Once upon a time, digital marketing was optional. Now, it’s compulsory for virtually every organisation. And, even if only for Continuing Professional Development, it’s essential to stay up-to-date.

It’s no wonder that Digital Marketing is so important: the statistics are compelling. 94% of Kiwis are active Internet Users. On average NZ broadband users consume over 150 gigabytes of data each month, which is equivalent to streaming 60 hours of high-definition TV online, or watching all seven seasons of Game of Thrones back to back.

Oh, and almost everyone of us under 55 has a smartphone (with older age groups fast catching up). That puts the Internet into your customers’ pockets and purses, readily available when they need to find information, make purchases or just connect with friends and family. In fact, more than 60% of global Internet usage is now via mobile devices.

The Internet has, as promised by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison back in 2000, changed everything.

In 2019, as has been the case for many years, every marketing plan is just automatically expected to include Digital Marketing.

But there’s a problem. Digital Marketing is constantly changing. Today’s hot obsession is tomorrow’s pub quiz Forgotten Trivia question (“what was MySpace, Vine, Google+, yada yada yada”). What will be in vogue the day after tomorrow? Is it too soon to tell?

Many of our clients tell us that keeping up with what’s happening in Digital Marketing is their biggest challenge.

It’s an essential ingredient of Continuing Professional Development for marketers — but’s it’s been really difficult for them to find content that’s relevant for New Zealand businesses and which is designed for those who already know the essentials of Digital Marketing and need to be kept up-to-date.

We’ve listened. We’ve considered how best we can help. And now we’re delighted to announce our newest online training course, our new flagship course: Advanced Digital Marketing 2019.

This brand new, hot-off-the-virtual-presses course is dedicated to delivering the very latest information about Digital Marketing. It is freshly developed in 2019 and will be revised and updated throughout the year.

This online training course covers exactly what you need to know to survive and prosper in 2019, across a variety of digital marketing disciplines, including:

• Social Media
• Search Marketing
• Online Video
• Marketing Automation
• Paid Advertising
• Artificial Intelligence
• Influencer Marketing
• Data-Driven Marketing
• Content Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Messaging
• Analytics
• Other Technologies to Watch

————————————-

Now let’s get onto the course details:

Advanced Digital Marketing 2019 is a thirteen-part online training course providing a comprehensive update on the latest developments in Digital Marketing that are relevant to New Zealand marketers.

Every lesson includes Action Steps so that you can start implementing what you’ve just learned, along with Quick Wins so that you can apply your newfound knowledge immediately.

This online training course is conducted on a web-based e-learning software platform, enabling course participants to proceed at their own pace, accessing materials online. This particular online training course provides content in a variety of multimedia forms, including text, images, videos, slideshows, flash-based presentations and PDF files. No special software is required to participate.

Course lessons will be provided weekly over thirteen parts, (but once each lesson is released, you can access it whenever you wish, anytime 24/7, in accordance with your own timetable). Interaction with the course tutor is enabled via email (with telephone backup if required).

Feedback from previous online training course participants

• “this was the best professional development course I have done in many years” – Mark R, senior Agency Exec responsible for social media
• “thought the information within was outstanding” – Ed P, General Manager
• “What I loved was that I started with a fairly rudimentary understanding of social media but have learned a lot – including where to find more information as I need it.” – Fiona W, Marketing Manager
• “I found it relevant, informative, topical, insightful and a bloody good read. It’s never evangelical, too techy, patronising, assumes that you know too much or too little about digital and has a warm sense of humour in the communication throughout which helped faciliate the learning process for me.” — Adrienne B, new media senior executive
• “Thanks for pointing me in the direction of this course! It’s been extremely enlightening” — Shayne P, design agency director
• “Rapt with what I have seen of the course” — Julia R, fashion editor
• “I’m really enjoying the course – learning a lot – and I know the two friends I persuaded to join us are also loving it.” — Lavinia C, designer
  
• “Am thoroughly enjoying the content!” – Kara B, magazine co-ordinator
• “I completed the first lesson today and found it really interesting and love the interaction already! I am so looking forward to the second lesson already …” — Annette B, public relations director
• “I was already engaging with social media and have been doing so for about 6 years or so. But, did I know how to use social media in a marketing and business sense? No, I simply did not. This course was a great way to show me how to do that.” — Sheryl K, online marketer

COURSE CREATION AND TUTORING
This course has been created and is tutored by Michael Carney.

