Online vs. Traditional Education for Digital Marketers

People often email me asking what is the best way to get certified as an online marketing professional. There are basically two options if you are looking for an education program: You can get an offline, traditional college degree or master, or you can enroll on a online program or master.

Both options can work and will give you the information and qualifications you need if you pick a decent institution. However, choosing an online program has several advantages, ranging from the cost to eligibility criteria and employement opportunities.
Here’s a comparisson:

Traditional Education
– Costs around $50,000 per year for a masters
– Unemployment rate of college graduates in 2008 was over 35%
– Require academic scores, English certifications and so on

Online Education
– There are programs available starting at $1200
– High chance of landing a job due to job-oriented training
– Only work experience is required

Apart from those factors, by choosing an online program you also have the advantage of studying from anywhere and at your own hours/pace.

At this point you might be wondering what are some good digital marketing online programs.

One that I came across recently is called Digital Marketing Specialist Masters Program, offered by the Simplinearn guys. The program is quite complete, lasting for one year and covering the following areas:

1. General Internet Marketing: Here you’ll learn the basics of websites, the Internet, marking online and so on.

2. Advanced Web Analytics: A great part of having success online comes from knowing what to measure and what to measure, cause marketing campaigns, especially online, only become profitable after some fine-tuning. That is what you’ll learn here.

3. Advanced SEO: Search Engine Optimization involves making sure that the elements on your website and outside it are in the right place so that your Google rankings will be as high as possible. This, in turn, will send more visitors to your website, which is essential to its success.

4. Advanced Pay per Click: PPC or Pay Per Click is the most popular and efficient type of advertising online, and it’s the fastest way to get people to visit your site. Knowing how to create and optimize PPC campaigns is a must for any digital marketing professional.

5. Advanced Social Media: In this section you’ll learn how to leverage social media to boost the traffic and visibility of your websites and online projects. Social networks are becoming are very important source of visitors these days, and that is why this section is quite important.

Many programs I have seen around only give you the lessons and you are on your own. On this Masters program you’ll have access to 35+ live instructure bartches, so you’ll be able to learn by watching the pros do it.

You’ll also have access to a community of digital marketers where you can ask questions and exchange advice.

Finally, if you need a certificate to show your employer you actually went through the program, they provide one upon conclusion. Here’s the official page where you can get all the details and enroll.

Original post: Online vs. Traditional Education for Digital Marketers

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