Digital Marketing Specialization offered by the University of Illinois is one of the most comprehensive programmes for digital marketing in the world that has enabled thousands of people across the world to start a new career and negotiate better opportunities.
In recent times, online courses have allowed professionals to learn valuable traits of their respective industries. The quality of online courses have improved to an extent, their certifications are increasingly valued by the biggest companies around the world. To help you climb the next step of your professional ladder, we have identified the best online courses available on Coursera. Digital Marketing Specialization offered by the University of Illinois is one of the most comprehensive programmes for digital marketing in the world that has enabled thousands of people across the world to start a new career and negotiate better opportunities.
What are Specializations?
A Coursera Specialization is a series of related courses designed to help professionals master a specific topic. One can begin a Specialization by enrolling in the entire specialization or a single course in the series. Some shorter Specializations include as few as three courses and only take a few months to finish. Longer Specializations can include ten or more courses and take up to a year.
About the Specialization
This Specialization explores several aspects of the new digital marketing environment, including topics such as digital marketing analytics, search engine optimization, social media marketing, and 3D Printing. Upon completion, the Digital Marketing Specialization you will have a richer understanding of the foundations of the new digital marketing landscape and acquire a new set of stories, concepts, and tools to help you digitally create, distribute, promote and price products and services.
Introduction
This specialization starts with how digital tools, such as the Internet, smartphones, and 3D printing, are revolutionizing the world of marketing by changing the roles and practices of both firms and consumers. Initially launched in 2015, this course is part of the iMBA offered by the University of Illinois, a flexible, fully-accredited online MBA at an incredibly competitive price.
Analytics in Theory
Successfully marketing brands today requires a well-balanced blend of art and science. This course introduces students to the science of web analytics while casting a keen eye toward the artful use of numbers found in the digital space. The goal is to provide the foundation needed to apply data analytics to real-world challenges marketers confront daily. Students will learn to identify the web analytic tool right for their specific needs; understand valid and reliable ways to collect, analyze, and visualize data from the web; and utilize data in decision making for agencies, organizations or clients.
Analytics in Practice
The third instalment of the specialization aims to provide the foundation needed to apply data analytics to real-world challenges marketers confront daily. Students will learn to identify the web analytic tool right for their specific needs; understand valid and reliable ways to collect, analyze, and visualize data from the web; and utilize data in decision making for agencies, organizations or clients.
Marketing Principles
The digital revolution has led to a titanic shift in the landscape of marketing communication, while also creating new opportunities for businesses to reach and engage consumers through smart, social, and mobile media technologies. In this course, you will learn about the impacts of digital technologies on marketing communication strategies and practices. By understanding the underlying processes of marketing communication and the core features of new media technologies, you can strategically select the appropriate channels to deliver the right marketing message to the right audience at the right moment.
Marketing Strategies
Digital technology gives businesses a diverse new set of tools to reach, engage, monitor, and respond to consumers to an unprecedented degree. The aggregated and voluminous digital data can also be leveraged to better target specific consumer segments. This course aims to give you a deeper understanding of the core processes of planning a digital marketing campaign and the role of various digital channels in integrated marketing communication.
Marketing in an Analog World
Our new Digital World is dramatically changing how products are created, promoted, distributed, and consumed. Although these changes have been revolutionary, we still live in an Analog (or physical) World. For example, even today, a large percentage of all sales are still conducted in Analog stores. Thus, both marketers and consumers must simultaneously navigate both the Analog and Digital Worlds daily. Although the Digital Revolution has received considerable attention in recent years, the impact of this revolution upon the Analog World has been largely ignored. This course examines this issue by asking, “How has the Digital Revolution impacted Marketing in an Analog World?
This course will begin with an exploration of the key differences between the Analog and the Digital and then examine four ways in which the Analog World has been affected by the Digital Revolution: Domination, Resistance, Synergy, and Transformation. This course will contain several examples of each of these concepts and explore their implications for both marketers and consumers. This course will also employ a variety of learning techniques, including video lectures, case studies, hands-on exercises, and interviews with leading marketing scholars.
Digital Marketing Capstone
This four-week Capstone of the Digital Marketing Specialization is designed to help you apply the principles you have learned in the previous courses. It facilitates hands-on experience in executing a digital marketing campaign for a fictitious firm selling electronics. In the previous courses on analytics and channels, you would come up with strategies to identify a firm’s objectives, specify a few key ones, research alternatives to reaching the customer in their decision journey and finally propose a multi-channel digital marketing plan. In this capstone, you will execute a campaign, rather than creating another ‘plan’.
It will be done through an online simulation. You will be a marketing manager for a firm selling digital cameras online through their website. Students will be reviewing the products, pricing, margins, and historical sales. Concurrently, create a targeted ad campaign after researching appropriate keywords for the products you are selling. Students will then create and execute an email campaign. Once these campaigns are executed, you get feedback on the KPI’s such as revenue, profits, traffic, conversions. There is also an opportunity to redo this campaign, with new strategies, to improve your KPI’s in the second round.
