Digital marketing is a super important skill to have - especially if you are starting your own business.
In our interview series of recent or current digital marketing students in Dublin we are trying to get insights about courses and the choice of digital marketing as a subject. Today's interviewee is Hélène Xisto, who has completed her 8 week course in Online Marketing and Social Media organised by the Local Enterprise Office in Dun Laoghaire. Keep reading and get some super helpful tips..
1) Hélène, to start tell us in a couple of sentences about what you do?
I have started a traineeship as an Online Marketing
Specialist in Salesforce here in Dublin a couple of months ago. Originally I
have a background in International business and traditional Marketing and am
now looking after online advertising campaigns for Salesforce in France.
2) Why did you decide to do a course in digital marketing?
Coming from a traditional marketing background I wanted to
brush up my online skills. But actually the main motivation was to work
together with my partner on his startup business and its online presence. He is
just in the process of launching his business and since we were working on the
website and online strategy anyways we looked for a course that taught us all
skills we need to do it properly.
3) How did you decide then which course to choose?
Well there were three factors that were important to me.
Firstly the course had to be part-time and in the evening since I was working
full-time. Plus the course had to be affordable. And finally but most
importantly it was important that it was a course designed for
entrepreneurs.
At the end, this is exactly what we got in the Local Enterprise
Centre in Dun Laoghaire.
4) What did you like about this course?
The course was very hands on, which was great. There was
always enough time to follow the theoretical part of each session with some
practical work on our businesses’ online presence. This in fact was the super
cool thing about this course. Instead of working on case studies or other
practical exercises, we all implemented what we had learned in
theory straight into our own business situations. For instance we had
a class on social media and in particular on LinkedIn where we started creating
our company profile and implemented all best practices that we had just learnt.
The amazing thing about the course was that you were sitting in a group of
people who were also starting their own business, where you could share your
ideas and get immediate feedback. This was very valuable to us. Plus since we
were working on a new business in the local area this was a unique opportunity
to network.
We also loved the course content. It was suitable to people
that started or where planning to start small businesses. So for instance the
course covered how to create your own website in detail but did not really go
into display advertising or other more expensive advertising techniques. Everything
was focused on the real-life situation that we were all in.
I also liked the pace of the course as you had one class per
week and then had the rest of the week to continue the work on this subject in
practice at home.
In short, the teacher was great as well as the group.
5) If you could give someone who is considering a digital marketing course 3 tips, what would they be?
1) Understand who the course that you are considering is
aimed at. Make sure you know who is attending the course and if they are in the
same mindset as you are. Then you will get most out of the course.
2) Focus on what you want to learn about in specific!
Digital Marketing is a super broad field with many interesting but very
different subject areas. Maybe you are more interested in the advertising side
of things or you want to learn all about SEO. Then make sure the course you
choose has a focus on the areas you want to learn about. Specifically in a
short course there is not enough time to cover everything in detail.
3) Think about what you want to get out of the course. Do
you want a degree or do you just need some hands on practical teaching from an
expert? (In our case, Dorcas Reamonn, our teacher). For us it was the second as
we both had degrees but just wanted to get the skills in a course tailored to
our needs.
Thanks to Hélène for sharing her insights with us! If you have any questions for her don't hesitate to comment below.
For an overview of all courses available to you in Dublin, check out this handy summary of all digital marketing courses in Dublin.
No comments:
Post a Comment