Marketing That Moves Business
Technology continues to reshape marketing, but success still starts with understanding your customer. Learn how to combine customer insights, data, and technology to create more relevant marketing strategies and stronger business results.
With a degree in Marketing from Penn State Smeal College of Business, you'll develop the analytical, strategic, and creative skills to create demand, strengthen brands, and drive growth.
First, you'll build a strong foundation. Then, you'll pick your own diverse combination of courses or choose between two tracks: or You'll graduate with deep expertise in your chosen direction and the broad marketing skills employers value.
You'll learn how to:
Understand how customer behavior, market dynamics, and competition influence business performance
Develop strategies that create customer value and support business growth
Use marketing research and analytics to guide strategy
Launch a career in brand management, marketing analytics, professional sales, consumer insights, or product marketing
What You'll Study
Featured Courses
Marketing Research: Apply research to real marketing challenges.
Marketing Analytics: Analyze data to identify opportunities and drive decisions.
Brand Management: Learn to position products and build lasting brands.
Personal Selling: Develop consultative selling and relationship skills.
Prime Practicum: Work with clients like Crocs, L’Oréal, OpenAI & the Grammys.
What You Can Do with an Marketing Degree
Brand Managers & Product Marketers
Develop positioning strategies, support product launches, and shape how customers perceive and choose products and services. Median salary: $159,660
Business Development & Sales Managers
Build client relationships, identify growth opportunities, and drive revenue through account management and new business development. Median salary: $138,060
Marketing Analysts & Consumer Insights Specialists
Analyze market trends, customer behavior, and performance data to help organizations make informed marketing and business decisions. Median salary: $76,950
83%
Placement Rate
$65,783
Average Starting Salary
#11
Marketing - U.S.
QS World University Rankings
Put Marketing into Practice
Penn State Prime
Work with real clients through a competitive, for-credit practicum. You'll take on roles such as Account Manager and Brand Strategist and develop campaigns for nationally recognized organizations.
Penn State American Marketing Association (PSAMA)
Join the nation's most decorated collegiate AMA chapter. Gain hands-on experience through consulting, entertainment marketing, sports marketing, and retail-focused projects and programming.
Penn State Sports Business Club
Connect with sports industry professionals through networking events, workshops, and guest speakers.
Marketing Research Assistants
Work alongside our faculty on active research projects in consumer behavior, branding, analytics, and B2B marketing and develop research and analytical skills for your future.
Jacobs Retail Fellows Program
Explore luxury marketing through experiential projects, seminars, and travel opportunities focused on retail strategy, merchandising, and brand management.
Digital Marketing Practicum
Plan, launch, and manage a real digital marketing campaign using a live advertising budget while measuring performance and optimizing results.
Marketing Student Success in Action
Alina Hatfield, Marketing
Turning Consumer Insights Into Real-World Experience
Marketing major Alina Hatfield chose Penn State Smeal because marketing combines creativity and analysis. Through the Penn State Prime Practicum, she developed a campaign for skincare brand Vichy, conducting focus groups and customer interviews before presenting recommendations.
As an ALDI District Manager Intern, she also evaluated store performance, worked with leaders, and supported a successful grand opening.
Is Marketing Right for You?
Marketing Is a Strong Fit If You:
Want to understand how organizations position products, build brands, and compete
Enjoy using research, data, and insights to inform decisions
Like turning customer insights into creative ideas
Want a marketing degree grounded in research and data
See yourself in brand management, analytics, sales, consumer insights, digital or sports marketing
Apply to Smeal
A Marketing degree from Penn State Smeal prepares you to build demand, strengthen brands, and launch a career across industries. Apply today.
Connect With Us
Penn State Undergraduate Admissions
Smeal College of BusinessSmeal Undergraduate Advising
Marketing Department
More Information: Marketing Degree
The Business Development & Sales track focuses on relationship management, professional selling, services marketing, and business-to-business markets.
The Strategic Insights & Analytics track emphasizes brand management, marketing analytics, retail strategy, consumer insights, and sports business marketing.
Both tracks combine a shared marketing foundation with industry-focused electives in areas, such as:
Digital marketing
Global marketing
Sports marketing
Sustainability marketing
As a Marketing major at Penn State Smeal, you build depth in a defined career track without losing the broad foundation that makes Marketing graduates competitive across industries.
Work alongside faculty studying consumer behavior, branding, retail strategy, analytics, and business-to-business marketing.
These experiences help you develop research and analytical skills and gain exposure to the methods organizations use to understand customers and markets. Research opportunities provide valuable preparation for careers in analytics, consumer insights, consulting, and graduate study.
Beyond your chosen career track, you can explore specialized areas of marketing through advanced coursework. Options include Sports Marketing, Sports Business Marketing Strategy, Advanced Retailing and Merchandise Management, Global Marketing, Digital Marketing, Sustainable Behavior, and Strategic Brand Management.
These courses help students connect marketing principles to the industries, markets, and consumer trends that interest them most.
Penn State Smeal is home to the Institute for the Study of Business Markets (ISBM), one of the world's leading centers dedicated to business-to-business marketing research and practice. Founded in 1983, the institute connects researchers, executives, and organizations around the world to advance the understanding of how companies market and sell to other businesses.
Through ISBM, you’ll gain exposure to an area of marketing that receives far less attention than consumer branding yet plays a critical role in industries such as manufacturing, technology, healthcare, and professional services.
AI is changing how organizations understand audiences, personalize marketing, and measure performance. At Penn State Smeal, you’ll learn to combine customer insight, strategic thinking, and analytical skills to build demand and improve marketing performance.