10 Ways to Learn More About Digital Marketing

Actionable Marketing 101

Having taught digital marketing in one form or another for over a decade, I find that one of the benefits of teaching is that it brings me back to the beginner’s perspective. Even with twenty-plus years of marketing experience, interacting with students always takes me back to basic principles and gives me the ability to see things with a fresh eye.

Newcomers to digital marketing often ask how to get up to speed quickly. Here’s my top ten list of activities that I suggest to quickly come up to speed on digital marketing. It can be useful for experienced marketers to occasionally scan this list as well.

Read extensively from current marketing and financial press across media options including major newsites, blogs, emailings, social media like Twitter, and traditional newspapers and magazines. Expand your inputs to enhance your knowledge.
Register for a variety of forms of online content delivery including email newsletters, social media, RSS and mobile apps. Gain insight from the registration and/or payment process to improve marketing and revenue generation. Notice what information is gathered.
Actively use online tools such as search, social media and tracking to find new ways to improve how you work.
Continuously test new technology tools and platforms to ensure that your skills remain up-to-date.
Assess how information is organized across platforms. Think about how this presentation influences organic search, social media and branding. This applies to content on websites, emailings, social media entities and offline media. Remember that product packaging and advertising are content.
Examine how advertising is used and integrated into media both online and offline. Think about the difference between customer acquisition that mainly uses third party media and customer retention that mostly uses owned or internal media (like websites, emailings, social media and catalogs).
Stealth shop across channels both online and offline to determine the strengths and weaknesses of each. Purchase from different vendors to experience subtle differences in the customer experience but remember that the process is often easier for repeat buyers.
Participate in the conversation through social sharing, commenting and creating content.
Assess which response channels are used for each offer. Are multiple channels used? If not, why is one channel used while others are excluded?
Take note of other forms of monetization such as cross-sell (either of additional or related items), affiliate marketing, co-registration and/or package inserts.

It’s a good idea to consider the resources on the above list periodically, even if you’re not a student, since they may give you some new ideas about how to hone your skills and stay current.

If you have any other suggestions and/or specific resources you find helpful in staying current with the ever changing world of digital marketing, please post them in the comments section below.

Happy marketing,
Heidi Cohen

Photo credit: Jose C Silva via Flickr