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No matter your level of expertise, these resources can help keep your digital marketing skills up to date.
If you’re a digital marketer, or aspiring to become one, you know that career success means keeping up with rapidly-evolving best practices. With so many possible specialities and skills, just getting started can be overwhelming.
But don’t send that MBA application just yet — there are easier (and cheaper!) ways to dig deeper into your areas of interest and add new life to an old resume. Many companies and organizations offer classes that can help you boost your marketing prowess without going back to school.
If you’re brand new to marketing, you should start with a free option, to make sure you’re headed in the right direction for you. If you’re job seeking, consider a course that offers resume-ready certification. And if you’re already a marketer, try filling in specific knowledge gaps, whether that means becoming a PPC pro or trying coding for the first time.
HubSpot
Free HubSpot courses are a great choice if you want to deepen your understanding of particular aspects of marketing, like inbound marketing, sales, social media, emails, business writing, and much more. Current marketers can easily brush up on latest best practices or branch into new areas of expertise, while job seekers can add the handy HubSpot certifications to their resumes.
Courses typically offer several hours of videos broken down into digestible sections. Each topic is presented by multiple experts, so that you benefit from a greater range of perspectives. You also get helpful access to an online community of other learners.
Google Digital Garage
Most of Google’s free skill-building courses are simple introductions to help promote basic digital literacy, but the more substantial Fundamentals of Digital Marketing course actually offers a certification you can add to your resume. With over 40 hours of footage, and 26 modules, this course can help beginners understand the core concepts behind everything from analytics to content marketing to SEO. Even better, it gives you comprehensive insight into Google tools, which is a must for aspiring marketers. Over 300,000 people have completed the course, demonstrating its value and clout within this industry.
CodeAcademy
Knowing the basics of HTML/CSS can be surprisingly useful for marketers, especially if you handle the technical aspects of SEO, need to make basic website design changes, or want to communicate effectively with developers. CodeAcademy is a great free option for diving into code, with several HTML/CSS Courses that work for even the most novice learners. Learn at your own pace for free, or invest in a Pro account for practice projects and quizzes that help you gauge your progress.
PPC University
PPC University from Wordstream is a free educational resource that can help both beginners and professionals learn everything there is to know about pay-per-click, or paid search marketing. The company offers blog posts organized by expertise level on everything from using keywords to geotargeting. Accompanying e-books, whitepapers, and webinars mean you can dig deeper on specific topics that interest you, or find an answer to almost any PPC problem.
General Assembly
General Assembly is a well-known career transformation company that boasts 35,000 graduates and 20 worldwide campuses. You’ll likely get good value for your money if you choose their five-week, part-time digital marketing course, currently $750. The website claims this will be “an online course you’ll actually complete,” with units on customer acquisition, channels, conversion and retention, metrics, and more. You can work on your own schedule, balancing a full-time job, while virtual check-ins with a mentor give you motivating feedback. It might be a pricier option, but the hands-on final project could seriously improve your marketing chops.
If you’re not ready to go all-in, their all-day in-person workshop costs $349, and promises to get you up to date on the latest digital advances. You’ll learn about strategy, quality content, metrics, and techniques for optimizing channels. On the other hand, if you’re seriously committed to a job switch, you could consider investing $3,950 in one of the intensive in-person or online options.
Your Time To Shine
In 2019, it’s never been so easy to level up. No matter your current ability, your goals, or your desired commitment level, these resources are a great way to polish your skills and stand out to employers.
Written by: REUBEN WEISS
NYU Wasserman Blog 