High Impact, High Value

Students in Pieter Verhallen’s Marketing Methods class work on semester-long projects with industry contacts at local companies, such as 321 Coffee, and iconic brands, including McDonald’s, Chase Bank, Pfizer and Home Depot. Through these projects, Poole students are making an impact on hundreds of businesses — family-owned, multinational and other types — in North Carolina and across the country every year.

Working in teams, students analyze a company’s product or service, develop a marketing plan and present a report with recommendations on effective marketing. The report is based on their in-depth analysis of a product’s differentiations and strategies for pricing, delivery and promotion. 

Marketing is so much more than just the advertising that companies are doing.

“Marketing is so much more than just the advertising that companies are doing,” says Verhallen, assistant teaching professor of marketing in Poole College. “Anecdotally, I frequently hear from students that they decided to switch into a Poole marketing track after the course.”

Dan Webb, a 2023 Poole graduate, already was in the marketing concentration for his business administration degree when he took Marketing Methods. At the time, he was working part time in marketing for Huber USA in Raleigh, so he tapped his contacts there for his team project.   

Huber is part of the Germany-based Peter Huber Kältemaschinenbau SE, which makes high-precision temperature control systems. Webb’s team focused on a product line that was rolling out to the North American market. 

We were able to work with a real-world company that had a problem they wanted to solve.

In creating a marketing plan, “We were able to work with a real-world company that had a problem they wanted to solve,” Webb says. “We came up with a plan to help commercialize products they were bringing over here from a subsidiary manufacturer.” 

His team spent a day at Huber and talked with top executives, visited the showroom and watched part of the process to make temperature control units. “It really helped the group to see what they were selling and to see the different products they had. It was something you had to learn hands on,” Webb says. 

In that hands-on learning experience, Webb built teamwork and facilitation skills he’ll use in his career. “Working with a team of students that came from different business concentrations and developing those interdisciplinary connections really helped,” he says, “as well as collaborating with external partners.”   

He’s now a marketing manager for Plantd, a venture-backed startup in Oxford, North Carolina, that makes sustainable building materials that offset carbon emissions. And he’s a teaching assistant for Marketing Methods, which Poole faculty member Tom Byrnes originally developed. 

Webb’s project with Huber also boosted his performance the following semester as Poole’s team lead in the 2023 Heavener International Case Competition at the University of Florida. Poole students placed second in their division.  

Poole senior Emma Collins led her Marketing Methods team members in their project, which analyzed her mother’s Keller Williams Realty operation, the Collins Group, based in Mooresville, North Carolina. Students looked at market position, marketing channels, geographic area of business and other factors. 

In creating recommendations for a marketing plan, “We looked a lot at social media because real estate tends to go a more conventional route,” Collins says. The team proposed using TikTok and Instagram and enhancing the operation’s Facebook presence.  

“We looked at ways to make their marketing more exciting by showing off houses in a different way — instead of showing pictures, maybe showing a video of what it’s like to live in a certain house,” Collins says. 

Her experience working on the project will help when she starts her career.

It was my first shot at developing an actual marketing program with a real-world emphasis.

“It was my first shot at developing an actual marketing program with a real-world emphasis … and keeping a radar focus on everything marketing to improve the overall company,” she says. “Seeing it all come together was really important.”

The project also has helped Collins grow in her internship at Siemens, where she works in training and onboarding and does internal marketing. “It gave me the confidence and skills to take my marketing experience somewhere else and use it,” she notes.      

The Marketing Methods projects are high impact all around — for students who gain real-world experience and for the companies involved. Businesses gain marketing insights from the students’ recommendations and access to a pipeline of potential interns and employees.

They’re learning very transferable skills. Every business benefits from marketing skills.

Even students who don’t pursue a marketing career track build capabilities they can use throughout their career. “They’re learning very transferable skills. Every business benefits from marketing skills,” Verhallen says. “It’s useful for a generalist business profile.”  

Companies get fresh analyses, insights and recommendations from students that may ultimately help increase revenue.    

Effective town-gown collaboration can draw more companies and guest lecturers to campus for Poole recruiting events and speaking opportunities.      

“It fosters a positive relationship between NC State and these companies,” Verhallen says. “When a student does good work for a business, it shows the company that this is the student talent that we have.”

When a student does good work for a business, it shows the company that this is the student talent that we have.