Licensed Digital Marketing Master™ with IIDM certification

Welcome to the International Institute of Digital Marketing™ | Lecture 1 Description

Note: This course will require you working on a project as a hands-on learning experience. You are free to select either your own company or any clients that you are working with, without restrictions to IIDM. However, please make sure to use the same project for the whole course.

International Institute of Digital Marketing ™ is an impact non-profit certifying body representing more than 20,000 influential brands, we help our members become more effective digital marketers, build stronger brands, and drive industry and societal change through our CMO-endorsed Growth Agenda. Digital Marketing is something that’s all around us, yet there has been no solid foundation for marketing in many, many years. In the news, there are blunders again and again by companies, failing some of the core aspects of modern marketing. Because of this, the need for a solid, stable foundation for marketing in the modern world is needed - a foundation with the ability to be built upon and developed with time.

This is a hybrid course, which means it is a more hands-on experience than you would find in most online courses. Each lecture will include lecture notes, activities, and resources that will serve as your guideline on how to successfully complete the lecture.

This course consists of;

• 40 Lecture Videos

• 41 Assignments to be submitted to IIDM™

• 11 Quizzes

• 11 Downloadable Materials

• 46 External Resources

• Practical Social Media Marketing and Content Creation

• Practical Marketing Strategies and SEO

• Learn to create successful Paid Advertisements on Facebook, LinkedIn and Google.

DURATION: Please note, this course is designed as a 3-month course, but students may choose to complete it in a shorter time frame. All students must complete all assignments, quizzes, and lectures.

Now let's get started. Below are the materials that you will be using throughout the course:

1. Client/Business as a Project

Imagine yourself as a Digital Marketing Analyst for the client/business that you want to use as a course project.. Throughout your training, you will focus on digital marketing for the particular project country, doing research on digital marketing trends in that country, creating content, and posting on social media.

You can find more details about the project in the Google Drive folder labeled "1. Project: IIDM [Country]", e.g. 1. Project: IIDM Finland. The folder consists of a document where you can read the description of the project.

2. Content Planner

We will share a content planning Google document with you. In section 3, assignment 3 you will use this content planner to map out your content for the duration of the training.

3. Google Drive Folder

You will receive access to a Google drive folder where you will upload all of the content you create throughout the course.

4. Logins to Tools

You will have access to all our paid tools to give you the hands-on experience we promised. This includes Canva Pro and Heropost Automation Tool.

5. IIDM Creative folder (If you choose to use IIDM as your course project)

We will share with you a folder of some of the content our team has created with Canva. You will use this folder to get to know our automation tool and draw inspiration when creating your own graphics.

6. Branding book (If you choose to use IIDM as your course project)

Branding is essential when it comes to creating customer loyalty, and therefore it needs to be consistent. We will share with you our branding book which will provide you with all the guidelines you need to be aware of when creating graphics.

Activity 1:

In order to successfully complete this course, it is important to read all the lecture descriptions, watch all the videos, look at all external resources, and complete all quizzes, and assignments. To complete this lecture, watch video 1; Welcome to the International Institute of Digital Marketing™

Resources summary:

The resources we have provided for this lecture include:

• IIDM™ Course Instructions

• The link to the International Institute of Digital Marketing™ website.

• The link to our Learning Leaf, outlining all the courses provided by the International Institute of Digital Marketing™

• The Link to IIDM™ Certified Immersion Trainers

  
  

We are very excited to have you on board!

Join Our IIDM™ Global Community | Lecture 2

Are you ready to take your digital marketing skills to the next level? Join the International Institute of Digital Marketing™ (IIDM™) community and become part of a dynamic network of over 20,000 influential brands.

Discover the power of our CMO-endorsed Growth Agenda, designed to empower marketers like you to drive industry and societal change. Gain access to cutting-edge insights, certification programs, and a vibrant community that will help you become a more effective digital marketer and build stronger brands.

Don't miss out on this opportunity to be part of a solid foundation for modern marketing in the digital era. Take the first step towards unlocking your potential.

Training Overview | Lecture 2 Description

The Licensed Digital Marketing Master™ is an extensive, in-depth course that takes you through all the basics, helps you explore the buyer journey, and stays rooted in practice, keeping goals clear and attainable through perseverance and intelligent design. This includes;

• Content Marketing Master™ Learn the basics of content marketing through real-world examples and practice with multiple different content types. How to utilize email for marketing and how to create powerful, engaging, and aesthetically pleasing email content. What content is and understanding its use cases in different contexts.

• Marketing Strategy Master™ Learn the basics for Key Social Platforms for Digital Marketing, helping to build your brand through exposure on multiple platforms. Growing an online presence with familiarity and communication. Growing and Engaging an Audience, whether niche or widespread, and gaining affection and loyalty.

• Paid Marketing Master™ Find your audience using the right media channel. Win hearts and minds and make your followers grow and grow and grow. Make your website visible to more humans thanks to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques. Drive the right traffic to your website through smarter Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising. Create compelling digital display campaigns.

Our Immersion Trainers will divide you into a team, and assign your team to one of the clients IIDM™ represents. You and your team will work together to implement what you learn to this client.

Activity 3:

1. To complete this lecture, watch the lecture video.

Resources Summary:

• Content Marketing Master™ YouTube video

• Marketing Strategy Master™ YouTube video

• Paid Marketing Master™ YouTube video

REGISTER YOUR PROFILE ON IIDM™ WEBSITE | Lecture 3 Description

The Licensed Digital Marketing Master™ track offers you hands-on experience like no other. Becoming part of our team, and earning through our affiliate program is a big part of that. You will not only be learning about Content Marketing but also get to experience what it's like to work in the industry.

In the video above we show you how to become part of the team, by registering your profile on our website.

● Your profile on IIDM™ will automatically be converted to a student account.

● We will use this account to award your certificate.

Activity 3:

1. Watch video 3. Register your Profile on IIDM™ Website

2. Register your profile on our IIDM™ Website and follow the steps provided in the video above. (AS DEMONSTRATED IN LECTURE 4)

• Find the link to the Trainer Account sign up here: https://theiidm.org/registertrainer

• Apply for Trainer Account and fill in your personal information

• Upload the Profile Banner in the resources section

Resources Summary:

●  Profile banner you will need to create your profile on IIDM's website.

● Link to the registration landing page.

BECOME AN AFFILIATE WITH IIDM™ | Lecture 4 Description

As a successful Affiliate Marketer, you need to understand what it is, how to get started, and how to earn money from various channels. Anyone who has an online presence and the ability to drive traffic can earn money with affiliate marketing by promoting other people's products. We provide you with the option to become an Affiliate with IIDM™

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a performance-based advertising method where businesses pay a commission on conversions to an affiliate. Essentially, an affiliate earns money by promoting and selling other people's products. The good news is as an Affiliate Marketer you do not need to hold any stock, fulfill orders, or deal with customer services. Your sales are tracked via affiliate links to enable commissions to be calculated.

Why Affiliate Marketing?

