What should you take into account when choosing training and courses, with an emphasis on the field of digital marketing, given the increased number of available types of training and courses in this field?

One of the results of the pandemic is a drastic increase in the number of different types of training and courses in the field of digital marketing, and this happened due to a significant reduction in the volume of work in digital marketing agencies at the beginning of the pandemic.

The Pandemic Has Influenced the Increased Interest in Training and Courses in Digital Marketing In 2020

The current pandemic has caused various disruptions in the business of companies, which has resulted in major (both positive and negative) changes in the digital business market.

It is obvious that online sales are growing in various areas of business. The needs of businesses over the Internet have changed since the pandemic, so digital services are changing in line with these changes.

This development resulted in the fact that, regardless of the significant increase in the quality of online training and courses in the field of Internet marketing, there was no decline in interest in attending existing courses because they also recorded the largest increase in annual numbers of attendees since the beginning of the pandemic.

The mentioned increase in the number of participants, even in the most popular courses, was not affected by the fact that they are considered extremely expensive educational programs in this area. There is a reason why this is so. Based on the above, it can be concluded that in the previous year, the increase in the offer of courses has shown that the interest in education in the field of digital business has definitely increased as well.

How to Choose the Area of Digital Marketing That Suits Your Desires and Abilities?

Digital marketing is a huge area today. Whichever part of this niche you choose, there is plenty of work to be done on a daily basis, full-time, in it. This means that you cannot be good in all areas of digital marketing, but you must choose one individual area in which you will be able to make significant progress. It is recommended that you choose one main area and two other related areas in which you can make a lot of progress.

It is not easy to decide where to start learning digital marketing. Google on how to choose a topic that might interest you in the field of digital business. First, find out what belongs in this niche and whether there are any points of contact with any of the jobs you have done so far in your life or not. Perhaps you dealt with social media as an additional task on your job or with sending promotional emails (for which, by the way, there are features and options for skilled marketers, such as VerticalResponse, to gather users’ emails). The emphasis of finding yourself in this niche is in choosing a project that will help you better and faster acquire knowledge and skills for the chosen area of digital marketing.

Why Pay For Courses at All When There Are a Huge Number of Free Materials From All Possible Areas (Digital Marketing)?

Despite the very favorable offer of quality free educational programs, not all people are ready or able to take advantage of these benefits for the following reasons:

• This multitude of educational programs needs to be individually researched and found, and additional learning resources selected. This whole process requires a lot of time and knowledge (knowledge of assessing and evaluating the value of selected methods of education).
• It is easy to get lost in the bunch. A large number of people cannot easily choose what exactly to use from that abundance of materials and they return to the classic, tried and tested (“safe”) education systems.
• Many people are not ready to take responsibility for their own education. For them, it is easier that an educational institution takes responsibility for the complete process of education in one area (e.g. selected number of subjects/skills in one area).

The best training and courses bring these advantages in relation to independent learning:

1. The time is saved by experienced lecturers giving different ‘shortcuts’ – how to understand certain areas, how to solve problems that are in practice, how to quickly reach satisfactory solutions to these problems, etc.
2. They present in a structured way everything that is important to know in order to do work in this area, without ‘skipping’ some parts in the field, or worse – leaving ‘holes’ in knowledge, which is a characteristic of the time we live (‘experts’ and ‘gurus’ with big ‘holes’ in their knowledge).
3. Learning through quality examples from practice, which you probably would not have heard of if you did not attend such a course.
4. Getting specific advice from experts in the field, which you would otherwise pay drastically more as part of consulting in the same field.

What Should Be Taken Into Account When Choosing the Duration of the Training or Course?

Various research and practice show that if you want to become an expert in an area you do not know, you need a minimum of 6 hours of focused work a day (to know exactly what you need to learn, practice, do), over a period of one year. In practice, it is usually a period of about 2 years.

The following can be concluded from the above:

• If you do not know the area for which you want to train, it is recommended that you enroll in training that lasts from six months up. It takes a long time for the area to be adopted from the beginning if you want to do that job after the training.
• Training and courses that last less than six months serve to learn additional skills from an area you already know in practice – additional training.
• The offer of courses of a few hours or days serves to briefly introduce you to new skills and knowledge that you will later develop (additionally learn) in practice.

How to Choose Relevant Education in the Field of Digital Marketing?

You have probably noticed the fact that 15 to 30 days after the proclamation of the pandemic in March 2020 an incredibly large number of companies in the world have announced that they will have to declare bankruptcy soon. The main reason for this phenomenon is the focus on practice in the field, without knowing the theory needed to do a successful and long-term job in a world where crises occur every 10-15 years.

When you do work only at the level of application of practice, you depend on that practice that you know. When something happens that you don’t know, then a problem arises. The same goes for education programs – if you only learn the practice, you will not learn your job well enough.

A large number of individuals in the world do not distinguish strategy (long-term results) from tactics (short-term results). Most education programs in the field of digital marketing do not deal with a sufficiently detailed and applicable strategy in this area.

Practical Tips on Choosing Digital Marketing Education Program

Here are some tips on how to choose a digital marketing education program, which will give you the necessary knowledge and skills for the very uncertain times that certainly await us (count on that) in the coming years:

1. Compare the structure of different similar education programs that interest you. See where there are differences, and assess whether they sufficiently cover the area you are interested in, whether the theory is processed and how, and whether the structure shows a difference in the strategic and tactical approach to the topic.
2. Who is the training or course for? Does the description of the training program, i.e. the structure it is based on, show whether the training or course is intended for entrepreneurs, small, medium, or large companies. Does the program highlight topics from the perspective of doing business with end-users or doing business with companies. In digital marketing, there are great differences in understanding, performing, and perceiving the results of these activities, depending on the different sizes of companies, and depending on their way of doing business.
3. How applicable are examples from practice and how is best practice presented? The answer to this question is important, especially if you are completing international courses in digital marketing, which have examples from practice that are not applicable in the conditions in your country. Do you know how to adapt such examples to domestic conditions if you want to do digital marketing here? To answer this question it would be good to be able to contact some of the previous course participants.
4. It would certainly be a good idea to contact some of the previous course participants you select for analysis. It is recommended that you ask them to answer the question you ask via direct message.
5. Study who all the lecturers in the education programs are. Learn as much as you can about them.
6. See what is being said on the web and on Facebook groups about different education programs, but the advice is to contact lecturers and people who understand the area better, assuming it is obvious that they know how the observed education program is performed and who the lecturers are.
7. See what exactly you got for the price of the education program. In particular, study what kind of certificates the program provides, and what are all the additional benefits of attending the observed education program.

On the web today, you can read everything about different kinds of training and courses in your country, in the region, and in the world. The better you study the current offer, the better you will choose the training according to your wishes and needs.