Major Spotlight: Marketing

Professor Kim Folkers teaches Advertising and Promotions to potential marketing professionals at Wartburg. She is very dedicated to pass on her knowledge in the business and marketing profession onto students who will soon be the new generation of business men and women.

“The students that I really see doing the best are inquisitive, innovative in their thinking, strategic, they really get excited thinking about what's really going on with consumers,” Kim Folkers, associate professor of marketing, said.

There are five different concentrations within the business administration major. One of those concentrations is marketing. According to Folkers, marketing can be quickly summed up as building a authentic, meaningful relationship with customers.

Folkers said that one of the biggest misconceptions about marketing is that in order to be successful, a person needs to be good with people, but that's not always the case.

“When I talk to students or perspective students who are trying to decide what they want to do, often times they will say that people tell them that they’re really good with people and should go into marketing,” Folkers said. “What I try to share with them is that on the marketing side of things, that really plays out with having a passion for consumers.”

Students who are interested in pursuing marketing as their concentration first have to complete the principles of marketing course, which is required by every business major, and then he or she will focus on advertising, promotion and consumer behavior.

Students work on projects throughout their time at Wartburg, gaining real world experience that prepare them for their future careers. Ayo Adebayo, a fourth year student whose concentration is in marketing, remembers fondly of his time working with clients in some classes.

“One of my favorite classes was advertising and promotion,” Adebayo said. “We actually ran a marketing campaign for the golf course here in town and me and my group members got a lot of hands on experience.”

In order to be successful in the marketing field, a large part of the job entails knowing how a consumer thinks and being able to build an accurate plan using different data. Folkers said that students learn about advertising, media management, brand management and product and development.

“Students who come out of this program are creative thinkers, strategic thinkers, good communicators,” Folkers said. “They are students who understand that marketing is beyond social media and you need to understand how to use those tools from a business strategic standpoint and not from a student user perspective.”

Fourth year student Kyle Minden hopes to one day work for a nonprofit and utilize his skills that he gained at Wartburg to create interest in a cause that can help aid others. While he doesn’t plan to work in a traditional business setting, he sees the benefits of his degree and his concentration.

“For any business, for profit or nonprofit, you need customers and I think wherever I work in the future, having the background in marketing will be important,” Minden said. “I define marketing as getting people to care what you have to offer them.”

While some students find marketing as a natural fit, other students bounce around from major to major before deciding on marketing.

Fourth year student Jakeena Mckay first started her Wartburg experience majoring in pre-med. She quickly realized that she wasn’t as interested in medicine as she originally thought, so she switched to business with a concentration in sports management. She still didn’t feel that she was a good fit in the degree, but then remembered something from the past that had always evoked inspiration.

“Whenever I saw movies, the strong black female lead was always in the marketing field and pursuing marketing positions and excelling in these areas, McKay said. “It's something I looked up to as a kid and decided to pursue it. When I started the marketing classes, I noticed that I was commenting on things and voicing my opinions and I felt confident in doing so. That's how I knew that it was for me.”

Folkers said that students who leave Wartburg with the business administration with a concentration in marketing end up being creative and strategic thinkers and good communicators. People in the marketing field are always sharing new ideas and thinking of better ways to improve the customer experience.

Both Mckay and Adebayo said that in order to be exceed in marketing, a person needs to be confident and be able to share their ideas.

“Marketing is a field that you have to be confident in yourself,” Adebayo said. “You’ll have to be able to talk to other people. Just be creative. If you have an idea, jot it down because you never know, your idea might be the next big thing.”

Originally featured in the Wartburg Trumpet.