Digital Marketing Strategy
Learn how to plan and build an effective digital marketing strategy using PR Smith’s SOSTAC® framework.
Duration
Approx 8 weeks4 hrs per week
Achieve your business objectives with a first-class digital marketing strategy
Digital marketing is moving quickly. It’s easy to get caught up in the next big thing without focusing on what you are trying to achieve.
This eight-week ExpertTrack from The Open University and industry experts Target Internet is your step-by-step guide to creating a digital marketing strategy that will help you achieve successful outcomes.
Using the SOSTAC® planning framework, you’ll discover how to build a robust strategy guided by this proven process.
Identify opportunities and challenges to help you create your digital marketing strategy
The courses in this ExpertTrack will equip you with critical skills to assess your current position and gather market insights. This will help you identify opportunities and challenges that may influence your strategy, determine the scope of your task and discover the best routes and tactics to achieve success.
Create a user-centred digital marketing strategy that focuses on outcomes
You’ll explore how to put users at the centre of your strategy by including user personas and journey maps to guide your plans.
You’ll learn how to set clear and realistic objectives and how to monitor them using dashboards. Importantly, you’ll understand how to interpret a range of analytics reports to help improve, iterate, and optimise your digital strategy.
The skills you learn will be an essential part of your digital marketing toolkit and will stay with you throughout your career in any organisation.
Learn from digital marketing experts and keep up to date with the latest trends
You’ll benefit from the expertise of industry expert Daniel Rowles of Target Internet, who has more than two decades of experience planning and implementing digital campaigns. He’s worked with numerous high-profile brands including the BBC, Sony, Tesco, Vodafone, Mercedes, L’Oreal, and Warner Bros. He’s also the well-known voice of the Digital Marketing Podcast and an award-winning author.
By the end of your learning, you’ll have the confidence and know-how to create a digital marketing strategy that aligns your organisation’s overall objectives with the needs of your audience and allows you to analyse and iterate for continuous improvement.
The courses in this ExpertTrack have been designed to complement each other, so it’s recommended that you take them in the order presented to get the best out of your learning.
Key skills you will learn
- Perform and plan effective digital marketing
- Produce user journeys to guide and refine strategy
- Use insights tools for successful campaigns
- Set analytics goals in Google Analytics
- Create user personas
- Create dashboards and reports to monitor effectiveness
- Create strategic tactical plans
Learning outcomes
By the end of the ExpertTrack, you’ll be able to...
- Produce objectives and create strategy dashboards
- Design tactical marketing plans
- Design a digital marketing strategy that aligns your objectives with the needs of your audience
- Analyse and iterate for continuous improvement
- Produce user personas and user journey maps
- Perform a situational analysis
Experience required
This ExpertTrack is ideal for anyone who would like to deepen their understanding of digital marketing strategy. You may benefit from having a basic understanding of digital marketing to join, and any work experience will help contextualise your learning.
It will be of particular interest to anyone wishing to further their studies and practical knowledge of marketing, communications and business.
If you are looking to gain introductory digital marketing skills, see our ExpertTrack Introduction to Digital Marketing.
Getting started
This ExpertTrack will help anyone who would like to create an effective digital marketing strategy to support their organisational objectives.
The courses are suitable for those who want to grow their skills in digital marketing; traditional marketers and communicators who would like to accelerate their digital skills; or more experienced marketers who want to cement their knowledge and learn latest trends.
The content has a global focus and the skills you will learn can be applied to a wide range of marketing roles around the world.
ExpertTrack course overview
Course 1
Digital Marketing Strategy: Situation Analysis
Unpack PR Smith's SOSTAC® framework for planning and implementing an effective digital marketing strategy.
2 tests
2 weeks
4 hours per week
Course 2
Digital Marketing Strategy: Creating Objectives and Using Measurement Frameworks
Learn how to monitor the success of your digital marketing strategy with objective setting and measurement frameworks.
2 tests
2 weeks
4 hours per week
Course 3
Digital Marketing Strategy: Developing Strategy and Strategic Positioning
Create an overarching strategy and define strategic positioning using PR Smith’s SOSTAC® framework.
2 tests
2 weeks
4 hours per week
Course 4
Digital Marketing Strategy: Tactics, Action and Control
Create and measure tactical activity plans for your digital marketing strategy using PR Smith’s SOSTAC® framework.
2 tests
2 weeks
4 hours per week
Prove you're job ready
Highlight the new, job-relevant skills you’ve gained and supplement existing qualifications with a hard-earned, industry-specific digital certificate – plus one for every course within your ExpertTrack.
- Learn the latest in your chosen industry or subject.
- Complete each course and pass assessments.
- Receive certificates validated by the educating organisation.
- Impress employers with learning outcomes you can add to your CV.
- Make your career dreams a reality.
Download a PDF
How ExpertTracks work
Join an ExpertTrack to master new skills in your chosen specialist area. Work through a series of topic-focused courses at your own pace, and pass the final assessment to earn a digital certificate award which proves your expertise.
Decide if the ExpertTrack is right for you with free access to the full suite of courses and assessments for a week.
Pay a monthly subscription fee of $39 for as long as it takes you to complete the ExpertTrack. You can learn at your own pace and cancel at any time.
Receive a certificate for every completed course and pass the final assessment to earn a digital certificate.
Use your specialist training to progress further in your career or build expertise in areas you’re passionate about.
World-class learning with The Open University
As the UK’s largest university, The Open University (OU) supports thousands of students to achieve their goals and ambitions via supported distance learning, helping to fit learning around professional and personal life commitments.
Established
1969Location
Milton Keynes, UKWorld ranking
Top 510Source: Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2020
This ExpertTrack is in collaboration with Target Internet
Target Internet delivers digital marketing training to some of the world’s leading organisations, as well as building online learning that is used in over 100 countries worldwide.
Meet your instructor
MD TargetInternet.com - helping upskill the world's leading organisations in Digital Marketing & Digital Transformation.
Host of the Digital Marketing Podcast, a global top 20 business podcast.
Learning on FutureLearn
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Join a global classroom
- Experience the power of social learning, and get inspired by an international network of learners
- Share ideas with your peers and course educators on every step of the course
- Join the conversation by reading, @ing, liking, bookmarking, and replying to comments from others
Map your progress
- As you work through the course, use notifications and the Progress page to guide your learning
- Whenever you’re ready, mark each step as complete, you’re in control
- Complete 90% of course steps and all of the assessments to earn your certificate
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FAQ
ExpertTracks are a series of online courses designed to help you master new skills in specialist areas. You pay a monthly subscription fee which includes access to all courses within the ExpertTrack, as well as assessments and the final digital certificate.
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