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Digital marketing is a vital component of any modern business strategy. Traditional marketing channels still have a huge role to play, of course, but digital marketing has allowed businesses to interact with potential customers in real-time. Highly affordable, measurable and targeted marketing activities can all be carried out with the help of digital marketing, with the added bonus of a level of audience interaction and engagement that traditional marketing methods cannot match.
SMEs and business professionals should always be looking for opportunities to grow the knowledge and skills to help their business thrive. Given its experience and success, who better to offer its expertise in the digital marketing space than Google, via its Digital Garage training programme.
Digital Garage is a completely free online training programme designed to help SMEs and business professionals gain the digital skills and understanding to help grow their business or career. Google’s mission is to help people develop their skills and “benefit from the technology revolution”, which sounds a bit heavy-handed, if we’re being honest, but you get the idea.
While Google isn’t the only way to acquire digital marketing know-how, it’s fair to say that Digital Garage is a comprehensive and easy-to-follow effort from company. Having Google’s name on the course doesn’t hurt either - if anyone can tell a business how to improve its search marketing, for example, it’s Google.
Naturally, there is a degree of self-promotion that reveals itself throughout the training course, but that’s to be expected, and any business worth its salt is going to have to get to know Google’s tools if it wants to develop an online strategy that will add to the bottom line. Google is offering the chance, for free, to get to know how its own tools work and how to take full advantage of them.
Digital Garage is not like being back at school (thankfully), but you do get a globally recognised certificate at the end of it, provided you complete each of the 26 topics. Each of these topics can be undertaken at your own pace, and if you’re put off by the idea of being bombarded by information from the off, don’t be.
Learning in each topic takes the form of video lessons, which you’re asked to watch, learn and then answer a few questions about. Get the questions right and move on to the next lesson; get it wrong, and Google helps you find the right answer to move forward. This isn’t a course that’s trying to trip you up in any way; Google wants you to learn the knowledge required to take advantage of its online tools somewhere down the line, so there’s a lot of hand-holding along the way, should you need it. The approach here isn’t to intimidate but to empower.
Topics covered include social media and email marketing, improving search campaigns, using Google Analytics, how to sell products online and how to better plan an effective online business strategy. Each topic is well planned, and you can pick and choose which topics to undertake and in which order, even missing some out entirely if you wish (you’ll miss out on the certification if you don’t complete all 26 topics, however).
Depending on where you’re located, you might also be able to take advantage of local coaching on various business-focused topics, including some from within the course itself, with Digital Garage workshops held in various locations including Manchester and Southampton.
As a starting point for developing digital skills, Digital Garage is a valuable - and, again, free - learning tool. With opportunities to take a deeper dive into topics if you wish and a clear and encouraging approach adopted throughout, it’s a worthwhile resource for anyone with an eye of enhancing their own digital marketing skill set.
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