WHO SHOULD TAKE THE COURSE
Any Business Owner, Marketing, Advertising, PR or Communications professional who already has a solid understanding of Digital Marketing but isn’t necessarily up to speed with the latest developments across all digital marketing disciplines.

 

COURSE CONTENTS

Here’s a high-level summary of what’s included in this Advanced Digital Marketing online training course:

Lesson 1: Social Media Marketing

Social Media is constantly changing, and unless you’re working with the medium every day, you can quickly fall behind on the latest tools, techniques and developments. And that’s a problem because, according to Hootsuite’s recent Social Media Barometer Report (which surveyed 9000 marketers across 19 countries, including New Zealand), 90% of respondents think social media is important for staying competitive.

The Social Media Barometer Report also shows that social media will continue to be a critical platform for businesses and customers. Almost three quarters of respondents agree that social media will increasingly contribute to their company’s bottom line.

In this lesson, we explore the essentials that you need to know to take full advantage of the various social networks that matter to the 3.5 million Kiwis who use social media. Our coverage will naturally include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat, LinkedIn and the soon-to-be-dismantled Google+, which are amongst New Zealand’s most active online platforms.

Along the way, we’ll talk about new and evolved developments such as:

• the rise and rise of ephemeral social posts, with short-lived posts spreading from Snapchat to Instagram to Facebook to LinkedIn, YouTube and beyond
• what you need to know about live video on the social platforms (people spend 3x longer watching video which is Live compared to video which is no longer Live)
• the power of longform social video, with Facebook Watch and Instagram’s IGTV leading the way
• the 114,000 hashtags banned by Instagram (and how to identify them)
• how Europe’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has transformed social media, and brought greater advertising transparency to Facebook in particular (and how you can use those changes to your commercial advantage)
• the perils and promises of reputation management, and the increasing importance of social listening in a social-centric world
• how President Trump, Cambridge Analytica and the alleged Russian involvement in the 2016 US Election has led to new certification tools that will, at the very least, complicate custom ad targeting within social media
• the new social media reality that generating leads has become more of a focus for marketers than cultivating a loyal fan base
• what you absolutely must know about Facebook’s new tool to let consumers rate Facebook businesses to whose ads they’ve responded (or see your reputation shredded)

We’ll also reveal which social media platforms are most favoured by marketers, and which are expected to attract more marketing dollars in 2019.

Lesson 2: Search

It will come as no surprise to learn that most online journeys, especially for unknown topics, begin with search engines. In New Zealand, the search engine of choice is predominantly Google — unless Siri, Alexa or Cortana is doing the searching for you on Bing, or you’re searching on Facebook (now 1.5 billion searches per day globally) or YouTube (billions of searches per month).

Consequently, there’s plenty to learn and stay updated about, including both Search Engine Optimisation (with its ever-changing rules and algorithms) and paid search advertising through the likes of Google Ads (formerly called AdWords).

Our Search lesson also covers a wide range of developing topics, including:

• how Voice Search is transforming the ways in which consumers gather information, and how that in turn requires a whole new approach to keyword optimisation
• what you need to know about Topic Clusters, to ensure your priority placement in search engine results
• the opportunities inherent in Featured Snippets
• how keyword search is giving way to User Intent as the most meaningful search signal
• the dramatic growth in Natural Language Search
• the increasing importance of structured data as Google uses AI more and more to handle search results
• why E-A-T (Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness) is an essential content metric in 2019
• the convergence of SEO and Content
• why speed is now vital to your search success
• how Location, Location, Location is now a search engine mantra as well

Lesson 3: Online Video

Video continues to be white-hot, with more and more marketers adding online video to their list of must-have tools and techniques for 2019. Not all videos are created equal, however, and we look at the demand for Vertical Videos (thanks, Instagram), Square Videos (preferred by the social networks), Outstream Videos and other permutations and combinations now on offer.

