Marketing is evolving more than ever these days. In a recent survey, 76% of practitioners feel that marketing has changed more in the past two years than in the past 50 years. While it is debatable if this is true or not, it goes without saying we are in the midst of a revolution with the advent of digital marketing.
While the landscape is rapidly changing from traditional to digital marketing, a recent article by DMNews points out that the majority of marketers still haven't had formal training in digital or online marketing! The article cites a survey conducted by Adobe, which found:
- 85% of digital marketers don’t have formal education and must learn on the job
- Only 48% of marketers feel highly proficient in digital marketing
- 33% feel their companies are highly proficient in digital marketing
- More than half think digital marketing is done mainly by trial and error
Despite this lack of training, this same survey also reports:
- 66% of marketers believe their companies won’t succeed unless they have a digital marketing approach.
- 60% see their companies investing more in digital marketing.
- 71% of high performing companies are investing in digital marketing
This survey demonstrates there is a BIG need for marketers to be better educated in digital marketing fundamentals. As with digital marketing becoming more and more vital to the overall success of a company, marketers can’t afford to rely on guessing, doing trial by error marketing, or doing “me too†copying of competitors and other successful companies.
To meet this demand, the Online Marketing Institute has introduced a new demand generation certification program that provides a comprehensive education for marketers who want to be effective with their online campaigns. This seven-course series is designed for those new to online marketing, as well as experienced marketers looking to broaden their skills, and is ideal for marketers at small and mid-sized businesses.
The term “demand generation,†describes marketing that increases awareness of and demand for a company’s products or services. It has been described as the next generation of Inbound Marketing. The goal of demand generation is to convert visitors to websites, social media sites and other marketing activities such as email campaigns into leads. These leads are then nurtured with content until they are ready to be approached by a sales team.
The goal of the certification program is to help practitioners better understand how to use their website for marketing purposes. As many companies, particularly small-and-medium sized businesses, still treat their website like a brochure. By using the Demand Generation tactics taught in this program, marketers will be able to turn their websites into selling devices, which will allow them to achieve greater success with fewer resources.
The curriculum is designed to help provide marketers grappling with understanding digital marketing the strategies and knowledge they need to be implement a successful demand generation marketing program. This course will teach marketers:
- How to develop content that engages your audience and reaches them at the right stages of the buying cycle.
- How to build a profile of the “perfect customerâ€.
- Why you need to stop doing batch and blast email marketing and instead create personalized messages that go to the right person at the right time.
- The formula for creating successful lead generation for your business.
- How to identify leads that are ready to be turned over to sales.
- How marketing can improve relations with sales.
- The metrics you must have to gauge success
To learn more about the program, please watch this overview video at http://youtu.be/nl__7AS4648
To find out how to register for the Demand Gen Certification, please visit: http://www.genoo.com/DemandGenerationMastery