1. You're only acting as a referrer to other businesses, so you won't have to handle customer service.

2. You can earn money with affiliate marketing from anywhere. All you need is an internet connection and a computer

3. Great opportunity to earn passive income.

4. It's very easy to get started and the startup costs for an affiliate business are low

   
   

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

Affiliate marketing works as a collaboration between a merchant and its affiliates. The merchant is the business that is selling the product or service and who the customer hands the money to and you the affiliate who promotes the business's content to their audience to drive customers and is paid a commission upon a successful sale or leads.

How Affiliates Promote Products and Services

In most cases, marketers and entrepreneurs will choose a specific niche and develop a full marketing strategy to earn traffic to promote. Also, bloggers and influencers can use affiliate marketing as a way to monetize a channel or audience that they've already built up.

Activity 4:

1. Watch video 4. Become an Affiliate with IIDM™

2. Register as an Affiliate with IIDM™ (Optional)

• Sign in to the account you created in lecture 3

• Go to your Account

• Click on Profile

• Check box that says: Is Affiliate (Make sure your created an account as a trainer. This option is not available for user account)

• Click on Submit

Resources Summary:

• YouTube video on Affiliate Marketing

Outline and Objectives | Lecture 5 Description

International Institute Of Digital Marketing™ offers a master track with three sub-courses; Content Marketing Master™, Marketing Strategy Master™, and Paid Marketing Master™. The first sub course you will complete covers the Content Marketing Master™.

Content Marketing Master™

With a Content Marketing Master™, you are shown how to create and tailor content to capture audiences in the digital age, through visual means like images and videos, as well as blog posts and social media.

We will teach you;

• Content Marketing Concepts and Strategies

• Benefits of Content Marketing

• Types of Content

• Qualities of Effective Content

• Content Alignment with the Buyer’s Journey

• Social Listening, and Competitor Content Analysis

• How to develop a Content Marketing Plan

• How to Develop Marketing Goals

• Customer Personas

• Content Topics

• How to work with Content Management Systems

• How to Create and Curate Content

• Get to know Social Media Marketing

• Content Stakeholders

• Types and Formats

• Content Tools

• Brand Components

• Content Personalization.

In this training, YOU are the Digital Marketing Analyst of your client. You will be working on a real-life project. This means you will be:

• Posting Content for one month

• Learn how to Create Blogs

• Create your very first Podcast and more.

Keep in mind: Throughout this whole training, you will create YOUR portfolio which will represent your work and effort and which you can use for your future employer or own business.

Activity 5:

1. Watch Video 5. Outlines and Objectives

Resources Summary:

• Link to Licensed Digital Marketing Master™ track YouTube video

Introduction to Digital Marketing | Lecture 7 Description

What you will learn in this course includes:

• What is digital marketing?

• Why digital marketing is important?

• Content Marketing

• Social Media Marketing

• Marketing Automation

• Marketing Strategies

• SEO

• Paid Marketing

With how accessible the internet is today, would you believe us if we told you the number of people who go online every day is still increasing? It is.

In fact, "constant" internet usage among adults increased by 5% in just the last three years, according to Pew Research. And although we say it a lot, the way people shop and buy really has changed along with it meaning offline marketing isn't as effective as it used to be.

Marketing has always been about connecting with your audience in the right place and at the right time. Today, that means you need to meet them where they are already spending time: on the internet.

What is digital marketing?

Digital marketing encompasses all marketing efforts that use an electronic device or the internet. Businesses leverage digital channels such as search engines, social media, email, and other websites to connect with current and prospective customers.

• You’re using the Internet to distribute your marketing materials.

• You’re promoting a particular product or service.

• People consume your marketing materials via digital devices.

Why digital marketing is important?

Digital marketing helps you reach a larger audience than you could through traditional methods, and target the prospects who are most likely to buy your product or service. Additionally, it's often more cost-effective than traditional advertising and enables you to measure success on a daily basis and pivot as you see fit. There are a few major benefits to digital marketing.

It is Cheap and ALL YOU NEED IS INTERNET.

Digital marketing enables you to track campaigns on a daily basis and decrease the amount of money you're spending on a certain channel if it isn't demonstrating high ROI. The same can't be said for traditional forms of advertising. It doesn't matter how your billboard performs — it still costs the same, whether or not it converts for you.

YOU CAN MEASURE IT.

Digital marketing can give you a comprehensive, start-to-finish view of all the metrics that might matter to your company — including impressions, shares, views, clicks, and time on page. This is one of the biggest benefits of digital marketing. While traditional advertising can be useful for certain goals, its biggest limitation is measurability.

THE WORLD IS YOUR LIMIT

If you work for a small business, it's likely difficult for you to compete with the major brands in your industry, many of which have millions of dollars to invest in television commercials or nationwide campaigns. Fortunately, there are plenty of opportunities to outrank the big players through strategic digital marketing initiatives.

So here are the types of Digital Marketing:

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

2. Content Marketing

3. Social Media Marketing

4. Pay Per Click (PPC)

5. Affiliate Marketing

6. Native Advertising

7. Marketing Automation

8. Email Marketing

9. Online PR

10. Inbound Marketing

11. Sponsored Content

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

This is the process of optimizing your website to "rank" higher in search engine results pages, thereby increasing the amount of organic (or free) traffic your website receives. The channels that benefit from SEO include websites, blogs, and infographics.

There are a number of ways to approach SEO in order to generate qualified traffic to your website. These include:

• On-page SEO

• Off-page SEO

• Technical SEO

Content Marketing

This term denotes the creation and promotion of content assets for the purpose of generating brand awareness, traffic growth, lead generation, and customers. The channels that can play a part in your content marketing strategy include:

• Blog posts

• eBook and white papers

• Infographics

• Social Media Marketing

This practice promotes your brand and your content on social media channels to increase brand awareness, drive traffic, and generate leads for your business. The channels you can use in social media marketing include:

• Facebook

• Twitter

• LinkedIn

• Instagram

• Snapchat

• Pinterest

• TikTok

Pay per Click (PPC)

PPC is a method of driving traffic to your website by paying a publisher every time your ad is clicked. One of the most common types of PPC is Google Ads, which allows you to pay for top slots on Google's search engine results pages at a price "per click" of the links you place.

Affiliate Marketing

This is a type of performance-based advertising where you receive a commission for promoting someone else's products or services on your website. Affiliate marketing channels include:

Marketing Automation

Marketing automation refers to the software that serves to automate your basic marketing operations. Many marketing departments can automate repetitive tasks they would otherwise do manually, such as:

• Email newsletters

• Social media post scheduling

• Lead-nurturing workflows

• Campaign tracking and reporting

Email Marketing

Companies use email marketing as a way of communicating with their audiences. Email is often used to promote content, discounts, and events, as well as to direct people toward the business's website.

Online PR

Online PR is the practice of securing earned online coverage with digital publications, blogs, and other content-based websites. It's much like traditional PR, but in the online space.

Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing refers to a marketing methodology wherein you attract, engage, and delight customers at every stage of the buyer's journey. You can use every digital marketing tactic listed above, throughout an inbound marketing strategy, to create a customer experience that works with the customer, not against them.

