Digital Marketing (Online)

In Advanced Graphic Design and Portfolios, you will focus on layout design, symmetry, and dimensionality in the applied study of typography, form, and color. This course will teach you how to navigate the latest digital design techniques by emphasizing layout and composition, grid systems, and effective layouts across multiple media types. As part of the course, we will also explore cutting-edge trends and techniques, including artificial intelligence in design and sustainability practices in the digital world. Lastly, you will end the course with a focused approach to portfolio development. This will equip you with the knowledge and tools to showcase your experience and choose the right digital portfolio platform to promote your marketing and design skills.

Content is at the core of all digital marketing activity. In this course, you will learn how to plan content marketing, how to develop content that works well for the target audience, and how to measure its impact. Additionally, you will understand how to structure your content so that online readers will remain engaged. You will learn about various digital content delivery channels and examine content strategy best practices for each of those channels. You will explore the process of writing content using marketing techniques to educate, entertain and/or draw in customer engagement, and achieve business goals. You will gain practical hands-on skills through a project-based approach, in which you will develop a content strategy, content calendar, content aligned with your strategy, and lastly, identify the metrics you would use to measure the success of your content marketing plan. You will leave the course feeling confident in discussing content strategy from the planning stage to the evaluation stage. You will continue to further reinforce the knowledge and skills gained in this course by applying it in subsequent courses in this program.

Career Planning and Preparation Level 1 introduces tools for a successful job search. This course will help you maintain a career-focused approach throughout your academic program. You will learn basic career preparation skills, such as how to research opportunities, network for industry contacts, and how to use appropriate etiquette when communicating with prospective employers. You will identify your personal skills, values, and preferences for the workplace, begin preparation of a professional résumé and cover letter, and organize proof documents for your career portfolio. Asynchronous discussion board dialogues about various career-planning topics will round out this module. This course is a pre-requisite for Career Planning and Preparation Level 2.

This course builds on the concepts and skills introduced in Career Planning and Preparation – Level 1. Topics covered include how to conduct an effective job search and identify various methods of applying for work. Important career tools are the focus with the creation of a personal list of "Top Employers" and current industry opportunities, as well as finalizing a professional résumé, career portfolio, and career correspondence. Interview skills explored and practiced include the identification of different types and forms of interviews, responding to typical questions, evaluating job offers, and negotiating terms of employment. Self-management topics are reviewed with a focus on strategies for long-term professional success.

This course focuses on the fundamentals of marketing and demonstrates the distinction between traditional and digital marketing. By the end of this course, you will be able to define marketing as a concept, identify factors that contribute to strategic planning in marketing, and develop knowledge and skills pertaining to market segmentation, customer persona, and customer journey. You will learn how to effectively plan strategic marketing activities based on market research, and how to identify target customers and their needs. This course is followed by Digital Marketing Foundations 2, where you will build on the knowledge and skills gained in this course, with a greater focus on fundamentals of digital marketing, branding, and developing Integrated Marketing Communication plans.

This course will give you a strong foundation in developing strategic Integrated Marketing Communications plans, and it builds on the knowledge you developed in Digital Marketing Foundations 1. You will explore different strategies and tactics used in Integrated Marketing Communication Plans to help achieve business and marketing goals for clients. You will recognize how to apply the SMART goal format to identify strategic goals and then develop an Integrated Marketing Communications plan to support the successful achievement of those goals. How will you know if your plan worked? How will you communicate the success of the marketing budget and demonstrate whether there was a return on investment and successful achievement of the marketing and business goals? This course will introduce you to the importance of analytics, especially in the context of digital marketing, as well as strategies for identifying Key Performance Indicators that measure the success of marketing activities post implementation of the marketing plan. You will also be learning about branding, logos, and constructing brand identities.

Email is an effective marketing channel that allows businesses to maintain contact with their customers at each stage of the customer journey and it is therefore very valuable both in the form of direct and digital marketing. This course focuses on how to effectively align your email marketing campaigns to the customer journey using lifecycle marketing. You will develop knowledge about lead nurturing strategies and contact segmentation. In this course, you will learn how to create an email marketing strategy, create and execute email campaigns, and measure the results using Mailchimp.

Due to the trackable nature of online activity, the overall effect of a company's digital marketing efforts can also be tracked. Google Analytics is an essential measurement tool that allows businesses to collect intelligent data and analytics to evaluate their audience, measure the success of acquisition and engagement efforts, evaluate user conversions related to organizational goals, and utilize the information in planning and budgeting. In this course, you will compare and contrast the difference between Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4, and become familiar with Google Search Console, a webmaster tool to help you measure site performance on Google Search. This course will provide you with the required knowledge to conduct an SEO audit and prepare a professional report to communicate analytic insights and SEO recommendations effectively.

