Welcome to Marketing Management. I'm Dr. Solomon, and I really love to teach this course because it is one of the kinds of courses that will bring you up to speed with respect to your knowledge about marketing. 

I'd like to talk you a little bit about my background for teaching this course. First of all, I've been at USF for over 25 years. But before coming here, I was a director of research in an advertising agency in Dallas, and I also owned my own research company. And I try to bring these experiences to the class. I try to make sure that whatever we talk about that I use real live examples to make sure that the subject lives for you rather than just talking about it. 

One of the main takeaways is that you will do a marketing plan, and this will allow you to really be important within the corporation, because you will acquire the skills of strategic marketing planning. One of the main things I want you to be able to take away from this course is the ability to sit at the table with other peers and being knowledgeable about marketing. After all, the money to be made today corporations isn't in doing engineering work, isn't in doing coding, isn't in doing digital advertising. The money is in managing customers. It's in acquiring customers, and it's retaining customers. 

The main function of a business is to market, and, obviously, we try to make profits as well. But this course should bring you up to speed. So it may be the only course you take in marketing, or it may be one on the stepping stone to other classes, but the goal is to get you very conversant with respect to the things that you need to be a very good solid business person. I really hope you enjoy the course, and I'm looking forward to interact with you online.