Sponsored Content

With sponsored content, you as a brand pay another company or entity to create and promote content that discusses your brand or service in some way.

One popular type of sponsored content is influencer marketing. With this type of sponsored content, a brand sponsors an influencer in its industry to publish posts or videos related to the company on social media.

There you go this is Digital Marketing in a nutshell.

Activity 7:

1. Watch video 7. Introduction to Digital Marketing

2. Make sure you complete all lectures before moving on to Assignment 1.

Resources Summary:

• Blog about 2024: The Top 3 Digital Marketing Trends You Can't Ignore

Research Activity | Lecture 8 Description

In your welcome email, you were assigned to a specific IIDM™ client for which you are responsible during this training. We would now like you to do research on this country to give you insight and inspiration for the content you will create during the training.

Activity 8:

1. Research and Present Digital Marketing Trends for your assigned client and location.

• Client analysis

• Hashtags (Location of the client)

• Digital Marketing News (Location of the client)

• Digital Marketing Trends (Location of the client)

2. Put together a short presentation document highlighting what you have found, and upload it to your Google Drive folder, shared in your welcome email.

Note: No word count is required.

Resources Summary:

• Example of research activity.

Setting Goals and Choosing Channels | Lecture 9 Description

Not all marketing channels will be right for your business. You want to avoid wasting your time and money by hopping on the latest trendy channel, which doesn’t actually reach your target audience.

So then, how do you develop a high-impact and cost-effective marketing strategy that utilizes the most successful channels for your business?

It all starts with a strategy. For any kind of marketing to be effective, you need a solid plan to guide you. Feeling around in the dark isn’t the greatest way to approach anything in business and marketing is definitely no exception.

To help devise your strategy and determine which channels are most appropriate for your business, consider the following five factors.

1. Consider your goals

2. Know where you customers hang out

3. Talk to your consumers throughout their journey

4. Scope out the competition

5. Work your strategy + analyze the results

Goal setting is one of the most critical challenges for any business. Even perfect goals without the right plan in place will leave your team feeling confused and frustrated. When it comes to marketing goals, follow this same approach. Start with where you want to go, then plan the steps that will get you there.

By setting SMART goals — that is, goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound, you and your team will know exactly what you are working toward — with no questions. Here’s how to begin.

How to set well-defined goals

It is often said that a goal without a plan is just a wish — but a plan without a goal is equally incomplete.

To move your business forward, you need both: goals that are well-defined and articulated plans to get you there.

Examples of poorly-defined marketing goals

Here are some marketing goal examples that need more work:

• I want more website visitors, leads, and sales.

• We need to generate a larger email list.

• Our goal is to rank No. 1 in Google.

You can see that these are vague. It's easy to say that you want to generate more leads, but how many more leads do you need to achieve your goal? 10 more? 100 more? Thousands more? How many contacts do you want on your mailing list? What do you want to rank in Google for?

Examples of well-defined marketing goals

Here are the same goals turned into well-defined marketing goals. What’s more, these marketing goals are based on the overall goals of the business.

• We need 20,000 visitors, 500 leads, and 12 customers within the next 12 months from our inbound marketing efforts to achieve our revenue goal of $600,000 from inbound marketing.

• We would like to generate two customers from our current client list using email marketing. We would also like to add all qualified leads to our mailing list, allowing us to keep these leads warm for future sales.

• We want to rank No. 1 for the keyword term "Reliable snow removal in Denver,” since we estimate that it will generate 300 visitors to our website per month.

When it comes to marketing goals, specifics are your friend. It’s better to start out with numbers in mind, even if you have to adjust them over time.

How to set marketing goals based on business goals

Here are seven steps for setting well-defined marketing goals that are in sync with the goals of the business:

1. Identify how much revenue you need to generate from your inbound marketing efforts

2. Determine how many sales you need to hit those revenue goals

3. Identify your closing rate and how many opportunities you need

4. Identify how many sales quality leads you need

5. Identify how many marketing quality leads you need

6. Identify how many leads you need

7. Identify how much traffic you need to achieve your goals

Next, Set quarterly benchmarks. Remember to implement your other key business goals. These goals are not supposed to be an exhaustive list. For example:

• Sales for a particular product line

• Revenue from existing customers

• Retention rates from current customers

• Number of job applicants (which may be important if your business is growing)

• Downloads of a high lead-to-customer converting offer

As with the example mentioned, make sure you clearly define these goals and make them SMART. Then, work backward to determine the steps to take to get yourself there.

Remember, your goals will not be perfect. Don't waste hours upon hours tweaking numbers and then never getting started. Gather accurate data about previous time periods, define the capabilities of your team, and make smart decisions on where you want to go with your marketing. Then, get started and begin tracking your progress. You can always course-correct along the way.

Build your marketing strategy around these goals, and after one quarter ends, take a step back with your new data. Adjusting goals shouldn't be perceived as negative — it's something that's completely necessary to keep moving forward.

Social Media Channels

Social media can be an incredibly effective tool for businesses of all types and sizes. But the actual social networks that you choose can make a big impact on your chances of being successful.

Each business must choose the social media marketing mix that works best for their specific needs and target customers. However, businesses must start with an understanding of the options available amongst the social media platforms in the market. If it’s time to upgrade your social media marketing strategy, here are different social media channels that you can consider using to market your business.

1. Facebook

With more than 2.7 billion users worldwide, Facebook is pretty much a must when it comes to social media marketing channels. The site is popular with everyone from teens to grandparents.

Businesses can sign up for business pages, create groups, and even host events. The site also offers extra features ranging from targeted advertising to live broadcasting to increase your social media marketing.

2. Instagram

A visually-oriented social media platform, Instagram is mainly used as a mobile app. It lets users post photos, short videos, live streams, and stories that disappear at the end of each day.

The app has more than a billion active users. Its user base is a bit younger than that of Facebook. However, as social media platforms go, the value of influencer marketing is much higher on this channel. With influencers on Instagram, you can target your audience with the right type of content.

3. YouTube

If you create video content for your business, then you probably already use YouTube. You can upload your own videos, share them on other sites, create playlists and even interact with other users on the video social media platform.

YouTube has more than 2 billion monthly logged-in users. Even more view videos without an account. With a wide and varied user base, businesses posting useful video content like how-to’s or demonstrations can utilize YouTube as part of their social media marketing strategy.

4. LinkedIn

The most popular business-oriented social networking site, LinkedIn is great for entrepreneurs looking to boost their professional networks or reach out to B2B clients.

The site offers general posts, long-form content, and even job listings. With 706+ million users, LinkedIn can be useful for growing your network, hiring, or sharing expertise with other professionals.

LinkedIn is especially helpful for startups looking for brand recognition as part of their marketing efforts. Whether it is to attract investment or talent, a startup can do both with the right content on this social media platform.

5. Twitter

Twitter is a microblogging social media site that allows users to post short messages, photos, links and other types of media. There are more than 330 million active users. Males and those between 35 and 65 are most active.

