community college I go to. Some of the classes range from intro to marketing to entrepreneurial marketing and a few others. I was wondering if anyone here has ever taken any marketing classes that has taught them something they couldn't have learned through IM courses or youtube or blogs, etc. Any help is appreciated!
    I think that the marketing classes would help you.It will teach you the basic foundations of what marketing is and how to succeed at it
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  • Profile picture of the author Loren Woirhaye
    Go talk to the instructors at the local college and ask them.

    They me be more informed at internet media, mail order
    and selling intangible products than you expect.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rod Cortez
    Originally Posted by Dyer402 View Post

    Hey everyone,

    I have been contemplating whether or not it would be beneficial to take some marketing classes at the community college I go to. Some of the classes range from intro to marketing to entrepreneurial marketing and a few others. I was wondering if anyone here has ever taken any marketing classes that has taught them something they couldn't have learned through IM courses or youtube or blogs, etc. Any help is appreciated!
    I think all marketers should learn the basics, such as the 4 P's of marketing (sometimes referred to as the "5" Ps), market segementation, identifying demographics, how to create a proper marketing survey, how to do regression analysis, etc.

    So yes, you can benefit from some marketing classes. Like anything else knowledge is only powerful when you use it. That part is up to you.

    Before you take the classes though, find out who the professors are and talk to them. Make sure they're at least up-to-date with the times. I've interacted with a lot of business professors over the years and they all definitely have different attitudes toward keeping up with the times.

    RoD
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    "Your personal philosophy is the greatest determining factor in how your life works out."
    - Jim Rohn
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  • Profile picture of the author sriram rajan
    If you are in to reading , then get to these books first
    1) Goals --> Brian Tracy
    2) Influence --> Robert Cialdini
    3) 7 habits of highly effective people

    and any other book from brain tracy , you should have lots of marketing knowledge from these books and then you can decide about the course, this is way cheaper too :-)
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  • Profile picture of the author oliverkan
    If you're going to college anyway then yes, take the marketing courses. I wouldn't recommend going to college for the marketing courses but since you are already there the principles you learn there can be applied here.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dave Espino
      Interesting question! (with no easy answer - and I'm begging to differ with a lot of the answers here)

      On the one hand, I would want to know who is teaching the classes.

      Do they have real-world marketing experience?

      Have they run a marketing-based business in the past?

      Are they currently involved / consulting / advising any businesses?

      Although many marketing principles are evergreen, a lot has changed even just in the last 5 years - ESPECIALLY with regards to Internet Marketing - and if that professor hasn't been in the real world of marketing or internet marketing, they'll have no clue what a Penguin or a Panda is, let alone know how to guide you through the turbulent and ever-changing waters of online marketing!

      If your goal is to become more knowledgeable about basic, evergreen marketing theory and principles, then I would say, go ahead and do the college courses, but ONLY after vetting who the teachers / professors are and what they will bring to your learning experience.

      BUT! And it's a BIG BUT. Every expenditure of your time has to be coldly calculated to give you a solid return or you are just not maximizing / leveraging yourself well enough to succeed. And that is why this is such an important question. In my mind, I want to know - will this use of time PAY OFF?

      If your goal is to get up to speed and begin making money quickly online, then having a MENTOR who has already succeeded at what you want to do and is still active in that business is the best use of your time.

      SELF-EDUCATION is second best - as long as you have a clear vision of what you want to do and where you want to go with it.

      The ultimate teacher is someone who has DONE IT and can teach from real-world, current-day experience.

      If college professors had DONE IT successfully, many of them would likely still be in a marketing business - doing it and not necessarily teaching out of an outdated book.

      Dave
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  • Profile picture of the author Randall Magwood
    If you want a job working in the marketing department of a company, sure, go for it.

    If you're going to school to help you learn internet marketing, so that you could start your own business from it.... it doesn't make sense. There's so much info on the internet (and this forum) that can make you earn a nice living online.

    But if you want to have 2 sources of income, then complete school, work in the marketing department, then come home and work on your internet business.
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  • Profile picture of the author TheOnlineMarketingMaster
    Absolutely, education is the most important thing in this industry.
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  • Profile picture of the author seether101
    Banned
    ya, i see some of those classes at times in college, but i doubt they are related to IM
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  • Profile picture of the author Chris-
    I think you'll learn much more by doing some IM in practice, and asking how to improve your results, on this forum.

    As is pointed out in the "Rich Dad Poor Dad" book, the education system is mostly at least 50 years out of date. You can also read books which will explain how the theories behind economics are nonsense, because they assume every human is 100% rational, and that's been shown to be very far from the truth, so marketing, which is often based on things like economics (which people might assume to be a real science, when in fact it's not at all), and not even up-to-date economics.

    Plus, by FAR the best way to learn, is by DOING in practice. How many of those marketing courses will be fully PRACTICAL? Not much of them, I'd guess, and not much of that in IM!

    Even looking through books specifically on IM, I find that the information presented in such books if no-where near as realistic and genuine as a lot of the info on this forum. So my advise would be to DO lots of IM, and keep asking specific questions here, and that will get you much more real and practical understandings and experience than any college course!

    Hope that helps

    Chris
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