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  • Know Your Customer, Spot the Trend, Tell the Story

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A group of students sit in rows facing a panel of four speakers at the front of a modern conference room. A presentation slide on a nearby screen displays a discussion prompt related to fan engagement in sports.

Know Your Customer, Spot the Trend, Tell the Story

Become a Summer Trojan and earn college credit.

What if you had the power to spot a trend, understand a generation and turn that insight into a winning idea? In this hands-on course, you’ll work with a product, then explore how demography drives marketing and sales by revealing who your customers are and how to reach them. You’ll see how age, geography and behavior don’t just describe people — they explain why customers buy and how companies craft their strategies.

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This course is ideal for students who want to build real business skills: analyzing data, segmenting customers, transforming insights into compelling stories and creating value through sales.

You’ll finish the course with a final report and presentation that showcases your product, your customer segment and your go-to-market plan.

If you want to understand people, connect data to stories and pitch like a pro, this course is for you.

Three students smile while standing at a tiled outdoor table overlooking a large stadium. The stadium’s seating and roof structure are visible in the background.

Topics of Study

  • Demography
  • Marketing
  • Sales
  • Business analytics
  • Audience segmentation
  • Storytelling

Learning Highlights

  • Read and interpret population data and trend
  • Build simple but effective customer segments
  • Develop a basic marketing message and sales pitch
  • Work in teams to create and present a mini go-to market plan
  • Communicate confidently about how demographic trends impact future business
  • Strengthen teamwork, public speaking and leadership skills through interactive workshops and final presentations

Requirements

  • Students must bring their own laptops
  • ChatGPT subscription
  • ESRI
  • Please bring business casual clothes for field trips and business professional clothes for your final presentation
WeekFocusKey TopicsAssignments and Activities
1Introduction to Demography, Sales and MarketingIdentifying and predicting customersDo a real-world “Know Your Zip” scavenger hunt to see who lives where and why it matters.
2Customer Segmentation and PersonasCustomer segmentationGroup people by what they care about and build a detailed customer persona.
3Translating Insights Into Marketing and Sales StrategiesTurning marketing and sales data into actionPractice storytelling and learn how to distill data into a framework that turns ideas into value.
4Leadership and Final Presentation
Leadership, presentation and analytical skillsWork in teams to create and present your final project: your target customer, your plan, your story!

Here, you can not only learn professional knowledge you're interested in, but also make friends from different countries.

— USC Summer Programs student participant
USC Summer Program Ethics in the 21st Century: Business, Politics & Technology
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