Since it’s not as visual as many other social sites, Twitter is often best for those who share information, like news outlets or B2B businesses. Twitter is a great social media platform for starting conversations, but you have to be in the right demographic to capitalize on it.

6. TikTok

TikTok is a relatively new social network that specializes in short, viral videos. Some of the videos get shared on other sites as well. The app gets about 1 billion active users a month. As a result, it can be a useful part of a social media marketing strategy for creative brands that want the content to reach their audience.

Introduction to Social Media Marketing | Lecture 8 Description

Social media marketing is basically the use of social media to connect with your audience, bring them to your website, or just promote yourself. And this obviously involves a lot of posting, engaging with followers, analyzing, and running advertisements.

Today, we have several major social media - Facebook, Instagram, Linked In, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and TikTok. Social Media Marketing starts with the publishing of the content. Different accounts are sharing their content for free on social media, so this way they get traffic, and with traffic, we are able to get sales. And its only one use of social media and there are many more today.

You can monitor what people are saying about your business on social media, respond to that, and (hopefully, although there were different cases) make things better, let’s say if you have a problem. You can analyze your engagement, understand what people like and don’t like. You can target people on social media to achieve various goals. Many more things, and all that is called social media management. Now let’s see how can you do social media management, and what are steps that you need to follow to be successful:

Strategy

• It’s hard to emphasize how important it is to have a strategy, because where are you going without it?

• So we need to answer a few questions:

• What are your goals?

• What social media platform do you want to focus on?

The thing here is that you don’t want to put all your attention to all social media available, you want to focus on a few. Think about where mainly is your audience, and define 2-3 major social media and focus on them!

What type of content do you want to focus on?

This is a tricky question, but really you need to understand what type of content people would come to see on your page. Don’t try to post little kitties when you are selling financial services, be consistent and true to your business.

• Plan and publish

Social media marketing requires a consistent presence on social media. Close to three billion people are using social media every day. And consistency and activity will allow you to be seen by people there. And publishing for your business is no different from your personal account. The only difference here is that you want to know what to publish and what to achieve with your posts. For that, we are using a huge amount of different tools that can help us to automate those processes. It can be independent tools, or it can be tools that social media made themselves, like on Facebook.

• Engage and observe

With time, your posts will start being seen, and it will bring your followers, engagement, and just some kind of popularity on the internet. It also means that people will probably start talking about your brand on the internet, leave reviews, and so on. What do you want to do is to monitor such activities, respond to both good and bad comments. And it’s important to address everything when the time is right. Don’t stay for a few days thinking about what to answer or just wait for a bad comment- do it today, and maybe you can correct the situation. Engaging with your costumes is a must, and you will see bad comments, but your job is to turn them to your advantage.

• Analyze

While you are busy publishing your content, engaging with your customers, you would like to know your performance. The best way to do that is to go to the analytics tab on your social media. This will give you an understanding of if you are reaching more people, how good are your followers, etc. This is super valuable information for you because you can correct your strategy, add or test new ideas that eventually will make you successful.

• Advertise

At some point, you will start thinking about doing advertisements for your brand. Advertisement in social media serves many reasons and can help you to achieve your goals for spending money in return. And this type of ad is super powerful because you can target various people (thanks to the same people like you, who are sharing their information on social media), and with the right targeting, you will be able to sell, bring to the website, or just engage with them.

Now let’s talk about some popular Social media channels, their advantages, and disadvantages.

• Instagram

Instagram is a social media that is used by almost 1 billion people. So Instagram is just a great tool for your business - lots of people using it, it is super graphic, allows you to receive messages, etc. I would say, that Instagram can be used in almost every business and it will definitely bring results. The disadvantage of Instagram is that it generates “cheap traffic”. What I mean by that is that people tend to follow random accounts sometimes without actually being interested in them, the same goes for business accounts who follow many people with a hope to be followed in return. Besides that, people just tend to scroll through their feeds not really paying attention to what is going on. I bet after hearing that you might think that Instagram is better not to be used, but that’s not like that. If your audience is there, for example, you are into fashion, or real estate, or food, you have to have an Instagram account. Work on your content, make sure it’s visible and you will get a lot of success.

• Facebook

Although Facebook had better times in terms of the number of people and how involved in the social media they were, it still does a great job when it comes to Facebook groups or pages. 2 billion people are using Facebook and often coming there to get some information about the business, check their updates. Facebook has great analytics, great tools for pages, great advertisement. More importantly, it fits almost all businesses, so there is no reason for you not to have it.

• You Tube

YouTube got huge in recent years, with a huge amount of content, creators, and opportunities. And Stunning 2.3 billion people are using YouTube. The thing about YouTube is that it became what its creator is in some way. So as Google, people using YouTube as a search engine when it comes to some problem and finding a solution to that. I bet you can confirm it yourself when you were looking for something on YouTube because you didn’t know how to do it. I do it a lot when I want to cook something. But a bad thing about YouTube is the time that you have to spend on growing it.

• LinkedIn

You can think of LinkedIn as the high-tech equivalent of going to a traditional networking event where you go and meet other professionals in person, talk a little bit about what you do, and exchange business cards. It's like one big virtual networking event.

Activity 11:

1. Watch video 11. Introduction to Social Media Marketing.

   
   

Resources Summary:

• YouTube video on What is Social Media Marketing

Automation tools for Social Media Marketing: Heropost | Lecture 12 Description

Software providers have come up with solutions to make social media posting manageable. You can design and bulk schedule multiple posts at once. You can do this at a time that suits you, and then use your tool of choice to deliver your posts at the best times.

With a social media automation tool, you can operate your social account efficiently. They also give you time to create and push more content. Your audience will come to expect posts at a specific time, and your post scheduler makes it more likely that you can make that happen.

Activity 12:

1. Watch video 9. Automation tools for Social Media Marketing

2. Create your first post on Heropost

• Login to Heropost

• Use images provided by IIDM™ creatives folder

• Schedule at least one post on Heropost. (AS DEMONSTRATED IN LECTURE 12)

Resources Summary:

• Link to Heropost

• Our Content folder

• YouTube video on Automation tools

Create Social Media Graphics on CANVA | Lecture 13 Description

Canva is a graphic design platform, used to create social media graphics, presentations, posters, documents, and other visual content. The app includes templates for users to use. It is one of the most popular, and easy-to-use platforms out there.

In your welcome email, you received the logins to our Canva Pro version. Here you will have access to all the paid features Canva has to offer, which will enable you to create great graphics.

Activity 13:

1. Watch Video 13. Create Social Media Graphics on Canva

2. Log in to our Canva Pro

3. Get familiar with Canva

4. Follow the guidelines set out in our branding book, shared with you in your welcome email.

NOTE: You will be using Canva Pro for Social Media Marketing for the whole training.

