A few weeks ago, a friend asked me for advice on which digital marketing course to enrol in. I promptly sat down to figure out a list of good courses. Stupid me – it didn’t take me long to figure that this was a futile exercise.
There is no shortage of digital marketing courses in the post-pandemic world – I stopped counting after the sixth results page. Unfortunately, most have little or no differentiation. One can’t also create a reasonably objective list without a standard popularity or rating measure in place, but then crowd-based rating has its problems because one size never fits all – why, when and what kind of courses you do and your satisfcation with them is linked directly to your current situation and future ambition.
I wondered if I could help the friend with a framework instead: how to choose your digital marketing courses and see what best fits you. So this note got made.
Seeking Appreciation of Digital Marketing
If you are already a marketer or in communications, and your purpose is to get an appreciation of digital, and not necessarily pursue a career in digital marketing.
If you want to understand the “why” of digital, what it can achieve for you and where it fits into your overall marketing or communication plans, short-term courses from Coursera, EdX, Udacity should work. These are often have well-organised with custom material and pedagogy that start from the basics of marketing and communications, traverse the technology and innovation path and give you an insight into digital marketing. Some courses take a narrower section within digital marketing, for example social media marketing or content marketing. Check out these courses from Northwestern University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of Maryland and Udacity.
What is good: they don’t overwhelm you, and start from marketing fundamentals. The lectures and material is of high quality, and do not necessarily go into specific skills-based approach. You will get to know as much as you need to understand what your digital marketing specialist (or agency) is saying, and will be able to ask the right questions. You will also be able to better understand the overall picture instead of occupying one corner of the digital marketing world. Most of these courses are reasonably priced with monthly options as well.
What is not so good: Most of these courses have carefully prepared course material and pedogogy. Which means they don’t necessarily give you the latest and you’re at least three months or worst case, a year outdated. Also, they do not dive deep into the “doing” of things like running an analytics report, the intricacies of bidding in an adwords campaign, or figuring out the ins-and-outs of buyer side ad network platforms. But then you’re not seeking to do that, are you?
Seeking an Entry into a Career in Digital Marketing
If you are a student or an early careerist to enter the profession: certifications from Google, Facebook, Apple, Hubspot and so on:
If you are seeking an entry into a digital marketing function or role, or into a digital marketing agency, you need to have a few certifications under your belt. The number of certifications that you could get in digital marketing have increased exponentially, so you would have to choose which areas you want to specialize in and then chase them down.
What is good: These certicates are recognized as an entry level filter. If you don’t have at least a Google Analytics certificate or two, no one is going to shortlist you for a digital marketing role. Even if you want to specialize on social media or content writing, you need to have an analytics certification at the bare minimum. You can also take these tests as many times as you like and get certified without great difficulty – it isn’t rocket science. If you are already a practitioner, you can probably pass them in one shot. Most of these certifications are free, and others are not very expensive. Check out Google, Hubspot, Facebook, Twitter, MediaMath.
What is not so good: These are certifications that you pass because you have over (mostly) 80% answers right. It is more a test of your memory and your understanding of the terminology and course material, and not a test of your knowledge of marketing. While it is good as a ticked checkbox, you really need to work at a real life project to be able to gain a better understanding of the profession.
Seeking a Leadership Role in Digital Marketing
If you have 5+ years in digital marketing and are looking for a leadership role in digital marketing:
If you see yourself fitting into this headline, you ought to work on getting a full-time MBA at a good B-School. Short of that, you could opt for a fairly lengthy and organized online course in digital marketing subjects from reputed providers – for example upGrad, Columbia or eCornell.
These are usually termed “post-graduate” certificate courses. The key difference between these courses and those at Coursera, EdX, Udacity et al is that these are not MOOCS – not self-paced and have an assigned faculty who do live lectures and take you through from start to end.
I have taken a course from upGrad where they collaborated with the Cambridge Judge Business School. It was a good experience; one got to intereact with faculty like Jaideep Prabhu, Shasha Lu and Khwaja Abbas, among others. The course is no longer offered but they have an association with MICA which I am told is worth exploring.
What is good: primarily it’s the brand name. The courses also give you a structured understanding of the subject and usually have a start-finish schedule. If you are a working professional, this is important as you’re able to allocate your time better. The course material and the case studies are often world-class. The American certificates are internationally recognized.
What is not so good: Some of them may be expensive and may not yield the kind of returns you expect. Like in many such courses, deep dive learning of the latest skills is not possible and you’re probably around six months behind the market.
Seeking to Upskill or Fill Gaps
If you’re already well into the profession and want to upskill – or fill in skill gaps, the following may work best.
When you spend a certain number of years in a profession, you develop blind spots by accident or by design. The world would have advanced in some areas that you’ve not paid a lot of attention to.
The best way to fill these gaps is to learn directly from a practitioner. There are experts who do this. I have taken courses from Vaibhav Sisinty (for LinkedIn hacking) and Karan Mehta (Search and Facebook) and can vouch that they are good. You will be expected to know terminology and have some understanding of these subjects. The learning method is usually informal and they will teach you some off-textbook hacks and tricks as well. Rohit Haldankar and Himanshu Sharma also teach though I haven’t taken courses from them. I’ve recently enrolled for writing classes with Amit Varma, and I have been through podcasting lessons from Chhavi Sachdev. There are many more people than I can possibly note here – it is also a good skill to seek such people out.
What is good: cost-effective, and they teach you from real-life cases. They are very specific to the particular skill area. The courses are short, and often outside of working hours. You can ask them stupid questions without embarassment, very politely of course.
What is not so good: some of them may not sound very professional in their teaching approach (say, informal… and chaotic, especially the famous one above) and you may be a better expert in more areas than they are but that’s fine… the idea is to learn as much as possible.
This is a pretty large canvas to cover, and I am sure I have skipped a detail or two. Do contribute in the comments; it could help someone.
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