Online Digital Marketing Fundamentals Professional Certificate

Curriculum

Live sessions are every week on Wednesday @ 8:00pm EST but the first week there are two live sessions. The Intro and Overview session is on Monday night to kick off the program @ 8:00pm EST.

This curriculum is subject to change based on instructor availability.  All modules will be offered and do not need to be in sequential order.

Intro and Overview

Instructor: Erik Harbison

Module description: In this week, students will be on-boarded to the program’s planned curriculum, as well as a macro view of the current Interactive Marketing landscape.  This session will provide valuable context around each module and corresponding channels.  An emphasis will be placed on industry research, trends, compelling stats, and examples of each channel. Students will also be provided an overview of the program’s certification project along with necessary timelines.

Note: The first live session will be on Monday @ 8:00pm EST

Learning Objectives:

• Identify key trends within the Digital Marketing landscape
• Explain the holistic impact of all Digital Marketing channels
• Showcase an example of each Digital Marketing channel
• Evaluate expectations and timelines for the course project

Search Engine Optimization

Instructor: Bill Rowland

Note: The second live session will be on Wednesday @ 8:00pm EST

Module Description:  During this week students will gain a solid understanding of the critical position Search Engine Optimization plays in any online presence. Emphasis will be placed on fundamental topics that transcend the constantly shifting nature of “search” to deliver actionable knowledge that every online marketer will be able to use. Specific examples of strategy and tactics will be presented and discussed.

Learning Objectives:

• Articulate SEO’s position as a fundamental building block for online marketing
• Grasp fundamental factors that result in achieving top search engine rankings
• Assess a website’s ability to rank well
• Develop the ability to create an Optimization Plan
• Live and Recorded Sessions

Paid Search

Instructor: Kim Jones

Module description: Paid Search marketing, often referred to as Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or Pay-per-click (PPC), is the process of driving site visitors or gaining visibility through paid advertisements on Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines. Paid search marketing is a flexible and cost-effective vehicle to help businesses achieve their goals (sales, leads, traffic, enquires, etc.) The purpose of this course will be to provide an overview of the functions of search engine marketing, strategy, performance analysis, and real-life execution.

Learning Objectives

• Examine what paid search is, what it isn’t, and where ads appear
• Identify typical goals advertisers may have when running paid search campaigns
• Learn how paid search works within a typical auction-based bidding system
• Explain the basics of quality score and its role within paid search

Analytics

Instructor: Krista Park

Module Description: Analytics plays a critical role in interactive marketing, and this course will provide an overview of the basic functions of analytics, and how analytics can be used to drive business decisions.  This will encompass measurement strategy, goal setting, tracking, data analysis, and performance reporting. The course will also touch at a high level on how to pull actionable insights from data and make recommendations for site design and marketing initiatives.

Learning Objectives:

• Provide an overview of the various analytics data types: Specifically, the dimensions & metrics of the data Google Analytics provides
• Explain the basics of data analysis including assessing items like:
  • User engagement and user value
  • Interactions of a variety of marketing channels
  • Detailed data e.g. device type, geographic locations, etc.
  • Developing an analytics strategy: Setting & measuring KPIs based on the data

Email Marketing

Instructor: Liz Willits

Module description: In this week, students will be exposed to the foundations of successful digital communications strategies including email and SMS.  We’ll start with building an email list, to getting to the inbox, to Email ROI and complex strategies.

Learning Objectives

• Develop an email and sending strategy that adheres to email compliance best practices
• Utilize specific email formats to maximize email performance
• Create an accurate email data list to get emails into targeted inboxes
• Identify SMS strategies
• Develop effective email and sending strategies
• Compare and contrast when to use email or SMS marketing

Social Marketing

Instructor: Tyler King

Module Description: In this week, students will learn the history of social technology, gain an understanding of social marketing strategy, and see examples of tactical execution. An emphasis will be placed on social and mobile, and understanding the impact of the transition from social marketing on the desktop to social marketing via mobile platforms.

Learning Objectives:

• Examine what social media is, what it isn’t and how it can be used for marketing
• Explain the difference between, and the convergence of, paid, owned, and earned media
• Describe the function of community management and explain its importance to a social media marketing strategy
• Analyze brand examples across social media platforms against best practices
• Analyze the role that social media marketing plays in the digital landscape and marketing mix
• Define the difference between goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics
• Map out social media marketing goals to tie back to overall business objectives
• Identify popular strategies and tactics currently being executed in the industry
• Explain the importance of measurement and analysis for continually evolving social media marketing strategies

Display Advertising

Instructor: Aaron Levy

Module description: The free web as we know it is powered by display advertising. Newspapers and content providers simply wouldn’t be able to give their product away unless they knew they could monetize it. Today’s digital display ads are the modern version of yesterday’s billboards, television commercials, and bus wraps, all combined around sophisticated targeting options and pricing structures.