Resources Summary:

• Link to Canva

• Logins to Tools [Google Drive access]

• Our Logos and Certificates [Google Drive access]

• IIDM™ Branding Book

Branding in Social Media. Why Branding is important? | Lecture 14 Description

What really is a brand? A brand is knowledge, and if an organization does its job right, a comfort. An assurance that something good is to be had. A brand presents itself through several methods: Visuals, Sounds, Messages… It’s all there so a consumer can recognize it and feel an emotion or thought process related to it. Branding may take place at different places along with the infrastructure of an organization: the company as a whole, individual products or product lines, internally, in marketing, or within physical locations. Ultimately, branding comes down to building consumer loyalty surrounding an idea-- loyalty to a brand.

A brand that’s successful in asserting itself evolves far beyond simply the name of the brand, or even graphics. A brand is a compilation of people’s thoughts and opinions about an organization, or an organization’s reach. Successfully built brands invoke positive feelings and opinions, as well as loyalty from consumers, and continue to support a lasting positive relationship between the consumer and the brand that is rock-solid.

Brands have a MO-- aspects that consumers can point to and say “That’s them”. These aspects are numerous but typically follow along the lines of quality, design, and service. A successfully managed brand can have anyone see these qualities and be able to attribute them to that brand. A brand is created through experience, reputation, and marketing, a culmination of actions that build a consumer’s image of an organization.

A brand can mean many different things, depending on the consumer and their experiences. Characteristics: These are specific qualities the brand pushes for. Using a cleaning brand, for example, the characteristics of the brand may be consistent cleaning ability, effectiveness, reasonable price, and disinfection.

• User: Brands typically associate with a type of user-- ask any competing brand loyalist and you’ll get colorful answers. Think of the difference in consumers that purchase a nice, fancy watch vs the consumer that goes for sportier, fitness watches.

• Values: An organization’s values play a large part in how they’re perceived. These can be about sustainability, commitment to service, philanthropic or charitable pursuits, and more. The type of organization typically plays a big part in what kind of values it upholds.

• Advantages: These are aspects that an organization’s brand carries with it that may be seen as desirable, whether directly functional to the brand’s purpose, or eliciting an emotional response. Using a cleaning product as an example again, these kinds of qualities can be how fast it cleans, or how much bacteria it can remove.

• Persona: Along with the different qualities of a brand, it can also project a personal aspect, typically through marketing. Is the brand playful, or is it sleek and serious? This typically goes hand in hand with the type of consumer the brand attracts.

What Makes Branding Effective?

Effective branding is vital-- it is the perception of an organization and makes up everything that plays in consumers’ minds when they think of the organization. Branding is part of every aspect of the customer journey, from discovery and research, all the way to respond. Quality, visual design, service, experience, and more, all contribute to effective branding. It’s not just marketing, by a long shot-- it’s a culmination of every aspect of how an organization is perceived. To brand effectively, an organization needs to understand its consumers, what they look for, and how to invest in them, cultivating a long-term relationship that keeps them coming back again and again, delivering constant, consistent value.

When it comes to branding, how consumers see an organization’s brand will massively impact how much they’re going to invest in them, and how much they’ll advocate for them. Not only will it encourage them to invest in the organization initially, but it can also affect how they see products and actions by that brand in the future, as new markets are entered and product lines introduced. This is known as Brand Loyalty. Brand loyalty refers to a consumer’s commitment to continually engage or support a brand by buying a product or service from them, or whatever is pertinent to the organization.

The American Marketing Association defines brand loyalty as such:

“The situation in which a consumer generally buys the same manufacturer-originated product or service repeatedly over time rather than buying from multiple suppliers within the category” If regarding sales, or “The degree to which a consumer consistently purchases the same brand within a product class” if regarding consumer behavior.

True brand loyalty is achieved when a consumer not only continually purchases products and services from a brand, but when they’re committed enough to have an entirely positive view of the brand, through promotion, repurchasing time and money investment, and more. Brand loyalty will very often carry someone to another purchase even if the opposition may offer better value. This kind of loyalty is the goal of branding-- to build a relationship with the consumer through continued service, quality, and marketing. Brand loyalty is built upon many different aspects of a consumer’s thought process. Each aspect of this thought process plays a vital role in deciding brand loyalty. This is made up of trust, perceived value, continued investment, and satisfaction with products or services.

Deciding Aspects of a Brand

When creating a brand, an organization needs to understand the basic components that make a brand up. This extends from product naming schemes, marketing, and organizational values. The essential components of brands are:

1. Name

2. Graphics

3. Vision

4. Persona

   
   

These four essential elements make up what consumers will remember an organization for. If the brand is strong, they’ll see any one of these and be able to recognize it.

Brand Name

A brand’s name, and naming scheme, is an invaluable aspect of the brand. To give you an example, think of the multitude of famous brands who took over the original name of the product-- Kleenex, Thermos, Frisbee, Google… these are just a few examples of brands that had such a catchy name, they became the normal word for the item-- a ‘household name’.

The name an organization chooses will change depending on the type of brand that’s being created. If it’s an elegant, sleek, and premium brand, a brand may want a name that originates in French, Spanish, and Italian-- if it’s a simple household item, something quick and with few syllables will catch on quite easily.

The name should be memorable and at least partially descriptive of what the organization provides. Creating this ‘perfect name’ is far more in-depth than it may seem. Toss the name around, see what people think. Come up with different names, and make sure it’s available.

Graphics

A brand’s graphics range from the colors used to the typeface and imagery. There are many aspects of the visual design language of the brand, but it’s important to start by understanding how the details of an organization’s brand impact the graphics.

• First, the logo of a brand. This is what people will most likely think of first. This can be made up of letters or simply an icon or image symbolizing the brand. The logo can be simple and to the point, or it can have an elegance to it that pleases the eye. What is chosen should depend on the themes and vision of the brand.

• Second, the colors. When some people see red and white, their mind goes to Coca-Cola-- when others see a rainbow of basic colors, they could see Google. A good color scheme goes a long way. What fits the brand-- something bold, or something muted?

• Thirdly are fonts and imagery. This is heavily dependent on what’s offered and can change depending on many different factors. The font will likely appear on products, webpages, and advertisements, and plays a much more important role than many organizations give it credit for. Try imagining Apple using Times New Roman as the font for their advertising-- doesn’t feel right, does it? When it comes to imagery, a brand will want to use certain imagery in their marketing and on their products. What kind of imagery this is, again, depends on the brand. For example, think of the Amazon Arrow. What does this arrow represent?

• Vision

Vision is immensely important in branding-- consumers want to know what organizations stand for and strive for, whether with ethics, product design, customer service, or others. When people think of a brand like Walmart, what do they think of? It’s possible you’ll hear answers along the lines of “a supermarket for pretty much everything at a cheap price”-- that’s the brand vision. This can extend beyond just the products and services offered to consumers. If an organization is also involved in ethical pursuits, it can establish an open vision for the differences they’d like to see. It doesn’t always have to be grand-- Pepsi just wants to make a good drink, and most people who drink it know this.

• Persona

Brand persona is similar to vision but is separated by a few key distinctions. A brand’s persona is how a brand presents itself to the world, through projecting its vision, communicating with consumers, marketing, and more. A confident and self-aware brand persona knows how to communicate its products and services properly, providing customer service and design languages in line with the persona. Think of a brand persona like this-- do you watch a Disney movie to be scared? Probably not. You most likely think of Disney as a family-oriented company, who makes movies intended for almost everyone to enjoy. You probably don’t walk into a high-end restaurant to get fast food either. This in particular is a field day for marketers, to create unique marketing in line with the persona.

