The world of marketing is always evolving and always challenging. Luckily there are a plethora of courses and resources available to help you up-skill or learn more about general marketing and digital marketing topics, from planning to social media and SEO.
Whether you are a business owner wanting to learn new skills or a marketer looking to grow your digital marketing career, we’ve picked out some of the top marketing courses that should be on your radar. Best of all, you can take them all for free, online and they are available now!
If you own or manage a Facebook page, and especially if you are new to Facebook advertising, these free courses from Facebook are ideal. The courses cover a range of Facebook basics that small business owners new to the platform should find useful, to more advanced courses in advertising. These include targeting and types of ads through to performance management.
Hubspot Academy offers a range of comprehensive courses to paid clients, but their entry level Inbound Marketing course is free. ‘Inbound Marketing’ covers all the basics of a content-based approach to digital marketing, including blogging, landing pages, SEO, lead nurturing and the conversion process. The course is video-led and there is 4 and a half hours of training to watch, plus course notes, and short exam at the end to provide a certificate of completion.
SEO industry experts Moz have a longstanding series on their YouTube channel; Whiteboard Fridays. The video training is in short bursts and is now updated regularly following a hiatus. Topics include technical SEO, Google updates, content marketing and inbound methodology. From those new to SEO to those running more advanced website search strategies, there is something here for everyone.
On similar lines, for those looking for a good introductory summary to SEO from a high quality source, Moz is offering this free course on Udemy. With 3 and a half hours of content split over 18 lectures, you can take all modules for a good overview, or select a specific topic to brush up on in more detail. Areas include on and off page SEO, audits, keyword research and reporting.
A must for all entrepreneurs and small business owners who are relatively new to digital marketing and wanting to understand some basics; Google’s Digital Garage project is an online and in-person training programme aimed at getting people online and businesses to grow their presence. (We even helped launch in Birmingham back in 2015!) Choose from courses on search, promoting your business locally and social media for business. Local coaching is currently available in Birmingham, Sheffield and Manchester.
Google is also offering training in their analytics platform, covering beginner and advanced levels, as well as ecommerce analytics and Google Tag Manager. Becoming familiar with some of the more comprehensive levels of analytics available will help website owners more effectively assess the impact of their marketing activity and inform forward planing. A surprising number of small business owners either are unaware of the level of data available within website analytics, or haven’t utilised free areas of Google Analytics that provide valuable insights.
Arguably, no area of digital marketing evolves faster than social media. Jan Rezab from Social Bakers is a firm favourite on the speaker circuit as well as our offices and brings us regular Monday updates packed with practical tips for social media, advertising and community managers. Using examples gained from genuine international client insights in paid and organic social media activity, there are always plenty of bitesize takeaways.
These courses are ideal for anyone new to Google Adwords and PPC (pay per click) and offer overviews in key PPC topics such as keyword planning, ad types, CTR, CPC and A/B testing. There’s also a social ads module covering Facebook and Twitter which social media managers and those signed up to Facebook’s Blueprint may find useful.
Those who have studied marketing planning modules on CIM courses or similar will already be familiar with the RACE model, but the model is valuable for anyone looking to plan marketing activity. The Smart Insights RACE Planning system runs through some of the main steps in your marketing plan; Reach, Act, Convert and Engage. These steps cover acquisition, interaction, conversion through to retention and advocacy, so is an ideal tool to help CRM and marketing managers create customer strategies. The first unit is free, and the rest is available to Smart Insights members, and counts towards your CPD programme.
Janet is fast becoming one of the key authorities in PR, and is well known for giving away free useful content for businesses across both offline and online PR. Whether you’re preparing for a media interview, writing a press release or selling your business’ story into the media, there is something for you here. Her podcasts also cover social media from a PR and marketing angle and are ideal for small business owners.
We hope you’ve found this summary of some of the best free resources helpful. Are we missing any? Please let us know in the comments below!
Digital Marketing Training Courses
We are offering small business owners, managers and marketing executives the chance to get familiar with the main digital marketing techniques in half a day. Starting with two new courses;
Mastering Digital Marketing – Discover the key digital marketing tools to grow your business. Understand how the main digital marketing channels can support your business and decide which could be right for you.
Social Media for Business – Find out how your business can benefit from effective social media. Understand the benefits of social media and work out which channels should be part of your social media strategy.
These in-person or online courses are enrolling soon and starting next year – register your interest and save your place now.
Need something more tailored to you? We also provide bespoke training and brainstorm planning sessions for a range of businesses; get in touch to discuss your goals today.
Keep in touch with industry news, digital marketing tips and techniques with our digital marketing blogs.
If you’d like to discuss how we can help your business, drop us a line for a no-obligation chat.
If you liked this post you may also enjoy …