Along the way, we’ll discuss:

• what you need to know about the controversial new European Union Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, and how Article 11 and Article 13 of this new legislation may have a stifling effect on content sharing, even for Kiwis
• the implications of the new reality that videos are replacing photos as the primary way we create and share memories
• how AI and the use of closed captions are making video content more searchable
• videos are getting shorter (because consumers are quick to skip)
• videos are getting longer (as more longform entertainment content is made available online, especially via Facebook Watch and IGTV)

We also talk about the fragmentation of the video streaming market in 2019 (and what that means for your ability to reach prospective customers). The transformation of television from linear, scheduled content to smorgasbord, watch-what-you-want-whenever-you-want offerings continues at a frantic pace.

Netflix’s position as dominant Subscription Video provider will be strenuously challenged in 2019 as new players enter the market, including:

• NZ’s own Sky Television, whose long-awaited arrival into the online delivery market brings the potential for significant online advertising disruption
• Freedive, an advertising-supported free TV and Movie streaming service just launched in the US by Amazon’s IMDb subsidiary. Although the service is currently US-only, Amazon has a history of rolling out such initiatives globally (once rights issues are untangled)
• Disney+, a new online service combining the deep resources of Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar and the National Geographic channel, due to launch in late 2019
• AT&T Time Warner, also launching into the streaming market in 2019 with three content offerings

Lesson 4: Marketing Automation

Marketing Automation — software tools designed to handle repetitive tasks such as emails and web actions — can improve your efficiency and even (if used effectively) enable you to take actions that would otherwise not be possible. In this lesson, we explore the capabilities of marketing automation platforms and consider if and how you might use them in your business.

Automation has given marketers an ever-increasing ability to personalise content on-the-fly, tailoring messages to both customers and prospects. As it turns out, consumers have noticed, they like it and they expect more and more messages to be customised just for them. In fact, research indicates that many consumers say that they are likely to ignore or abandon uncustomised messages in favour of more personal communications.

We look at the specific trends and opportunities in 2019, including:

• how marketing automation enables (demands?) omnichannel promotion and integration
• the rise in predictive lead scoring capabilities
• real-time personalisation of videos and other multimedia offerings
• the continuing importance of the human touch, despite all the technologies

Lesson 5: Paid Advertising

This lesson deals with what’s new and what’s important in the world of paid advertising. We take a deep dive into Programmatic Advertising and share what you need to know. Then we broaden our horizons to talk about Google Ads (building on the information provided in Lesson 2). And we discuss the surprising merits of using Amazon Ads to promote products listed in the ecommerce giant’s marketplace.

Next we tackle social advertising. As the social networks limit organic reach — the numbers of your followers who might see your social media posts just because they follow your page — organisations have turned to advertising to communicate their messages. In this lesson we examine how to make the most of your advertising options across various social media networks — and how to really take advantage of the enhanced targeting opportunities that social media provides.

In this lesson, we also discuss:

• the increasing importance and effectiveness of remarketing
• current and imminent online video advertising options
• the new dawn of digital billboards

Lesson 6: Artificial Intelligence

Many of the topics we’ve already covered include Artificial Intelligence already baked into the products. In this lesson, we look in more depth at what you need to know about Artificial Intelligence, its uses and its possibilities in marketing.

We also look at how AI just might reinvent messaging and customer service, through technologies such as Chatbots:

And we also cover:

• how Artificial Intelligence is currently being used in marketing
• Artificial Intelligence Tools that are available for you to use to improve your marketing operations
• planned and imminent developments for AI that may impact on your marketing effectiveness
• how AI is currently being used to assist consumers
• the implications (and the risks) of consumer uses of AI

Lesson 7: Influencer Marketing

The Internet in general, and social media in particular, has brought us thousands of influencers and micro-influencers, whose hustling on behalf of a product can encourage many of their followers to actually purchase said product.

Why? Because, according to a report by Nielsen, 92% of people trust recommendations from individuals over brands. And, let’s face it, many brands have brought that fate upon themselves by their own less-than-trustworthy behaviour.