Activity 14:

1. Watch video 14. Branding

Resources Summary:

• Blog about What is Brand Marketing and Why Does It Matter?

• Blog about Brand Positioning in a Crowded Digital Landscape

Social Media Posting Strategies and Automation | Lecture 15 Description

Once you understand what content you need to post and you know the goals, it is time for you to create a social media content calendar. A calendar will allow you to understand a big picture approach to social media content planning, it will help to visualize your ideas, organize them in a way that makes seeing the strategy easier, which helps you to execute it easier.

When planning content, don’t be afraid or ashamed of repurposing the content you’ve already made and schedule it again. As social media algorithms increasingly move away from the reverse-chronological timelines of the past and towards relevance-based curation, social media marketers must continually refine their tactics in creating high-quality content and maximizing opportunities to earn engagement.

Okay, now let’s talk about the best times to post on social media. And the answer here is that it varies. You can post once a week, or 5 times a day, it really depends on the type of business you are managing. Pretty common for you would be to create and schedule a big amount of content at the beginning of your project because you are trying to get as much visibility as possible. On another hand, if the business you manage is already set, big, and pretty popular you can focus on the quality of your content rather than quantity. Create massive blog posts or very professional infographics.

When we are talking about the exact timing for posting your content on social media, it’s important to understand that almost all major social media today are using algorithms for people to see your content. So most of the time you need to focus very much on the quality of your content and making sure that it will be able to get as much attention as possible. This way you will assure that you will get a lot of engagement and with engagement, you will get followers and clients.

Another thing that helps digital marketers is the tools that we are using. You can do all posting manually of course, and it actually might work for you well when you have one client. But it’s a lot better to utilize automation tools for that. The idea behind them is simple - you are scheduling your post (graphics, videos, text) for future dates and you don’t have to worry about posting, the tool will do it for you. IIDM has used a great number of tools for our business, and all of them are different. Functionality, meaning what they are allowed to do with a social media website, amount of websites, groups, users, all of that is different in every tool. Here is the list of some of the tools for automation, we are not encouraging you to get any of them listed below, because it’s always about your preference, and you need to try them to understand which one works best for you:

• HeyOrca

• Hootsuite

• Heropost

• SproutSocial

• Sendible

• Buffer

Activity 15:

1. Watch video 15. Social Media Posting Strategies.

Resources Summary:

• YouTube video on 4 Tips for Social Media Marketing

• Blog about The Evolution of Social Media Marketing: What's Next for Brands?

Getting local backlinks | Lecture 16 Description

As you try and get your site to rank higher, one strategy you should implement is link building. Backlinks are links on another site that links back to your site. The search engines follow those links. And if they're quality sites, search engines see these backlinks as a vote of confidence that your site has worthwhile information on it.

When it comes to backlinks, quality over quantity is what matters. Google says it's better to have a few high-quality backlinks to your site than hundreds of spam, irrelevant backlinks.

Resources Summary:

• Blog on What are Backlinks and why are they are important for your SEO?

Why are Backlinks Important? | Lecture 17 Description

Backlinks are especially valuable for SEO because they represent a "vote of confidence" from one site to another.

In essence, backlinks to your website are a signal to search engines that others vouch for your content. If many sites link to the same webpage or website, search engines can infer that content is worth linking to, and therefore also worth surfacing on a SERP. So, earning these backlinks can have a positive effect on a site's ranking position or search visibility.

How To Create A Blog | Lecture 13 Description

In this lecture, we will review Blogs, why it's so important you create one, how you can create one, and basic rules of blogging.

Blogging enables you to reach the billions of people that use the Internet. Blogging can help you promote yourself or your business. By creating a blog that is of value, you can attract an audience and eventually convert them to customers, partners, friends.

Activity 18:

1. Watch video 18. How to Create a Blog

2. Write your own blog about anything related to Digital Marketing.

• Choose your topic.

• Write your blog on the Google doc provided in your Content folder

• Add links, images, and a featured image

NOTE: We are no longer using WordPress for blogsite!

Resources Summary:

• IIDM™ Blog website (use this to see examples of blogs written by our team)

• YouTube Video on 6 Reasons Why Blogging is Important to your Brand.

• Blog about 30 Content Ideas to Fill Your Blog Calendar (And Captivate Your Audience)

Introduction to AI in Social Media | Lecture 19 Description

Here’s the thing. Whether you’re a one-person shop or you have a full marketing team, keeping up with your brand’s content creation needs is always a challenge. From social content to emails to blog posts to sales pages, digital marketing just requires So. Many. Words.

AI-powered content creation tools can't replace great writers — but the truth is, they help writers and marketers save time and use their skills for more strategic aspects of content creation. AI-powered content writing is a way to improve the writing process and make it more efficient, not replace human writers outright.

When artificial intelligence takes care of mundane writing tasks, writers (and non-writer marketers) can use their skills for more valuable aspects of content creation, like content mix and conversion strategies.

Resources:

• YouTube on The Beginner's Guide to Using AI for Easy Marketing (AI Marketing 101)

Jasper: AI Tool To Create Social Media Posts | Lecture 20 Description

Now let’s look at a practical example of an AI tool for social media, more specifically for copywriting. The AI copywriting tools that are now available are fantastic for writing product descriptions, ad copy, social media posts, and even doing SEO copywriting for blog posts.

There are many AI copywriting tools out there now. Not all of them are great, and they all have their pros and cons.

But first, what is AI Copywriting?

AI Copywriting refers to a myriad of different products that use machine learning and artificial intelligence to augment or generate text. Most recently, GPT-3 by OpenAI has unleashed a flurry of new copywriting software. GPT-3, quickly, is an autoregressive language model that uses deep learning to produce human-like text. It uses natural language processing to learn context and generate copy from that understanding.

In layman's terms, this means it writes text using pre-trained algorithms that have been fed text data by crawling the internet (using a publicly available dataset called CommonCrawl) and all of Wikipedia.

Resources:

• YouTube video on 13 Free AI Tools That Can Ultimately Solve Your Marketing Problems

Practical Jasper Explanation | Lecture 21 Description

Jasper is really the only AI copywriter that can actually generate long-form blog content. Their AI-based writing assistant is trained by conversion and copywriting experts, which helped it acquire incredible writing skills and write copies that convert.

They even claim that every line of their website copy was written by their own copywriting tool. For some reason, they do search-engine-optimized content quite well.

Introduction to ChatGPT | Lecture 22 Description

ChatGPT is an AI language model developed by OpenAI that uses deep learning techniques to generate human-like responses to natural language input. It is one of the most advanced chatbots available today, with the ability to converse on a wide range of topics and provide accurate answers to complex questions.

ChatGPT has been trained on a massive corpus of text data, allowing it to understand and respond to natural language queries with high accuracy. It is used in a variety of applications, from customer service chatbots to virtual assistants and more.

