Regardless of your experience, mastering digital marketing strategy can help advance your career. With impactful trends like the emergence of e-commerce and mobile shopping platforms, expectations for leaders have evolved.
“These technologies completely changed the way consumers connect with brands, how they search for information, and how they buy products,” says Harvard Business School Professor Sunil Gupta, who teaches the online course Digital Marketing Strategy. “They’re the reason digital marketing has become an integral and important part of every company.”
If you want to prepare for business’s demands in the digital age, earning a digital marketing certificate can be an effective method.
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DOWNLOAD NOWWhat Is a Digital Marketing Certificate?
A digital marketing certificate is a document denoting the completion of an online marketing course. Like many business certificates, pursuing one can enable you to elevate your career with practical skills and increased confidence.
Compared to in-person offerings, an online digital marketing certificate can be a flexible, cost-effective way to further your education if you’re a working professional who needs to balance coursework with your job.
For example, Digital Marketing Strategy is an online certificate program that can equip you with tools, frameworks, and tactics to engage and retain customers, make data-driven decisions, and position your organization for success. It also delves into how to:
- Compete with emerging brands
- Create a digital marketing plan
- Use paid, owned, and earned media
If you’re ready to become a more strategic marketer, here’s how a digital marketing certificate can help you gain the necessary knowledge and skills.
Related: What to Expect from HBS Online’s Digital Marketing Strategy Course
How a Digital Marketing Certificate Can Help Advance Your Career
1. Boost Your Digital Confidence
No matter your workplace, technology likely plays a part in your daily responsibilities. According to a study by media and marketing technology company Foundry, 93 percent of companies have adopted or plan to adopt a digital-first business strategy.
Embracing that shift requires proficiency in emerging technologies like automation and online platforms. In Digital Marketing Strategy, Anne Lewnes, chief marketing officer at technology company Adobe, talks about technology’s role in understanding your customers.
“I don’t think marketing has actually changed fundamentally,” Lewnes says. “A good idea, a good product—those are always going to be core to marketing. I think engaging your audience with some emotional kind of stimulus is always going to be important. I think the thing that’s really changed is the ability to understand the customer deeply. So you need technology to be able to do that.”
Beyond understanding customer needs, boosting your technology proficiency can improve your ability to work and lead remotely. By taking an online digital marketing course, you can deepen your understanding of digital tools, improve project management and team collaboration, align strategies with consumers’ expectations, and prepare for and adapt to trends.
2. Develop Industry Skills
A certificate program can also enable you to jumpstart your career advancement with digital marketing skills.
Data show employers value skills more than any other asset on your resume. According to a report by software company TestGorilla, 73 percent of employers have adopted skills-based hiring—prioritizing them over past job titles.
Such skills include:
- Technology proficiency
- Data analysis
- Search engine marketing
- Search engine optimization
- Brand development
- Email marketing
- Social media
An interactive online learning experience cannot only help you acquire but practice those skills. For instance, Digital Marketing Strategy features insights from leading brands, agencies, and expert practitioners, including:
- The Growth Agency’s Vice President of Client Service and Inclusion Marketing Bianca Reed
- OOFOS’ Head of E-Commerce Kate Laliberte
- MMI Agency’s CEO Maggie Malek
- HBS Online’s Senior Managing Director Simeen Mohsen
- Blogger, podcaster, and social media influencer Erica Ligenza
Through their stories, you can apply course concepts to real-world scenarios and develop skills to engage and retain your target audience.
3. Expand Your Professional Network
While skills and confidence matter to reaching your professional development goals, building a strong professional network is also invaluable.
Your network can help you:
- Identify career opportunities
- Better understand your organization or industry
- Foster collaboration
For example, by joining the HBS Online Community, you can connect with like-minded business professionals from around the world before, during, or after your course to open yourself to new perspectives, cultivate lifelong learning, and participate in both in-person and virtual events.
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“It’s rare to have the opportunity to learn from professionals around the world, in different stages in their career, and from an array of professions striving for the same objective,” said HBS Online learner Carlvin Sylvain Dorvilier. “Not only were we united on all social platforms, but each city had several meetups organizing study groups, group outings, and networking opportunities to learn from one another.”
Related: How to Build Your Network Through the HBS Online Community Platform
4. Improve Your Decision-Making
Being a digital marketer can entail making rapid decisions. With constantly evolving online platforms and channels, a digital marketing certificate can enhance your decision-making skills by teaching you how to measure business performance using key performance indicators (KPIs) across the marketing funnel’s three stages:
- Awareness: Introducing potential customers to your brand or product to address a problem they may have
- Consideration: Making customers aware of your brand or product while they evaluate it against alternatives
- Decision: Influencing consumers’ purchasing decisions using the information you gather during the previous stages
By focusing on specific KPIs in each stage—such as website traffic and social media impressions—you can improve your strategic planning and digital marketing budget allocation.
“As you balance multiple goals, the metrics you use and the data you get should influence where you put your marketing dollars,” Gupta says in Digital Marketing Strategy. “As you measure the effectiveness of your current efforts, these data can be a powerful tool to help inform where you should focus next.”
How to Become a Digital Marketer
Taking advantage of professional development opportunities is crucial to advancing your career. Whether you’re a marketing or non-marketing professional, Digital Marketing Strategy offers a flexible, cost-effective way to develop your skills and knowledge.
Through real-world cases and an interactive, online learning experience, you can learn how to develop data-driven strategies and use the latest digital marketing tools to engage and retain customers in a constantly changing market.
Are you interested in earning a digital marketing certificate? Enroll in Digital Marketing Strategy to develop the skills and knowledge to take your career to the next level. If you want to take an online course but aren’t sure where to start, download our free guide to online learning success.