In this lesson, we consider the importance of Influencer Marketing — and explore how to identify effective Kiwi micro-influencers who will be good ambassadors for your brand.

Lesson 8: Data-Driven Marketing

It seems that we’ve been talking about Big Data for years (and, in fact, we have). What matters in 2019, however, is not just Big Data but data of any size and scope — and, more importantly, how you use that data to shape your marketing, zigging and zagging as appropriate to reflect your learnings.

In earlier lessons, we’ve talked about various aspects of data-driven marketing, thanks to tools such as AI and Marketing Automation. In this lesson, we drill into more specific details, including:

• Predictive & Prescriptive analytics
• Lookalike modeling
• Data quality
• Consumer Engagement and User Experiences
• Holistic, 360-Degree Customer Profiles

Lesson 9: Content Marketing

According to the Content Marketing Institute, content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action. It’s particularly relevant to B2B marketers, but it’s important for B2C as well. In this lesson we explore the principles of content marketing, including Creation, Curation and Content Pillars.

We also discuss:

• the vital importance of original, relevant content (78% of consumers say that personally relevant content increases their purchase intent)
• what Google Micro-Moments are and how to use them effectively to supercharge your content
• how Size Matters, when to use shortform and when longform is preferrable

Oh, and this lesson covers Privacy as well. The new European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which came into effect in mid-2018, has cast a long shadow around the world. Many governments are actively considering reshaping their own legislation to mimic the European requirements and major data users such as Facebook and Google have evolved their own rules and regulations to ensure that they are compliant with GDPR. We examine the implications for marketers in 2019.

Lesson 10: Email Marketing

It’s the oldest digital marketing tool of all, but it’s still the most effective for most target audiences. In this lesson we talk about email marketing strategies and best practices, and the tools you should use to promote your business as effectively as possible through email.

Developments to expect in email marketing in 2019 include:

• more personalisation, especially thanks to the steadily-increasing flow of relevant, actionable information from AI and the various other technologies we’ve canvassed during this course
• increases in mobile average order value, as consumers become more willing to make larger purchases through their mobile devices
• an increase in interactive content, designed to encourage users to engage more readily with email content

Lesson 11: Messaging

As the mobile phone becomes the dominant communications mechanism, more and more consumers are connecting with each other through one or more specialist messaging applications. Now the top four messaging apps attract more eyeballs than the top four social networking apps. So what are the implications of consumers’ move to what’s become known as “Dark Social”?

In Lesson Eleven, you’ll also learn about:

• The leading messaging contenders
• how many people are using each app
• how marketers are already using messaging services to advertise themselves to their audiences

 

Lesson 12: Analytics

It’s free, and it’s packed full with information that can transform your digital marketing efforts. We’re talking Google Analytics, and a great many online marketers use the free Analytics service to track the performance of their digital marketing. In this lesson, you’ll discover exactly what you can learn from Google Analytics and how to master it (even if you hate maths and stats).

Lesson 13: Technologies to Watch

In this final lesson, we peek into the digital marketing technologies of today and tomorrow, including such topics as the Internet of Things (IOT), Blockchain, Augmented & Virtual Reality and the impending, transformative nature of 5G cellular services. The digital tools are getting smarter and smarter, and you need to keep track of what’s possible, what’s inevitable and what just might be a passing phase.

————————

TIMING

This course begins on Thursday 02 January, 2020.

————————

INVESTMENT

This thirteen-part online training course is available for $697+GST. However we offer an Early Bird Discount of $100 for bookings received and payment made by midnight on Thursday 26 December, 2019.

Bookings are confirmed on receipt of payment, which can be by bank deposit or credit card. We can raise an invoice in advance if you need it.

To reserve your place in this course, please pay $597+GST by credit card through PayPal by clicking here:

If you would prefer to pay by bank deposit, or require an invoice, please send an email to [email protected] with your requirements.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

You’ll receive our emailed confirmation of your booking. Then on the first day of the course we’ll follow up with details of your Login and Password, along with an Enrolment Key for the Advanced Digital Marketing 2019 online training course.

If you have any questions, or would like more information, please email us at [email protected]