Spring course focuses on search
engine marketing, advertising
MURFREESBORO — MTSU marketing professor Don Roy recognizes the challenges
today’s students face in a hyper-competitive job market, so what better way to
give his students an edge than connecting them with search engine giant Google?
Students enrolled in Roy’s
“Applied Promotional Strategy” undergraduate marketing course during this
recently ended semester learned more than the fundamentals of search engine
marketing by participating in the Google Online Marketing Challenge for the
first time.
The challenge is a global
collegiate competition in which student teams run a three-week Google AdWords
campaign for a local business or nonprofit organization. The challenge is open
to student teams of three to six members from university undergraduate or
graduate programs, regardless of a student’s major.
The 25 students in Roy’s
class were divided up into eight teams that had to find a real business to
market. Their budget came in the form of a $250 credit provided by Google for
each team. The teams then had to develop a marketing strategy and objectives
for their clients before launching a three-week AdWords campaign using paid
advertising.
And while technical
glitches prevented Roy’s class from fully participating in the competition,
students such as senior Paul Douglas, an electronic media communication major
from Nashville, Tennessee, gained valuable insights into how search engine
marketing works.
Douglas was part of a
four-member team that developed a marketing campaign for the Nashville Venom
indoor football team. He was also among four students in the class that studied
independently and passed two exams to achieve Google AdWords certification, a
credential that lasts a year.
Now able to converse more
intelligently about “impressions” and “click-through rates,” Douglas said the
class allowed him and his classmates to communicate directly with clients and
get hands-on experience in developing an online marketing campaign. He even
built an online display ad for the football team.
“We got an almost 1
percent click-through rate, which I think is pretty good,” said Douglas as he
pointed to the computer screen showing his team’s analytics on the last day of
class, his assessment confirmed by Roy. “It’s been pretty cool. … The knowledge
this has given me is valuable.”
Roy said students such as
Douglas discovered that search engine marketing works better for some types of
businesses than others, but that’s just the type of insight that students can
carry with them into their careers.
“More employers are
seeking graduates with search engine marketing skills, and this challenge is a
means for acquainting students with paid search advertising practices,” Roy
said.
According to Google, the
challenge is a unique opportunity for students to experience and create online
marketing campaigns using Google AdWords and Google+. Over 80,000 students and
professors from almost 100 countries have participated in the past seven years,
the company says.
Teams that develop and
communicate the most successful campaigns win prizes, including trips to Google
offices. Students also have the opportunity to participate in the optional
Google+ Social Media Marketing category by creating and managing a Google+ Page
for their clients over a five-week period.
To help his students
better understand the online marketing landscape, Roy invited executive Matthew
Job with Local Search Masters, a Nashville-based search marketing firm, to
visit his class for a guest lecture earlier in the semester.
“I can tell you from being
in the world of search marketing that there is definitely a demand for people
who know what they’re doing,” said Job, vice president of business development
for the firm. “And there are not a lot of people who I can truly say know what
they’re doing.”
Among the insights Job
shared was how potential clients for search marketing services don’t want to be
oversold on your firm’s abilities.
“Part of what we try to
avoid when we are selling a client is to avoid talking about us. Because what
we’ve found is … the more you talk about how awesome you are or how cool you
are, the less people care,” he said.
“If you’re cool and
fantastic, you don’t need to tell people that. They’ll know it based on the
work that you do.”
Despite the technical
glitches this year, Roy said he will have next spring’s class try the Google
Online Marketing Challenge again in hopes of getting an earlier start and allow
students to get the full experience of the competition.
“I’m going to give it
another shot because I’m convinced that students can benefit from having this
knowledge and this skillset,” he said.
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