You will develop foundational design knowledge and skills through exposure to the fundamental principles of graphic design such as: image- making, typography, composition, and working with colour and shape. This course will cover the relationship between graphic design and digital marketing and how visual media can affect online consumer behaviour. There will be an emphasis on the fundamentals and value of graphic design to express brand identity.

This course introduces students to the fundamental concepts and principles of learning and working in a digital environment. This course covers the following elements: using devices and handling information, creating and editing information, communicating and collaborating, and being safe and responsible online.This course will also cover proper naming conventions and folder organization.

In this course, you will learn how to build, maintain, and recover a robust and sustainable online reputation. This course will cover how an online reputation can be created, monitored, improved, and measured, as well as how to deal with crises. You will learn a brief history of social media and the difficult lessons that were learned as the technology grew and evolved. You will be exposed to real-life case studies and discuss how reputations were irreparably damaged, salvaged, and/or resurrected. The importance of a well-trained media relations manager will be stressed. You will have an opportunity to respond to real-world case scenarios where you will act as a media relations manager and resolve online reputation management issues. You will also learn to create customer surveys to obtain Net Promoter Score (NPS) results and discuss some key metrics and reputation monitoring tools that measure a company’s online reputation and ranking.

In this course you will learn how to develop successful PPC advertising strategies that align with marketing and business goals. We will explore techniques for using Google Display or Search Ads to increase brand awareness, customer action, and retention. Key components of the course include creating a landing page to support Search Engine Marketing (SEM) goals, maximizing marketing spending through effective keyword searches, demographic targeting, bidding, and planning ad frequency. You will also learn how to measure performance through the understanding of key metrics and KPIs. You will be able to identify methods for re-targeting and develop comprehensive plans that drive leads, sales, and web traffic. By the end of the course, you should understand how to develop a PPC strategy, set up a Google Ads account, and align your PPC strategy with your business goals.

Search engines are an essential part of the online experience. Long-term content planning must consider Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies as critical for success in the digital world. SEO strategies are plans designed to help increase organic traffic by improving a website’s search engine rankings. In this course, you will learn how to optimize search engine presence, to ensure your content reaches the intended target audience, and to monitor the success of keyword selections. You will analyze traffic, ranking, and conversions, creating a maintenance checklist. SEO strategies across multiple platforms will be discussed and practiced, to support you, as you learn how to develop methods for optimizing online traffic. This course will introduce you to the Google Webmaster tool, also known as Google Search Console, as well as crawling tools, such as Oncrawl. You will learn how to conduct SEO site audits to identify SEO goals and expectations and identify tactics to support the optimization strategy to achieve those goals.

Social media technologies continue to transform interactions between businesses and their customers, providing an opportunity for consumers to voice their opinions and influence brand perception. Social media marketing is a critical form of digital marketing that leverages the power of popular social media networks to achieve business marketing, branding, and sales goals. In this course, you will learn how to use and optimize social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube, and others, for business purposes. You will examine current trends and discuss how to remain agile and abreast of new trends and changes in social media marketing. There will be a focus on developing strategic social media marketing campaigns that incorporate a multi-platform approach to achieve identified marketing and business goals, as well as strategies for measuring success by analyzing the data in the analytics section of social media platforms. You will have an opportunity to practice by developing mock accounts and posts, gaining experience and showcasing your skills and talents by incorporating it in your professional portfolio.

This course stresses the importance of developing non-technical skills to enhance personal, academic, and career success. The course will address strategies that are important for all adult learners, such as managing finances, maintaining health and wellness, understanding learning styles, setting goals, and honing practical study skills (such as memory, reading, and test-taking techniques). In addition, this course is designed specifically for the online learner. Therefore, the course emphasizes strategies needed to succeed in an online program, such as navigating technology efficiently, interacting and engaging with peers and facilitators, and managing learning time and space.

Web development and design incorporates two major skill sets and describes the process of creating a website. Web development determines how a website functions and web design speaks more to the look and feel of a website. In this course, you will learn and apply the required steps for building a functional website that incorporates other components of digital marketing such as content, email, and social media marketing, while applying foundational web development and design principles. Successful websites require strategic planning, budgeting, design, and development. In this course, you be introduced to the basics of web infrastructure, develop skills for building a website strategy, and design and develop it from concept to implementation. You will discuss the ways in which digital marketing professionals are adapting to the changing nature of web design, and how to manage a complex interactive media project within those changing digital climates.