Content overview
Day 1: SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
Today the medium you have to master is the mobile networked consumer, but social media doesn’t work the way it is hyped to do. This course module brings clarity to socially networked communication and provides the strategic business framework for effectively integrating online word of mouth and reputation management into your digital initiatives. You will gain hands-on insight into how best to leverage the major social tools such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Foursquare. You will learn strategies, tactics and methodologies. You will explore alternative approaches to structuring your organisation to best manage social engagement, and you will discover the best tools and techniques for measuring, reporting, and staying ahead of the curve.
The topics include:
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Communication strategy in a mobile social media world
- Branding, response and engagement
- Ground rules for engaging the new consumer
- Online reputation management (ORM)
- Viral marketing myths
- Exploiting user-generated content (UGC) – creation and curation
- Marketing with social search engines
- Marketing with YouTube and other video servers
- Marketing via mobile platforms
- Marketing with Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networks
- Marketing with Twitter
- Creating and managing an integrated social media strategy
- The Social Media Lens
- Measuring social media ROI
Day 2: SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING
Eight out of ten online transactions begin with a Google search, so mastering what it takes to be found by searchers is vital to every marketer. In this section of the programme, you will learn how to optimise your web pages for best search engine rankings, using customer-centricity and usability as cornerstones of your digital presence. You will also get hands-on practice with paid search advertising on Google and Bing, and explore how to maximise your pay per click ROI. You will learn how to optimise campaigns, and how to build productive paths to online conversion.
The topics include:
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Search engines and how they operate: what affects ranking?
- Search engine optimisation (SEO): 10 steps to SEO your site
- Measuring the ROI of SEO
- Linking strategies to improve rankings
- Contextual advertising and Pay Per Click strategies
- Making effective use of Google’s various advertising tools
- Local presence and geotargeting
Day 3: USABILITY: THE ARCHITECTURE OF COMPETITIVE USER EXPERIENCE
In websites, mobile and social environments, usability determines the success or failure of your digital presence. In this section of the programme, you will learn the best practices in usability that can ensure that your target market gets a compelling customer experience that will make them excited about your online presence. You’ll learn how to write for digital media, and how to benchmark the six key metrics of usability. You will discover how to conduct the kind of practical usability testing that immediately helps you to improve user experience. You will also learn a seven-step methodology for specifying and managing any digital development project to ensure it stays customer-centric.
The topics include:
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Defining the business case for digital
- Optimising conversion funnels: turning visitors into customers
- Lessons from eye-tracking
- The 7-step methodology for site development
- Customer-centric design
- Information architecture and user experience
- Content strategies
- Writing for the web
- Graphic design guidelines and conventions
- Quality assurance and testing
- 10-point checklist for selecting a web developer
- Metrics for measuring effectiveness
Day 4: E-MAIL MARKETING
Direct marketing to an opt-in e-mail list still gives you the best ROI of any digital activity. But e-mail is fraught with complications – what you send is rarely what arrives, if it arrives at all. This section helps you to put together e-mail strategies that work, and shows you how to maximise delivery, open rates, click-throughs and conversion. You’ll learn how the CPA and POPI impact spam, and how following best practices in international e-mail marketing can improve your success. You will learn about the tools and techniques that can cost-effectively manage your lists, save you time and improve your results.
The topics include:
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Permission-based marketing
- Spam, ethics and the law
- Crafting strategies and objectives for e-mail
- The importance of subject lines
- The technical challenges for design and delivery
- Authentication
- List acquisition and maintenance
- E-mail logistics and management
- Outsourcing e-mail marketing
- Planning for conversion
- Metrics and how to interpret them
Day 5: DIGITAL BUSINESS STRATEGY
This section of the programme explains how the digital landscape is evolving, and explores what shifts in customer communication and decision-making processes mean for the evolution of the business and its marketing. It clarifies the new marketing landscape here and abroad, explores the diverse components of digital marketing, and teaches a step-by-step methodology for developing integrated competitive strategies for digital business success.
The topics covered include:
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The digital marketing landscape and the networked consumer
- Global trends in consumer behaviour
- Leveraging core competencies
- The elements of successful digital business
- Engagement and ‘experience branding’
- The 8 steps to building a competitive e-marketing strategy
- Metrics and analytics for continuous improvement
NQF complexity level
This programme is presented on the complexity level of NQF 6.