Creative content for Social Media: Podcasts | Lecture 23 Description

When you spend time creating a valuable piece of content (like a blog, for example), you want to make sure you get as much out of that asset as you can. Creating podcasts out of relatable blogs is a great way to repurpose content and make sure you gain as much value without spending too much time.

In this lecture, we show you how to easily create a podcast/audio from a previously written blog.

Activity 23:

1. Watch video 23. Podcast

2. Go to your personal folder and open "3. Audio/Podcast". (Provided in your welcome email)

3. Create a short script out of your Blog on the Google Doc provided.

4. Record audio of your Blog summary (1:30 - 2:00 minutes long).

5. Create a YouTube Thumbnail with an image of yourself on Canva.

6. Create a free account on Headliner and add the wave animations to your Thumbnail.

7. Go back to Canva and add some background music.

8. Upload your finished Audio/Podcast to your personal folder "3. Audio/Podcast".

Resources Summary:

• Link to Headliner App

• YouTube video on 7 Ways to Repurpose Content

• YouTube video on How to start a podcast

• YouTube video on 5 Tips for Podcast SEO

• Blog about The Rise of Audio Content Marketing: Engaging Audiences in a Sonic Revolution

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) | Lecture 24 Description

In this Lecture, we will cover what SEO is, and how can you use it to your advantage on the example of the blog that you've already made. One of the best ways to do that is to optimize your site for search engines.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a fundamental part of Digital Marketing. It is the process of optimizing your online content for Search Engines like Google to discover and show it as a top result for searches on their search result pages. The better visibility a page has in search results, the more likely it will garner attention and attract prospective and existing customers to the business.

Regardless of what your business offers, a whole audience is likely searching for products or services like yours on search engines right now. And if you really want to attract them to your site, you will need to identify which keywords and phrases your target audience uses when searching for products or services. After that, you work towards ranking well for those searches.

4 Types of Keywords

• Informational: Help users find more information about their problem.

  Examples: "Chicago rent prices" or "Hotels New York"

  
  

• Investigational: Help find more information about potential solutions users consider buying.

  Examples: "Best iPad covers" or "Types of laptop computers"

  
  

• Transactional: Help find places to buy their selected solution.

  Examples: "Buy Asus Zenbook" or "Cheap Asus Zenbook"

  
  

• Navigational: Help find a location of a business they want to engage with.

  Examples: Include brand or company name.

Activity 24

• Watch video 24; Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Resources Summary

• YouTube video on The Beginner’s Guide To Technical SEO

• YouTube video on 10 Simple Ways To Boost SEO On Your WordPress Website

SEO for Blogs | Lecture 25 Description

WordPress is a content management system (CMS) that was commonly used as a blogging platform. But it has developed into much more than that. It is now used by millions to create all sorts of websites from e-commerce websites to business websites and more.

In this video, you’ll learn the basics of WordPress SEO and how to use its built-in features in combination with an SEO plugin.

WordPress SEO is no different than just regular search engine optimization. WordPress is a tool that makes traditional SEO techniques and strategies easier to implement and technically sound.

Activity 25:

1. Watch video 25; How is SEO done

Resources Summary

• YouTube video on Know the Basics of Link Building to Boost Your SEO

• YouTube video on How To Be An SEO Difference Maker

Content Marketing Aspects to Consider | Lecture 26 Description

Traditional marketing is becoming less and less effective by the minute; as a forward-thinking marketer, you know there has to be a better way. Enter content marketing.

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action. Instead of pitching your products or services, you are providing truly relevant and useful content to your prospects and customers to help them solve their issues.

Refine Your Strategy | Lecture 27 Description

Strategic planning is the ongoing organizational process of using available knowledge to document a business's intended direction. This process is used to prioritize efforts, effectively allocate resources, align shareholders and employees on the organization’s goals, and ensure those goals are backed by data and sound reasoning.

Having a clear and focused strategy is critically important to the success of your business, and without a well-defined strategy, yours may stall or even fail. If you can take the emotion out of your decision-making process, you'll have a business and a team that is more focused, more productive, and more profitable. Strategic planning can benefit your organization’s vision, execution, and progress toward goals. If strategic planning is a skill you’d like to improve, online courses can provide the knowledge and techniques needed to lead your team and organization.

Affiliate Marketing | Lecture 28 Description

What if you could make money at any time, from anywhere — even while you sleep? This is the concept behind affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is the process by which an affiliate earns a commission for marketing another person’s or company’s products. The affiliate simply searches for a product they enjoy, then promotes that product and earns a piece of the profit from each sale they make. The sales are tracked via affiliate links from one website to another.

Affiliate marketing is a great way to drive sales and generate significant online revenue. Extremely beneficial to both brands and affiliate marketers, the new push toward less traditional marketing tactics has certainly paid off. In fact, affiliate marketing spend in the United States increased from $5.4 billion in 2017 to $8.2 billion in 2022 — which means there’s plenty of room for those looking to get a piece of the pie.

We will walk you through how to launch your affiliating marketing business and what benefits you can expect.

Resources:

• YouTube video about Affiliate Marketing With AI: 7 FREE Artificial Intelligence Tools To Boost Your Affiliate Promotions

• Blog about Affiliate Marketing 101: Everything You Need to Know to Get Started

Google Analytics | Lecture 29 Description

Google Analytics is a free analytics program and is used to track website activity such as session duration, pages per session, bounce rate, etc. of individuals using the site, along with the information on the source of the traffic.

It uses JavaScript code to collect information from websites. In this way, Analytics records a visit each time a user views a page with the Google Analytics code.

Activity 29

1. Watch video 29; Google Analytics

Resources Summary

• YouTube video on Google Analytics with Priya Ramesh

Google My Business | Lecture 30 Description

Google My Business is a free and easy-to-use platform for companies and organizations to control their online presence through Google, including Search and Maps. You can review your company and edit your business details to help customers find your business and tell them your story.

Is it worth all the effort? If you are a local, regional, national, or international business, the simple answer is YES. Local search is an important part of a robust digital marketing strategy, and Google My Business is a massive and ever-growing factor.

Activity 30

1. Watch video 30; Google My Business

2. Create a Google My Business account

Resources Summary

• YouTube video on What Is Google My Business?

• YouTube video on Google My Business Explained

What is A Digital Marketing Strategy? | Lecture 31

Having a well-defined Digital Marketing Strategy provides you with some immediate perks. It provides you with a certain degree of protection. Proper planning ensures that brands are spending resources wisely. When you develop a digital marketing strategy, you’re able to test and confirm specific marketing data points.

Establishing a clear digital marketing strategy lets you test your marketing assumptions, which becomes especially useful when you’re targeting certain audiences. At the same time, you’re building a foundation for continued marketing growth with your digital marketing strategy.

