What is Marketing?
Marketing is the study and practice of understanding consumers to create, communicate, deliver, and exchange offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. Marketers are at the core of a business, where they act as stewards of a company’s revenue-generating activities—responsible for aligning customer needs with firm capabilities in ways that create lasting value for both. This work requires careful judgment, balancing what customers need with what the firm can deliver.
As a BYU Marriott marketing student, you will develop practical capabilities—including market insight, analytical reasoning, experimentation, communication, and sound decision-making—that prepare you for a successful career across a broad range of fields. Marketing graduates find employment in brand and product management, digital marketing, tech marketing, account management or sales, customer relationship management, marketing operations, and more. The marketing program will give you the foundational skills to land your first marketing job and the judgment to grow in your field and career over time.
In addition to career success, the skills you develop will serve you in all aspects of your life. You will grow into a Christlike leader who demonstrates empathy, humility, truth-seeking, and a desire to serve others. Marketing becomes Christlike when it helps people flourish through honest, voluntary exchange. When you focus on real value, you attend to individuals’ physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual wellbeing. As you demonstrate this care, you show your faith, integrity, and respect for those you interact with, in both your personal and professional life.
What Will You Do as a Marketer?
As a marketer, you will help organizations understand people and create value through thoughtful, evidence-based decisions. You will connect customer needs with organizational capabilities by:
- uncovering customer needs and market opportunities through research, data, observation, and conversation;
- identifying priority audiences and positioning offerings to serve them well;
- shaping products, services, brands, and experiences that solve meaningful problems;
- developing and evaluating strategies for pricing, promotion, distribution, and customer relationships;
- using analytics, experimentation, and technology to learn what works and improve decisions;
- communicating ideas clearly and creatively to customers, clients, partners, and colleagues; and
- collaborating across functions to support revenue growth and long-term customer value.
These capabilities can lead to work in brand and product management, digital and tech marketing, marketing analytics and operations, account management and professional selling, customer relationship management, and other fields. Whatever path you choose, you will be prepared to exercise sound judgment, act with integrity, and serve others by helping people make informed, voluntary choices about offerings that genuinely improve their lives.