Train Your Digital Marketing Skills!

Train Your Digital Marketing Skills!

I am often get asked by friends or colleagues how they can train their Digital Marketing skills or even how they can get a basic education in this area. In the past, I recommended different books, conferences, websites or courses at institutes. But more and more I really like online learning courses!

In today’s technology-driven world, it's becoming increasingly important to improve your own skills. Simply because technology changes so fast. Therefore online learning is booming as more universities and businesses are recognizing the benefits it brings, and how it can help employees to maintain their professional edge.

Skilling me softly

A key advantage of online learning is that I can complete my training at my own pace and according to my own schedules. Recorded lessons, written content, videos, and collaborative online learning software make it easy for me to access everything I need. With online learning platforms, I have plenty of opportunities to find part-time courses where I can complete my training in the evenings after work, on weekends, or whenever I can spare the time.

I'm totally addicted to Digital Marketing and I always want to keep up to date in this area. Therefore I completed a few online courses in Digital Marketing in the last months. With this article, I want to share my experience with different platforms. So you can use it to improve your Digital Marketing skills.

Here are my favorite platforms:

  • Google Digital Garage: Learn from the digital marketing pioneer! The majority of the courses are free and approved by industry experts. So everybody can be sure of learning up-to-date, real-world, skills that help to reach personal goals. I can recommend the course "Fundamentals Of Digital Marketing" to get a general overview of Digital Marketing. https://learndigital.withgoogle.com/digitalgarage
  • HubSpot Academy: The HubSpot Academy is a great source to learn more about inbound marketing, social media marketing, content marketing, email marketing, and growth hacking. The online training is for free and you'll get bite-sized lessons, singular topics, and comprehensive certifications. I can recommend the Social Media certification course! https://academy.hubspot.com/
  • edX: Founded by Harvard and MIT, edX is a trusted platform for education and learning. It is home to more than 20 million learners, the majority of top-ranked universities in the world and industry-leading companies. Just type in "Digital Marketing" in the search field and you'll get a list of different online courses from well-known universities like Berkeley University of California, The University of Texas, Boston University, Georgetown University, and of course from Harvard and MIT. Many courses are free of charge! Here I can recommend the course "Strategic Social Media Marketing" provided by Boston University. https://www.edx.org/
  • Futurelearn: A diverse selection of courses from leading universities, cultural institutions, and companies from around the world like the University of Leeds, Grenoble Ecole de Management or Accenture. Futurelearn believes that learning should be an enjoyable, social experience. So the courses offer the opportunity to discuss the stuff with others. I can recommend the Digital Skills series provided by Accenture to get basic training in Digital Marketing. https://www.futurelearn.com
  • Linkedin Learning: Maybe you know or remember Lynda.com. It was the predecessor of Linkedin Learning. At this platform, you have access to over 14,000 online courses thought by over 13,000 experts. Really cool is that you receive course recommendations tailored to your Linkedin profile. I can recommend the course "How To Rock Social Media" by Guy Kawasaki. Very interesting is that you'll find famous coaches on Linkedin Learning like best-selling author Ken Blanchard, the CEO of Linkedin Jeff Weiner, or the CEO of Hootsuite Ryan Holmes. A negative point of Linkedin Learning is from my perspective the relatively high monthly rate. https://www.dhirubhai.net/learning/me
  • Facebook Blueprint: The e-learning platform from Facebook is called Facebook Blueprint and offers free, self-paced courses on Facebook and Instagram advertising. Since its launch in 2015, more than two million people have enrolled in at least one of the 75 online courses available. It's a great platform but limited to Digital Marketing on Facebook and Instagram: https://www.facebook.com/business/learn
  • Salesforce Trailhead: I really like the Trailblazer approach from Salesforce. It's more like a community than an online learning platform. But of course, you can take classes taught by Salesforce experts. In addition, you get help from fellow Trailblazers in the community. To collect badges and earn points while you learn is an awesome gamification idea! Even if it's the largest company e-learning platform that I know, it's really focused on Salesforce's products and services and not on Digital Marketing or Marketing in general. But as a digital marketer it's a must-do to accomplish in minimum one course (e.g. Salesforce Marketing Cloud Basics). And it's free of charge: https://trailhead.salesforce.com/
  • Udemy: As far as I know Udemy is the largest online learning and teaching marketplace with over 100,000 courses and 24 million students. Courses are offered across a breadth of categories, including business and entrepreneurship, academics, arts, language, and technology. Most classes are in practical subjects such as Excel software or using a professional camera. But you'll also find courses about Digital Marketing like Instagram marketing, content marketing or e-commerce. The courses are starting at a low price. https://www.udemy.com/
  • Coursera: Every course on Coursera is taught by top instructors from world-class universities like the University of California, Essec Business School, HEC Paris, Northwestern University and also from companies like Amazon Web Services or Boston Consulting Group. So you'll get the latest education and can learn something new about Digital Marketing anytime, anywhere. Courses include recorded video lectures, both auto-graded and peer-reviewed assignments, and community discussion forums. The courses are not for free but compared to the quality you get the prices are still okay. The next course I will join is probably "Digital Transformation" provided by Bosten Consulting Group and the University of Virginia. https://www.coursera.org/
  • Khan Academy: A very known online academy is Khan Academy. It's a non-profit educational organization created in 2008 by Salman Khan. He had the goal to create a set of online tools that help educate students. Khan Academy's website aims to provide a personalized learning experience, mainly built on the videos. The website also includes other features such as progress tracking, practice exercises, and teaching tools. https://www.khanacademy.org/
  • Alison: Never heard about Alison? Alison is one of the world’s largest free learning platforms for education and skills training. Over 1,000 courses are available in 195 countries It is a for-profit social enterprise dedicated to making it possible for anyone, to study anything, anywhere, at any time, for free online, at any subject level. Through our mission we are a catalyst for positive social change, creating opportunity, prosperity, and equality for everyone. Here my clear recommendation is Alsion's Diploma in E-Business: https://alison.com/course/diploma-in-e-business The course is for free but if you want a certificate you must pay 65 Euros. Visit Alison's website and check out all the other online courses: https://alison.com/
  • YouTube: Last but not least also YouTube is a source of information to learn more about Digital Marketing. I can recommend the videos from Neil Patel or Brian Solis. Check it out! https://www.youtube.com/

