One of our interns at Building Indiana asked a very thought-provoking question recently: “How do colleges keep up with the latest digital marketing trends?”
We had been working on some online promotions when our intern and I began discussing the breakneck speed at which marketing evolves online. They are planning to pursue a digital marketing degree next semester in college and were wondering about how Indiana professors manage to keep up with the pace of innovation.
“Great question,” I said. “Let’s reach out and ask Indiana business schools how they do it.”
So, we did. We contacted many of Indiana’s leading business schools and asked them how they stay ahead of the latest trends in digital marketing and prepare their students for careers in the field. Many university experts were kind enough to fill us in about how it’s done.
Purdue University, Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business
Qiang Liu, Associate Professor of Management
Jinsuh Lee, Clinical Assistant Professor of Management
Jinsuh Lee.
Qiang Liu.The Daniels School of Business has been creating courses that cover the latest digital marketing trends and techniques. In Digital Marketing Strategy, students learn digital marketing strategic frameworks, digital advertising, search engine optimization, paid search, email marketing, social network analytics, and digital analytics. The course Digital Marketing Application offers students the opportunity to participate in the Google Nonprofit Marketing Immersion program, in which they run a Google ads campaign to promote a matched nonprofit organization.
Students also earn certifications in Google Ads and Analytics, which can help demonstrate their skills to potential employers. The course Social Media Marketing extends the concepts learned in Digital Marketing Strategy. Students learn how to manage various social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. With management knowledge and platform skills, students will create social media content for off-campus organizations to increase their social media presence. Instructors often invite industry guest speakers with a wealth of experience in digital marketing to speak to students in these courses.
The Daniels School has also provided students with opportunities to gain practical experiences in digital marketing, such as internships, case competitions, participation in the Google Nonprofit Marketing Immersion program, and experiential projects in collaboration with businesses. The experiential learning projects expose students to real-world digital marketing problems and potential job opportunities.
Students learned how to collect online data to understand a brand’s digital marketing environment, how to launch new products on Amazon.com, and how to run/optimize paid search campaigns for businesses. Students have also been encouraged to play various roles in creating digital and social media marketing campaigns for the school on multiple digital and social media platforms. Students sometimes take complete control of a program’s website and conduct all digital and social media marketing campaigns.
University of Notre Dame, Mendoza College of Business
Mitchell C. Olsen, Ph.D., Richard J. Huether Associate Teaching Professor of Marketing, Director of Undergraduate Studies, and Assistant Chair of the Marketing Department
Mitchell C. Olsen.Digital marketing has been a central pillar of the Marketing department at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business for several years. Digital marketing is one of four curriculum “tracks” available to all Marketing majors and includes the following courses: Digital Marketing, Social Media Strategy, Managing Online & Mobile Engagement, and Applied Digital Marketing. Moreover, to better equip students throughout campus for careers in the field, we launched a Digital Marketing Minor for non-business majors in 2019. It immediately became, and continues to be, one of the University’s most popular minors. We also offer a Digital Marketing & Marketing Analytics major within the MBA program.
Although we have expanded our number of distinctly digital offerings, the content within our entire curriculum is continuously updated to incorporate the latest trends in Marketing – whether digital, physical, or somewhere in between. Indeed, it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate digital marketing from Marketing itself. Fewer consumers and companies think of digital as a standalone silo. Instead, leading marketers are seamlessly integrating efforts such as digital advertising and mobile ordering into the customer’s overall brand experience. Critical to all good Marketing is understanding what customers want, why they want it, and how they want to find it. At Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, our curriculum helps ensure tomorrow’s marketing leaders understand how to create meaningful value for their customers in ways that are ever evolving but always relevant.
Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Indianapolis
Kim Saxton, Clinical Professor of Marketing
Kim Saxton.The Kelley School of Business in Indianapolis has been teaching digital marketing to MBA students for more than 15 years and to undergraduate students since 2016. Its importance is reflected in the curriculum, which features required and elective digital marketing courses for marketing majors. Recognizing that digital marketing requires users to understand multiple software platforms, we leverage software certifications. Kelley faculty are certified on using these platforms, but we also require students to obtain certifications from multiple software platforms so they know how to use them, including Google, Hubspot, Salesforce, Twitter, Hootsuite, Facebook, and Amazon. Finally, students work with real clients in these courses to apply their knowledge. This way, they get first-hand knowledge about how companies use digital marketing tools to accomplish goals, and they also get to practice improving a company’s digital marketing efforts. The combination of curriculum, certification and real-world experience prepares Kelley students for successful careers in digital marketing.
Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Bloomington
Brian Vander Schee, Clinical Associate Professor of Marketing
Brian Vander Schee.The Kelley School of Business at Bloomington is known for academic excellence and fostering student talent for business growth in Indiana. Kelley prioritizes looking to the future as students can take elective courses in digital marketing or complete a co-major in Digital and Social Media Business Applications.
Faculty introduce the fundamentals of digital marketing and quickly build on the concepts by teaching with the latest tools and techniques with a focus on using data to enhance customer value and to reach business goals. For example, in the Digital Marketing course, students earn industry certifications to demonstrate competency and effective application of digital tools. Students also use online assessments to evaluate current and planned digital initiatives.
More advanced course work continues with academic and practitioner perspectives. For example, students are trained in coding and artificial intelligence for social media sentiment analysis. Faculty also introduce intellectual property and consumer privacy issues to appreciate the legal aspects associated with digital marketing.
