What you will study
Throughout this intermediate level Continuing Professional Development (CPD) course, you’ll learn to assess your current position and market insights, set out what you aim to achieve, identify opportunities and challenges, and determine the best tactics for success. Practical exercises will help you apply your new knowledge, and sharing your thoughts and opinions with co-learners will help you further reflect and deepen your understanding.
Delivered over four easy-to-digest sections, you will cover:
1: Situation analysis
- PR Smith's SOSTAC® framework in perspective
- Exploring the steps of PR Smith's SOSTAC® planning framework
- Situation analysis in perspective
- External insights
- Internal insights
- Organisational capability
2: Creating objectives and using measurement frameworks
- Setting objectives
- Organisation and primary objectives
- Aligning web analytics goals
- Setting up measurement frameworks
- Channel metrics and attribution
- Connecting objectives and control
3: Developing strategy and strategic positioning
- Defining strategy
- How strategy impacts all digital marketing plans
- Example digital marketing strategies
- Understanding strategic positioning
- How strategic positioning impacts all digital marketing tactical activity
- Delivering on strategic positioning
4: Tactics, action and control
- Defining tactics and action
- Getting the right digital marketing channel mix
- Aligning tactics with situational insights
- Using data for campaign improvement
- Using data for tactical planning
- Looking for opportunities for experimentation.
Please note: the content in this course also features in courses created by The Open University, which are available on FutureLearn.
You will learn
By the end of this CPD course, you’ll have the skills to:
- produce objectives and create strategy dashboards
- design tactical marketing plans
- design a digital marketing strategy that aligns your objectives with the needs of your audience
- analyse and iterate for continuous improvement
- produce user personas and user journey maps
- perform a situational analysis.
Vocational relevance
In the rapidly evolving digital marketing landscape, it’s easy to get caught up in the latest trends without focusing on what you are trying to achieve for your business or organisation. If you work in marketing, having the skills to create a robust strategy that aligns with your overall business goals is critical.
This course has been created by the OU in collaboration with industry experts and leaders in digital marketing. It’s hosted by Daniel Rowles, CEO of Target Internet, who has worked in digital marketing and digital transformation for over 20 years, helping a wide range of high-profile brands to use digital effectively. Daniel is also the voice behind the Digital Marketing Podcast and a renowned author in the field.
Learner support
There is no tuition on this course and all study is self-directed. Throughout the course, you will have the opportunity to enhance and reflect on your understanding by sharing your thoughts and opinions with co-learners.