About the author
Dr. Greg Watson
Digital marketing researcher, serial entrepreneur, Professor of Business at Pima Community College, and author of the open textbooks Digital Marketing Essentials and Entrepreneurship Essentials.
- Business, e-commerce & digital marketing
- PhD
- startups founded
- 14
- podcasts hosted
- 3
- institutions using his first OER textbook
- 78
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
- MBA
Scholar
Dr. Watson holds a PhD in Business from Northcentral University, with an emphasis in e-commerce and digital marketing, and an MBA from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His dissertation research focused on the consumer buying-decision process and the touchpoints that shape it, the foundation of Digital Marketing Essentials.
Marketer and entrepreneur
He started his first company, Payroll Systems, from his college dorm room. During the dot-com boom he built the America Beautiful Network, at the time the third-largest vertically integrated travel advertising network, with advertisers including Marriott. It was acquired mainly for its ad-targeting technology. He has founded 14 startups in all.
That practitioner's view of targeting shapes this book: the platforms can find almost anyone, but only a marketer who understands segmentation can tell them who to look for.
Educator
He is Professor of Business at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona, where he teaches marketing and entrepreneurship. Before Pima, he taught in the McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Arizona's Eller College of Management and served as Director of its New Venture Development Program.
His first open textbook, Entrepreneurship Essentials, is used at 78 institutions. Digital Marketing Essentials is the second title in the Essentials OER Series.
Speaker
- NACCENational Association for Community College Entrepreneurship, national conference
- TENWESTRegional entrepreneurship and innovation festival, Tucson
- Pitch CompetitionPima Community College Business Department Pitch Competition
Podcast host
- The Hustle ShowWeekly episodes on building a business that outgrows you
- Entrepreneur Q&AFounders' real questions, answered in two to four minutes
- Move at the Speed of CultureCultural signals and digital trends, turned into marketing decisions