A key component is for faculty to keep abreast of new developments in digital marketing to bring cutting edge digital content and technology to the classroom. Another major element is connecting classroom instruction with corporate practice in every course. Training students in the latest technology trends is a benefit to all of Kelley’s constituents including students, recruiters, alumni, faculty, and Indiana businesses.
Indiana Wesleyan University, DeVoe School of Business
Dr. Terry Gunter, Dean of Business, Technology, and Leadership
Dr. Terry Gunter.Indiana Wesleyan University has been preparing students for careers in marketing for many years. Most recently, there has been more focus on the field of digital marketing, which is now reflected in program offerings.
The DeVoe School of Business, Technology, & Leadership in the College of Adult and Professional Studies, focuses on serving the online, working adult student learners. The school has offered a Bachelor of Science with various specializations, including one focused in Digital Advertising, Promotion, and Branding, for several years. However, in 2021, based on market research, the school recognized the need to discontinue the Digital Advertising, Promotion, and Branding specialization and replace it with a new Digital Media Business Strategies specialization. This new specialization better reflects market demands and prepares students for careers in the digital marketing field. In this program, students take foundational business and marketing courses along with this new specialization which focuses on digital branding, digital advertising, digital promotions, and social media business strategies.
Additionally, the DeVoe School is currently surveying industry professionals in the area of digital marketing and storytelling to identify the essential knowledge, skills, and abilities our graduates will need to have to respond to the demands of tomorrow’s workforce. The plan is to use this information to revamp our bachelor’s degree in marketing into a modularized format that will provide foundational business and marketing courses, along with certificates in specific areas of marketing including digital marketing, storytelling, marketing analytics, and potentially other industry certifications. This will offer some flexibility for our adult learners to shape their focus in marketing.
The School of Integrated Learning and Development, in the College of Adulty and Professional Studies has and continues to offer an Associate of Science with a major in Creative Digital Media. This degree provides students with the practical skills and knowledge necessary to create digital media solutions based on effective communication strategies. This program provides an excellent foundation for students desiring to continue their education at IWU to complete a bachelor’s degree in any discipline, but especially for degrees with majors in Communication and Marketing.
The DeVoe Division of Business, which serves IWU’s traditional, on-campus student population, offers a Bachelor of Arts in Marketing. Students take a common business core with required courses in Service Marketing and Strategic Marketing. Further, students may select two courses from a list that provides options for digital marketing including: Advertising and Promotion, Digital Marketing, and Branding to name a few. This degree provides students with an experiential application through a marketing internship.
University of Southern Indiana, Romain College of Business
Dr. Sabinah Wanjugu, Assistant Professor of Marketing
Dr. Sabinah Wanjugu.Our university recognizes the importance of keeping up with the latest digital marketing trends, and we have taken several steps to prepare our students.
Firstly, we have added digital marketing as a core course in our marketing program, allowing students to gain a deep understanding of the principles and techniques of digital marketing. In this course, students learn about various digital marketing channels, such as search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, social media marketing, and email marketing.
We also provide our students with experiential learning opportunities, such as working with real-life clients to solve digital marketing problems and hands-on learning through simulations, where students can practice real-life digital marketing tasks such as running search and display ads. This allows our students to apply their knowledge in a practical setting, gain valuable experience, and build a portfolio of work to showcase to potential employers.
Furthermore, we have guest speakers from the digital marketing industry who share their insights and experiences with our students. We also encourage our students to earn third-party certifications, such as Google Analytics, to demonstrate their proficiency in digital marketing tools and techniques. These certifications not only help students stand out to potential employers but also provide them with practical skills that they can apply in their careers.
To keep up with the latest trends in digital marketing, students research and present weekly assignments on trending topics in the field. This equips them with the necessary skills and resources to stay up-to-date and competitive in their future careers.
Butler University, Andre B. Lacy School of Business
Courtney Hatch, Associate Dean
Courtney Hatch.Our university’s offerings in digital marketing have grown right alongside major developments in the industry. The Lacy School of Business at Butler University has included digital media tools into almost all of our core Marketing classes. In addition, we currently offer a Digital Marketing elective for our business students. We are also developing two other electives that incorporate the latest trends in digital marketing into our curriculum. The two electives being developed by our faculty will cover artificial intelligence in marketing as well as the marketing of gaming and eSports. Both of these new electives will be offered to our students in the fall 2023 semester.
Ball State University, Miller College of Business
Austin Hostetter, Assistant Lecturer of Marketing
Chris Wilkey, Assistant Lecturer of Marketing
Austin Hostetter.
Chris Wilkey.Ball State University continues to innovate in the classroom and through industry partnerships to prepare students for future careers in digital marketing.
New curriculum enhancements launched in 2022 integrate digital marketing concepts into our existing marketing program. These updates include a new minor in Digital Marketing Strategy and Analytics and courses in social media, content marketing, paid advertising, SEO, and data analytics.
Each new course emphasizes experiential learning in the classroom, providing hands-on experience for students. To achieve this, the University is investing in co-curricular opportunities with industry partners in the digital marketing field. These relationships with community leaders and businesses connect students with real-world applications and provide them with networking and career opportunities.
Additionally, our marketing faculty continues to innovate in the digital marketing field, sharing its research with students and the broader community. This research helps inform the development of new courses and programs that reflect the latest trends and best practices in digital marketing.
At Ball State University, we recognize the importance of digital marketing in today's business world. We continue to innovate to ensure our students are well-equipped to succeed in this rapidly evolving field.
