Marketing Courses Online Mean Anyone Can Learn
It’s no longer the case that an understanding of digital marketing is something best left to niche specialists. When online sales surpassed the $300 billion annual tally in the fiscal year of 2014, anybody who wasn’t already involved in online retail enterprise immediately became interested. Considering the amount of revenue currently being spent online and the potential for leaving money on the table, executives in all industries have taken notice. If you or your staff have not yet had an opportunity to learn about online marketing, the time might be ripe for investing in a digital marketing course, even for staff outside the marketing department.
SEO
Three-letter buzz phrases birthed from the online sphere of influence were easily ignorable in years gone by. Today, it’s a major faux-pas to be prompted about SEO in a job interview and not have a coherent answer. SEO, or search engine optimization, is the practice of making a web page more attractive to search engines. In the past, this was a skillset that only a few people in an organization needed to understand. Today, it affects writers, designers, developers, and executives in their daily course of business. A study of SEO is a useful component of any digital marketing course.
Social Media
What began as a toy ended up as a powerful business and sales tool. According to Business Insider, the top 500 retailers have benefitted for a combined $3.3 billion in social media sales, and that was in 2014. Socially-driven sales figures have been on a steady incline for almost a decade. If your organization has yet to drive sales from social media, you’re lagging behind. A comprehensive digital marketing course will instruct students on how to achieve new market discoveries, insights, leads, and eventually customers through social media channels. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are the obvious examples that come to mind, but massive results are being accomplished through channels such as Snapchat, Instagram, and Pinterest as well.
Paid Discovery
While not nearly as glamorous as SEO or Social Media Marketing, the world of paid discovery is a major cash cow for brands that have mastered the art. Paid discovery refers to placing paid advertisements through digital channels such as Google Search, Bing, and major blog sites. Most major social media platforms also have paid discovery options. One massive benefit brands are availing themselves of on paid discovery platforms is the ability to created highly defined market segments and then target them with highly-specific ad content. This creates a real feeling of affinity with a target market and can be a great way to develop new sales and leads.
When investing in any digital marketing course, you’re going to want to ensure that these high-level topics are covered while also looking for programs that offer insights into new and emerging online marketing trends as well. Another aspect to be aware of is the availability of support within the program. An ideal environment will offer relatively small class sizes and include the opportunity to learn about these topics in a hands-on manner. If you or your staff learn digital marketing now, it can pay massive dividends down the road. A failure to do so could be a lights-out punch to the core of your brand.