Strengthen your digital marketing skills with a short course

Digital Marketeer Aditi Kapur has always been intrigued by the power content has on all of us. At 24 years old, Aditi says her passion for the field started when she was 9 years old thanks to a Cadbury’s chocolate advert on the TV.

“I still remember feeling spell-bound by the magic of the words that grabbed my attention from the tiny little screen,” Aditi explains.

Ever since then, Aditi has been learning more about the field and feeding her interest through various forms of academic study and professional ventures. She currently works on a freelance basis in content marketing helping other brands on their own content delivery.

“I help brands strategise and curate bite-sized content, enabling them to strike the right chords with their intended audiences, which also aligns with their own brand ethos and guidelines.”

Aditi says she’s constantly looking for new and exciting ways to learn more about all things content related. One such venture was attending the Digital Marketing Strategy Online Short Course with London College of Communication.

When I asked her what inspired her to do the course, Aditi explains she planned to relaunch herself into academia again in 2020 after leaving her job at the time, but the Covid-19 pandemic threw those plans off track. Opting to do a short course was her way to course-correct her original plans.

“In an attempt to reorient my life and fuel my passion for learning, I decided to enrol for an online course in a field that excites, educates and stimulates me all at once.”

Aditi says she came to the decision to do a short course after a lengthy internet search. “I was looking for a course that was prestigious, thorough as well as pocket friendly... I came across a short course at UAL, which wasn't just well renowned, but comprehensive - evidenced by its wide range of course contents.”

Another student who found themselves, in lockdown in 2020, looking for an online course that would support her interests and professional practice was Rawan Kashkoush, who also attended the Digital Marketing Strategy Online Short Course.

Having lived in 8 different cities, Rawan shares Aditi’s interest in content.  Particularly the storytelling aspect of it, especially when it’s connected with celebrating and preserving different cultures. This drive is what led her to start his own online retail business.

“I am founder of the newly launched online retail platform beyyn, which means ‘reveal' in Arabic, that commissions and celebrates contemporary homeware and furniture from the Arab World. Between finding new designers and artisans, developing new collections, creative direction, business management, operations/logistics, and marketing I have my hands quite full.”

When Rawan attended the short course, she was just at the final stages of getting ready to launch beyyn and felt she could benefit from the course to help make sure everything would run smoothly.

Caterina Bonini was another student on the Digital Marketing Strategy Online Short Course. At the time we spoke, Caterina was days away from graduating from the Istituto Europeo di Design in Florence in Fashion Styling and Communication. Considering her fashion background, Caterina said she wanted to do the short course because she was intrigued by how digital marketing and fashion communication intersect within the wider fashion industry.

“I wanted to deepen my knowledge in online marketing and the various other communication strategies that were out there. This was a part that was not massively covered during my 3-year degree course,” Caterina explains.

While on the course, Aditi said she benefited a lot from the group discussions that took place in every session.  The international make-up of the classroom really helped her develop an understanding of different content strategies based on geographical location and the dominating culture of those locations.

“Due to the course being open to students in countries from across the globe, I got the opportunity to learn about the content marketing initiatives/ strategies that were trending across different cultures and what their strengths and weaknesses were.”

The interactive nature of the classes was something both Rawan and Caterina also enjoyed about the course as students were encouraged to discuss current news and stories in the digital marketing sphere.

“My biggest discovery on the short course was learning about the flexible and very human nature of digital marketing,” Rawan tells me. “Realising that people want a personality and to feel intimately connected with the brands they interact with taught me that for someone like me, who was at the time getting ready to launch beyyn, I would be personable and act like a human instead of being clinical in my approach.”

In Caterina’s case, the course opened her eyes up to a wealth of information that she didn’t even think to consider before. “I didn’t know all the processes that went into customer loyalty programmes or online and offline promotion. Also, things like identifying your target audience holistically – the course left with so much new information.”

From doing the short course, Rawan says she was exposed to different marketing campaigns, tips and apps during the course that directly fed into her launching her own business. “The course directly impacted my preparedness to launch beyyn with an Instagram account and email marketing that I would not have arrived at easily without this course.”

Likewise, Caterina wholeheartedly believes doing the short course has given her worthwhile transferrable skills that she intends to apply her work very soon.

In terms of advice for other students tinkering with the idea of doing a short course, all 3 students are keen to celebrate the benefits of doing a short course. “Don't think about it twice! It's worth time, effort and money,” Aditi advises.

Meanwhile, speaking specifically about the Digital Marketing Strategy Online Short Course, Rawan encourages students to come to the course prepared with a project in mind that can be fleshed out with the help of the tutor. “This course is particularly useful if it can be applied immediately to your own projects – that way you really get the most out of the course.”

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