5 ways to expand your digital marketing knowledge and mindset

In this series of new blog posts from MMC Learning, we’re exploring the main desires that drive career development in the marketing profession.

In previous posts, we discussed seven ways to break into marketing and position yourself to secure your first marketing role and 6 ways to dramatically improve your marketing career prospects.

In this post, we’re looking at the rising importance of digital marketing and how it is critical, not just for career marketers, but any business people, to recognise they need to skill up in order to add greater value in an increasingly online world.

Why is this important?

Digital literacy is going to be the defining skillset of the next decade.

We’ve already seen, with the explosion in cloud based technology and widespread accessibility to Internet access has fuelled device and software developments in just about every walk of life.

We’re interested in analysing and supporting the shifting educational needs of marketers but almost everyone in the world has been touched by digital technology.

If you can

  • Understand the creative aspects involved in building marketing assets that speak to customers’ needs
  • Stay up to date with latest developments so you at least know if they will benefit you and your customers AND
  • Can read, understand and make decisions using data

you will take significant steps ahead of your competition.

Here’s five ways to boost your digital marketing knowledge, curated from the team at MMC.

1. Read

Set up a free-to-use Feedly account in your browser. Feedly taps into RSS functionality and allows you to follow 100’s of blogs, news websites and more without the need for inbox-filling email subscriptions.

Add feeds from sites such as the Hubspot blog, Social Media Examiner, SearchEngineLand, The Official Google Blog and Think with Google and you’ll instantly have a rich repository of the latest thinking from people and organisations at the cutting edge of digital marketing.

2 Write

Many of the leading proponents in digital marketing – and leading brands – put out regular content in a variety of formats.

The two best ways to feast on short-form snackable video content are via YouTube and Instagram. Following accounts like Digital Marketer, Moz and experts such as Neil Patel will deliver regular insightful digital marketing into your social media feeds and ensure you don’t miss out on essential tips and best practices.

It’s easy to find content if you know what you’re searching for so use hashtags to unearth authority content on data, paid search, social media, conversion optimisation – whatever you’re interested in, wherever you prefer to see it.

BONUS: You can build your reputation if you use social platforms for this by 1/ sharing it and 2/ commenting so you associate yourself and your views with the original content.

3. Listen

Podcasts (and apps like Clubhouse) have led to a boom in audio content. Audio is perfect if you want to listen along whilst working, travelling, doing the school run, exercising and much more.

It’s less invasive and if the content is delivered well, can give you plenty of food for thought.

If you’re big on doubling down on your time, listening to podcasts, audio books and recordings can be a powerful way to take on more inspirational content.

Again, the leaders in digital marketing thinking are using a variety of these platforms so check out iTunes, Spotify or the newly launched Hubspot podcast hub to find audio content.

4. Practice

One of the best ways to build your digital marketing knowledge and confidence is of course by doing. The bar to experimenting has been lowered with lots of software offering free or basic access trials to stimulate use.

You could set up anything from a WordPress blog with email sign-up, to a Shopify store, to a Facebook page and simply through the action of creating content, promoting it with Google Ads, Adsense or Facebook Ads (all hooked into your Analytics) start to really learn how it all comes together.

Trying things out safely with a small pilot project means you test and adapt, improving as you go. For an inquisitive marketer, especially one in the job market, this is a must for an interview. Side projects demonstrate how keen you are.

5. Study

Courses of study – like the Certificate and Professional Diploma in Digital Marketing from The CIM – have been specially developed with these evolving changes in mind.

Following a dedicated course of study that gives you the strategic and practical insight to take into your organisation, developed and delivered by time served professionals and with assessment to test the application of your learning, ensures you and your team can make better decisions and have more impact on your business.

To find out more about how MMC Learning can help you improve your career prospects with CIM qualification, contact our team today.

Call 0161 826 4644 or click the book a discovery button below.

Certificate in Professional Marketing.

Certificate in Professional Digital Marketing

Diploma in Professional Marketing

Diploma in Professional Digital Marketing

Rene Power

MMC Learning’s Director of Marketing, Rene is passionate about making marketing more accessible and has an interest in businesses in the industrial and professional services sectors. Among his responsibilities as a member of the MMC Learning team are designing and delivering the company’s own marketing activities, and assisting clients with their team training.