This is a foundational course for beginners. Whether you are familiar with digital marketing or not, this course will guide you through the basics and lay the foundation for you to be an effective digital marketer.

The course gives beginners a solid foundation in digital marketing so that they have the right tools and knowledge to confidently develop and deploy effective digital marketing strategies to drive business growth. (Total course length – 17 hours)

The Customer Avatar and the Customer Journey - The section focuses students on how to use market research to build an ideal customer profile and develop focused messaging that will transform a target from “cold” prospect to loyal customer along the stages of the Customer Journey.

Content Marketing to Transform a "Cold" Prospect to a Loyal Customer - The section covers

• The different types of content. what makes great content, and setting up a content strategy

• How to create the right content at each stage of the Customer Journey, and tailoring content to match the selected traffic channels

• Lead Magnets - purpose and role of the lead magnet in lead generation, types of lead magnets, the "squeeze" page and lead capture

• Importance of Copywriting - emotive writing to motivate the target audience to actand buy

• Responsive Website - developing a well-designed website with clear, compelling messaging that automatically sells your products

• Intersection of Content and Search Engine Optimization – the symbiotic relationship between good content and successful SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

The fundamentals of search engine optimization on Google – how SEO works to generate awareness of your business, product or service

• Factors that affect the success of SEO – several factors play outsize roles in the success of any SEO strategy, they have a huge impact on the ranking of your content in search results.

• Selecting the right keywords for your business– building content around these keywords.

• Technical factors in SEO – there are a host of technical factors that affect a website’s availability and discoverability with search engines

• Backlinks – these help build up your website’s authority with the search engines and improve the ranking of your content in search results

• Measuring results with KPIs – you must measure performance to know if what you are doing works.

Marketing on Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and Pinterest

• There are 4 aspects to social media marketing – they complement each other, and they work best when included in your social media strategy.

• Characteristics, best practices and statistics for the top 8 social media platforms

• Selecting the right social media channels for your target audience

• Success factors, what to avoid and benefits of social media– several critical factors determine the success of social media marketing, make sure to include them in your social media strategy. There are also practices to avoid at all costs even though they are commonly used.

• Creating content for social media – content must match the characteristics of the social media channel, we use examples to illustrate the unique characteristics

• Influencers – they play a pivotal role in social media strategies. A strong influencer brings huge value to a brand

Paid Advertising

• When is the right time to use paid advertising to reach your target audience.

• The main channels for paid advertising, their ad characteristics and selecting the right channels for your business.

• Google as a paid advertising channel – types of ads, characteristics and pricing.

• The main social media advertising channels and their characteristics – Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat and TikTok

• Setting up social media ads, their mechanics and pricing

• Metrics for social media paid ad success

EmailMarketing to Convert a Lead to a Customer - The section covers

• Email as a delivery mechanism for high quality content along the Customer Journey.

• Types of emails used in email marketing, their characteristics and purpose.

• Building email lists– effective methods to rapidly build up an email list

• Lead magnets and their effectiveness at building email lists

• Lead capture and “squeeze” pages –designing lead capture forms and “squeeze” pages that exponentially increase subscription rates

• Best practices in email marketing – following best practices increases the chances of success

• Metrics to measure performance and success

Strategy, KPIs and ROI - The section covers

• Measuring performance to know if goals have been achieved

• What ROI should you aim for?

• Setting SMART goals – tracking performance through goals

• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) - measure the KPIs that tell you if your goals are on track to achievement.

• Setting up your strategy and planning in digital marketing – the overall digital marketing strategy comes first, followed by campaign strategy and tactics.

Resources for Market Research

The market research resources and templates are designed to support your collection of critical data about your target audience, market demand for your products and what your competition is doing to reach their target audience. There are 6 templates which will help you stay organized while planning your digital marketing strategy:

• Customer Avatar profile

• Customer Journey Planner

• Decision Process for the Customer Avatar

• Market Research Results for Customer Avatar

• Keyword Research

• Competitor Research