Activity 31

1. Watch Video 31; What is a Digital Marketing Strategy?

2. Choose a topic for your Digital Marketing Strategy

3. Write your Digital Marketing Strategy in the Google Doc provided

Resources Summary

• Example of Digital Marketing Strategies - Marketing for Real Estate Professionals

• Example of Digital Marketing Strategies - Digital Marketing For Health Professionals

• Example of Digital Marketing Strategies - Digital Marketing Plan for Small Businesses

• Blog about It’s Time to Ditch Outdated Digital Marketing Strategies in 2024

• Blog about Digital Marketing Strategies to Dominate in 2024

LinkedIn Advertisement | Lecture 32 Description

Expand your audience and acquire more followers for your LinkedIn or Showcase Page, and grow your influence when they see and engage with the organic content you share on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn offers dozens of benefits for advertisers, from an expansive audience to multiple ad formats to accurate audience data. While smaller than other social media networks, it provides a degree of targeting and accuracy that other platforms can't match.

Activity 32

1. Watch Video 32; LinkedIn Advertisement

2. Visit LinkedIn with your personal LinkedIn account and create your first ad.

Resources Summary

• YouTube Video on SEO or Paid Ads

Facebook Advertisement | Lecture 33 Description

Paid Facebook ads are important to companies because they allow you to attract a targeted audience. Facebook advertisements are tailored to users based on location, demographic, and profile information. Many of these solutions can only be found on Facebook. After making an ad, you set a budget and bid for each click or thousands of impressions that your ad would get.

Facebook ads can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. With simple measurements and unparalleled ability to target based on interests and custom audiences, Facebook ads can be the difference-maker.

Activity 33

1. Watch video 33; Facebook Advertisements

2. Open your Business Manager with your personal Facebook account and create your first ad

Resources Summary

• Link to Facebook Blueprint

• YouTube video on Facebook Ads 2021 with Manny Hanif from Digital Soldiers

A/B Testing | Lecture 34 Description

A/B testing (also known as split testing or bucket testing) is a method of comparing two versions of a webpage or app against each other to determine which one performs better.

A/B testing is essentially an experiment where two or more variants of a page are shown to users at random, and statistical analysis is used to determine which variation performs better for a given conversion goal.

Activity 34

1. Watch video 3; A/B Testing

Resources Summary

• YouTube video on What is A/B Testing?

• YouTube video on What is A/B Testing on Facebook and How to Use it

Instagram Advertisement | Lecture 35 Description

Similar to Facebook, Instagram ads appear throughout the app, including in users’ feeds, Stories, Explore, and more. They look similar to normal posts but always contain a “sponsored” label to indicate that they are an ad. They also often have more features than a normal post, such as links, CTA buttons, and product catalogs.

How much do Instagram ads cost?

The cost of Instagram ads is highly dependent on a variety of factors – there is no average or benchmark price.

Some cost factors include:

• Your targeting

• Competitiveness of your industry

• Time of year (costs often go up during holiday shopping periods in Q4 such as Black Friday)

• Placement (costs can differ between ads shown on Facebook vs Instagram)

The best way to evaluate your budget is to set up a draft campaign in Ads Manager and look for the Audience Definition and Estimated Daily Results modules, which will tell you if your budget settings will be sufficient to reach your desired audience within your desired duration.

Note that there is no “best practice” for how much to spend. You can get started by spending just a few dollars a day, and scale up from there based on success.

In order to control the costs of your Instagram ads, you can set either daily budgets or lifetime spending limits. We’ll explain this in more detail in our 5-step guide below.

Types of Instagram ads

There are many different types of advertising formats on Instagram, including:

• Image ads

• Stories ads

• Video ads

• Carousel ads

• Collection ads

• Explore ads

• IGTV ads

• Shopping ads

• Reels ads

The wide range means that you can choose the best ad type that matches your specific business goal. Each ad format has its own selection of call-to-action options, which are listed below.

Google Ads: Interface and Display campaign | Lecture 36 Description

Google Ads is an affordable form of advertising that allows for targeting qualified, in-market prospects, and if managed correctly, it can deliver strong ROI, helping you grow your business's leads and sales.

A Display Ad, also known as a banner ad, is a type of online paid advertisement that is usually a picture or a photo and a copy. Display Advertisement is a way of drawing viewers to blogs, social media channels, or other interactive media to take concrete action. We show you how to build Google Display Network Advertisement Campaigns and how to grow your Google Display Ads strategy to drive more leads, sales, and conversions for your company.

There are a number of different tactics and targeting methods that you can use. Some of the choices include Remarketing, In-Market Audiences, Custom Intent Audiences, Affinity Audiences, Placement Targeting, Content Targeting, Demographic Targeting, and more.

Activity 36

1. Watch Video 36; Google Ads: Interface and Display campaign

Resources Summary

• YouTube video on The 10-Step Guide to Creating a Profitable Google AdWords Campaign from Scratch

• YouTube video on How do I Improve my chances on Google Ads

Reposting Strategy | Lecture 37 Description

Do you remember how important Content is?

It is essential for your Social Media and Online presence to be consistent. Let's introduce you to the REPOSTING STRATEGY.

You will be using your previously created content and reschedule it on Heropost.

Activity 37

1. Watch Video 37; Reposting Strategy

2. Go to your folder and find the Reposting Strategy sheet.

3. Plan the dates and follow the instructions on what kind of content you need to schedule.

4. Choose 20 of your own created images and videos, and use blogs, YouTube videos, and Headliners of IIDM™

5. Schedule the correct content according to the reposting strategy.

Resources Summary

• YouTube video on 7 Ways to Repurpose Content and Grow Your Customer Base

Google Ads: Search and Video Ads | Lecture 38 Description

With Google Ads, you can reach potential customers who are looking for businesses or products on Google Search or YouTube.

Get in front of customers when searching for companies like yours on Google Search. Google Advertising helps you to concentrate on customers who are looking for what your company has to offer. This ensures that you can constantly optimize your searches so that only people who want to purchase your goods or services are sent to your websites via this platform.

Activity 38

1. Watch Video 38; Google Ads: Search and Video Ads

2. Log in to your account with Google Advertising.

3. On the left-hand page, click Campaigns.

4. Please press the plus button.

5. Choose "New campaign."

6. Choose your campaign target, or set up a campaign with no targets.

7. Choose the sort of campaign.

8. Click the Continue button.

9. Decide on the settings of your campaign.

10. Click the Save button and continue.

Resources Summary

• YouTube video on How do I improve my chances on Google Ads

• YouTube video on What Are Smart Campaigns on Google Ads

Congratulations on completing your Licensed Digital Marketing Master™ training with the International Institute of Digital Marketing™!

We are proud of you, of your accomplishment, and of the contributions and effort you have provided. To acknowledge your personal milestone, we are excited to share your well-deserved certificates with you. Please accept your globally recognized Digital Marketing certificates as our sincere appreciation for your dedication to our organization.

We are glad that you were part of our journey. Thank you for all your time and effort.

On behalf of the IIDM™ Team, we wish you all the best.

Congratulations on completing the course. To claim your certificates, send us a message, and we will process them within 3 business days.

Once the certificates are issued, you can download them from our website. Follow the instructions to download your certificates. If you need further assistance, feel free to contact us here: [email protected]