And like for everything else there is also for online learning a meta-search engine. Check out https://www.edukatico.org/ to find your online learning course. Furthermore, you can check the website of your favorite university. Often universities offer online courses directly on their websites.

Conclusion

I hope the list above will inspire you to find an online learning course that will help you to improve your Digital Marketing skills.

But I am curious: What do you think about the list? What's your experience with online learning platforms? Are you missing an important platform when it comes to learning more about Digital Marketing? Can you recommend an online learning course?


About the author:

Bj?rn Radde is Head of Digital Marketing at T-Systems International - one of the world's leading vendor-independent providers of digital services. Before he joints T-Systems he was Director Digital Experience at Sabre and Vice President Digital Marketing at Trust International. In this role, he was worldwide responsible for all digital marketing products of the company. Previously, Bj?rn was Director of Digital Marketing & E-Commerce at Okanda, an internet startup in the meeting's business, and Head of E-Commerce at the Steigenberger Hotel Group. After studying economics with a focus on online marketing and e-commerce, he initially worked at T-Online International AG and later at Deutsche Telekom AG within the Products & Innovation business unit.

Pier Paolo Perrone

LinkedIn Audit für Dein Team ? LinkedIn Sales Navigator trainings ? LinkedInAds trainings ? LinkedIn Recruiter trainings ? Online Akademie ? Autor: Springer Gabler Verlag

4 年

Thank you Bj?rn Raddefor this pretty exhaustive list. Very valuable! My only addition would be ?????????????? ????????????. I took the course and loved it! I quote: "Squared Online is the award-winning digital marketing leadership course AVADO has developed in partnership with Google. Guided by industry experts, you will experience a unique, practical and collaborative approach to learning over a 5 month period."?In my eyes, the Squared Network community on LinkedIn with 10,000 members (current students and alumni) speaks for itself - apart from learning from practitioners you get a majestic network to go with it. I'm sure that Adrian Krastev can add more insight in case this sounds interesting to any one of you.

Bernhard Osewold

Running | Caminos | Hiking | Music | Life | based in Oldenburg, Germany | Social Media-Team at T-Systems International GmbH

5 年

...tolle übersicht. Danke. Kurze Erg?nzung: https://grow.google/intl/de (bzw.?https://grow.google/intl/europe/) hatte ich seinerzeit mal auf den Schirm - falls für den einen oder anderen von Interesse. Und auch sehr zu empfehlen sind die einschl?gigen Seminare von W&Vunter?https://www.wuv.de/webinar. Kostenfrei und i.d.R. bekommt man die Unterlagen auch bei nicht erfolgter Teilnahme im Nachgang zugestellt.?

Dominique Korschinek

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."

5 年

cool overview, thanx! For me, one of the most important keys to improving in a special field of knowledge, e.g. digital marketing, is actually "doing it". Specially in digital marketing it's so easy to just start with some small money and get feedback (from users, analytics, ...) quite fast. The cycle is build, measure, learn, improve. Gaining practical experience rounds off the knowledge you get from learning platforms.

Jean-Paul Wehrens

Partner Enterprise Contract Excellence | Direct & Indirect Procurement | Digital Transformation | AI - The Game Changer |

5 年

Hi Bj?rn, thank you for this great and valuable overview. I just forwarded your article to our global marketing manager Daniel Vossems in order to validate the content for our company apsolut! Talk to you soon - Best regards, Jean-Paul

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