A career in digital marketing is not for everyone. It takes a certain amount of grit and natural curiosity to want to stay on in this ever-evolving field. Which is why, before you embark on your educational journey in digital marketing, you need to remind yourself of the fact that there’s a good chance some of the things you learn during your digital marketing training courses might already have become redundant by the time you get to put them to practice. OK, maybe the last statement was a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s important to in no way discount the speed at which digital trends change and evolve in this industry.  

With all that said, here are some things to consider while deciding which digital marketing training courses are right for you:

1. Your personality type: It’s essential to do a little introspection to try and understand your preferred method of learning. For example, if you’re most productive when you’re held accountable to others, then maybe a classroom environment with face-to-face training and lots of interaction might be best for you. If, on the other hand, you’re good at upholding commitments you made to yourself, you’ll be more than fine with online digital marketing training courses with extra reading materials that require you to be completely honest while taking tests to rate your knowledge.
   
   You might also want to consider if your preferred method of support is in the form of a facilitator you can directly speak to, extra reading materials/videos that you can revisit every time you have any questions.
2. Time: Based on all the commitments you have in your day-to day life, you might want to ask yourself the question of whether you have the time to do a full-time course or if you’d prefer to do one part-time.
   
   Another time-related question would be about how long it’s been since you’ve been in any form of learning environment. Learning is a habit that takes constant practice to master and if you’ve been out of practice for some time, a three-day crash course is perhaps not ideal for you.
3. Your niche: Digital marketing is a broad subject with many opportunities within its subsets to gain expertise in. So before you embark on any digital marketing course, it’s essential to identify an area or two that really pique your interest so that you can focus on mastering them. Every course module needs to be scanned deliberately to identify not only the subjects being taught but also the level at which they would be conveyed to you. Many digital marketers identify and double down on their niches during the course of their work but if you’re planning on setting aside time to do a digital marketing training course, it might be worth trying to identify your niche in advance.
4. The end goal: Are you a business owner interested in learning the basics of digital marketing so that you understand what your contracted marketers are doing for your brand? Or are you fresh out of high school with a base knowledge of promoting your personal brand online, and want to foster this passion with a credible certification that can lead to future employment? As you can imagine, the people in either of the example scenarios above would have vastly different goals for pursuing an education in digital marketing. It is essential to identify what these are for you, specifically so that you can answer other logistical questions like,a) How much you are willing to pay for your training course?  

   b) Do you need a certificate of excellence vs a certificate of completion, or even a certificate at all?

   c) Would you benefit from getting a full-time/part-time university degree instead

    

5. Credibility: It goes without saying that while you’re doing your research on establishing which digital marketing training courses are right for you, you must not trust everything you see on the internet. There are scores of small businesses and individuals who will try to sell you their services but not all of them might deliver on their promises. So here are some ways to narrow down whom to trust on the subject.

a) Have you heard of them before? If they’ve gained your confidence either through word of mouth or prior services, you might want to pay attention to them.

b) Take a good look at their own marketing strategies. If they claim to be well equipped to teach you digital marketing, do they practise what they preach? Look at their ads and social media presence to see if they’re actually able to reach out to their desired audience.

c) Is their website up to date? And how about the user-interface on their website? If you yourself are unable to navigate their site to get the information you’re looking for, you might wonder if they’d be able to teach you how to avoid the same mistakes on your site.

d) Do they respond promptly and professionally to your queries?

We hope this helps you ask the right questions while choosing your digital marketing training courses, so you may do so wisely. Good luck with your career endeavours that got you interested in this field in the first place!

Guest Blogger, Ankita Narayan: “Ankita is an English Literature Postgraduate whose passion for stories propelled her to start writing her blog and later, host her own podcast: (featured as one of iTunes’ New and Noteworthy podcasts in 2017); and in three years of blogging, worked as a Google Create India Partner. Her podcast interviews real-life heroes, sharing stories of how they got to where they are today, and Ankita has made appearances on BBC Asian Network, Awaz FM, Deccan Chronicle and Islam Channel. It’s her love for stories that has shaped her career so far, which continues with the Google Digital Garage.”