This portion of the course will provide a high-level overview of the different types of display ads that advertisers can create, and what the steps are required to make sure they’re in line with best practices. We’ll also touch on what pricing models exist, how they can be related to traditional media buys, and how you as a marketing professional, can get the best value for your ad dollars.

Learning Objectives:

• Utilize the different methods of targeting and buying display media. DSP’s vs. Programmatic vs. CPM vs. Direct buys.
• Develop success metrics for a notoriously difficult to track advertising medium and why click-throughs are not the best metric
• Evaluate the pricing models for display and target what works best for your budget
• Track and identify ways to optimize the performance of display campaigns

Mobile Marketing

Instructor: Mollie Sheridan

Module Description: Over 25 percent of internet traffic in the US alone is driven by mobile and tablet users. Mobile is the next frontier for marketers. In this week students will learn the history of mobile, how the technology has grown at a rampant rate, and what it means for marketers and consumers today. The course will overview the latest technologies built into devices and in the cloud. This course will also look at design principles on mobile and how they affect a marketer’s ability to connect with a mobile customer. Lastly, the class will overview the impact of location-based services.

Learning Objectives:

• Examine the evolution of mobile and identify how it has shaped the consumer landscape today
• Explore how mobile technology and the mobile field is evolving faster than any other technology platform
• Highlight the basic mobile technologies, both in the hardware and in the cloud, and identify how they create opportunities for marketers to interact with mobile users
• Review the basic principles of design and how analytics, research, and validation are impacting decision making at every level
• Dive into mobile applications & marketing on the whole and opportunity areas based on current technology, demographic data, new technology in development, and possibilities on the horizon

Final Week: Capstone Project

Project Overview

Students will be expected to develop and present a digital ​marketing plan that includes and references learning gained from each session. The presentation of the plan will be recorded via screencast software and will be a maximum of 12 to 15​ minutes long.

The content of their project will be comprised of three random variables (a brand, a marketing challenge, and a core initiative) that will determine the basis for their marketing objectives, strategies, goals, and tactics. The students will know their variables before the start of the Week Two module.

Students will also be able to select their existing company, or competitive company, as the focus brand for their projects. Students will be able to apply strategies and tactics learned through weekly assignments and the final project immediately to their day-to-day marketing campaigns.​

Learning Objectives

Students will:

• Gain experience in developing an executable​ digital marketing plan.
• Gain experience with time management around meeting project deadlines.
• Develop their own presentation/speaking styles and learn effective methods of doing so through feedback on their presentation, as well as observation of other student presentations.
• Gain an understanding of the​ value a ​holistic digital marketing approach will deliver.
• Apply creative flexibility in the development of their final ​project content.

Students will have the ability to begin crafting their plan during weeks one through eight. They will then have week 8 to compile thoughts, conduct follow-up Q&A with instructors, develop the plan, complete the screencast, and post to Blackboard.

Marketing Trends Bonus Modules:

Equip yourself with knowledge on the key trends that will be impacting how brands think, and how marketers execute.

• The Power of Machines
  • A more common practice with marketing campaigns and projects is the procuring and processing vast amounts of data and inputs to produce valuable, actionable outputs…in milliseconds.
  • Artificial Intelligence bots are helping marketers produce human-like content, research and copy in seconds.
  • Ad servers and chatbots leveraging machine learning algorithms know the right messages, content, and images to serve you –  before you do.
  • We’re moving from the ‘information age’ to the ‘knowledge age’
  • How can marketers harness the power of accessing relevant data and content to power more effective and innovative campaigns?
• The Currency of Data
  • Regulations and a deeper focus on consumer privacy have turned customer data into literal ‘gold.’
  • Leveraging third-party data sets is becoming less effective.
  • Building trust with your customer so you can harvest and control your own data (with permission) is now priority one.
• The New Search
  • The search results are starting to look different. But different in a ‘good’ way for customers and in a ‘bad’ way for marketers?
  •  Search marketing may be less focused on keywords, and more driven by content, interests and digital behaviors.
• Experiences are greater than Transactions
  • Customers are in control, and they have many more choices.  The smart brands will focus on the experiences of their customers over profits.
  •  Connecting with consumers where, and how, they want will cause marketers to explore other environments (metaverse), vehicles (devices) and creative formats (live streaming, personalization).

• Career Acceleration for Marketing Professionals

  Harbison has been building teams, strategies, and solutions for 25 years in the advertising and digital marketing industries. He’s worked with leading brands in the retail, consumer packaged goods, finance, travel, and technology sectors. He now focuses on supporting marketing professionals at all levels as an instructor at UVM, career coach and mentor through his company TheMarketingHelp.co.