Marketing Concentrations

The marketing curriculum at JMU offers students an opportunity to choose a marketing concentration to provide further focus within marketing studies.  Students are encouraged to use Career and Academic Planning to determine personal strengths that match up with needed skills in various marketing careers.  Faculty can also advise students on how to match selection of a concentration to desired career opportunities.  Please read the information below to learn more about each concentration:

·         Business to Business marketing students learn how to develop programs, typically linked to a direct sales channel, that address business needs.  B2B marketers typically target markets of hundreds or a few thousand businesses.  They work towards developing long term relationships with dozens of influencers, multiple evaluation committees, and ultimate decision makers. This extended team of buyers defines product/service requirements and evaluates members of the supply chain over many months, eventually purchasing a solution that could cost thousands and even millions of dollars with the cost often spread out over multiple years. Brand value is based on generating interest and getting on the short list of the organizational buyer groups. B2B marketing has typically been a fast follower of B2C, applying the experiences and tools of B2C to the unique needs of their business market.  Learn more about Business to Business Marketing.

·         Students in the B2C concentration learn how to develop campaigns and marketing offers that are delivered directly to the consumer or through a retail channel. The primary goal is mostly about bringing the consumer to a transaction as quickly as possible. B2C marketers usually address a market of thousands or millions of people focused on buying products that cost a few dollars up to the low thousands. Consumers in the B2C market are relatively more price conscious and a strong brand can lead to loyal consumers with long term relationships with the organization.  Historically, B2C marketing has been the primary driver of the marketing profession particularly through the use of advanced data capture and analytics tools combined with segmentation and targeting techniques.   Learn more about Business to Consumer Marketing.

Marketing majors must declare one of the above named concentrations.  To declare a marketing concentration, contact Ms. Marsha Shenk, Academic Services Center Marketing Advisor, (shenkmm@jmu.edu), ZSh 217, 540-568-8782.