If someone was brand new at all of marketing, where would you send them to get educated?
-
If someone had no marketing education, where would you send them to get a thorough education covering all aspects of marketing/advertising? Would you say you have to go to school for that? Would you recommend an online course set from CMI or MarketingProfs? If so, which one?
Thank you
-
That is definitely true about there being no one formula for marketing that leads to success.
I think my question is directed at how all the pieces of marketing and advertising for medium sized business should work together. Once all the pieces have been identified, and the big picture is more clear, then it would be easier for someone to focus on certain areas at a time for more detailed education.
-
Thank you for the tips and encouragement!
-
Thank you for the resources! I definitely wouldn't expect someone to learn all of marketing at once... but possibly an overview on how it is all supposed to work together. Then, it would be easier to pick out the weakest areas to focus on, and make a plan. But if someone doesn't know how it is all supposed to work together, then they don't know what areas they might be missing.
-
Has been some fantastic advice here already I also wanted to point out http://www.lynda.com/ which has some excellent knowledge on for getting started. Don't forget things like internships or conferences or workshops they can be found all over the place. My advice get information from as many places as you can get your hands on and ask people it will never hurt! There are loads of different marketing courses but it depends on how you want to specialize.
-
That depends..
Marketing is a huge area to cover so I would ask them for more information so i could give them the best possible advise.
In some cases a business school would be recommendable but in other cases like for instance online marketing, you need to be able to adjust all the time to all the new changes online. But they need to know the basics and a business school would provide the basic understanding (and more) so they had that part covered.
You'll Never stop being a student!!! - In my opinion it is of great importance to constantly be able to adjust to the marked and whats hot and whats not when it comes to marketing, you need to keep tabs on everything and try to figure out how to do your job better.. Read books / blogs and watch videos from prominent people in your field of business.
but anyways, back to your question, its hard to say that if you want to learn marketing you have to "do this" and you'll have success. I think you need to have a broader view on things and also really know what the person would need marketing for.. before you can give a satisfying answer
-
Crystalline_15
You ask a very good question about marketing. Being that I run an integrated marketing firm with multiple disciplines serving our clients, I do have an opinion on this. First, get a marketing education and pay attention to discriminate when people are stating opinions as it is important to develop your own and there are fewer hard and fast rules in marketing than in just about anything.
I would suggest avoiding online education as collaboration (a big part of quality marketing IMO) is easier in a classroom type environment, but obviously we collaborate fairly well here on Moz. If you go the way of online, I would suggest trying to do the last year or two on a college or university campus. It does not matter where you go, it matters how dedicated you are to marketing as your profession to be.
In our firm, many people came to be _______, and yet today do different jobs. Our director of Bus. Dev. was hired to handle PPC for us (that lasted a few months only), our head of web development started out as our first intern, our head of local came to us without a marketing background and became a true rock star in Local over about 2 to 3 years. Our head of content and media started while still in college as a copywriter. Today she manages large branding accounts and recently produced a video for a major university.
I urge you to find work in an agency as opposed to a large corporate marketing department to begin with. The reason is that in an agency you have the opportunity to touch it all. By touching it all you come to learn what you like and what you want to do. There are a couple of cautionaries: most marketing firms work with businesses and those businesses trust you to bring them real results; marketing is their lifeblood. Their families and organizations depend on what we do and we must bring zeal to what we do and find ways to give them results that matter. Lastly, if you are not involved in a creative endeavor whether performance art, painting, sculpting, writing, etc. find something creative to do. It forces you to keep expanding your mind and that is what is needed in marketing: Creative talent that never quits learning and striving for real tangible results.
Good luck, and welcome to the ride of your life!
-
I would start by picking a direction or even two or three. But it's nearly impossible to "learn all of marketing" at once.
So ... SEO & SEM? Advertising & PR? Content, email marketing or social media? It depends where you want to go with all this newfound knowledge.
One of my favourite Moz images gives a good starting place for marketing channels: Marketing Channels
I would also suggest my own post on self education (even though it's about a plateau, the same ideas would apply at any level of business.)
Next, you're going to need a way to track & store information you learn. Sign up for Evernote and create a folder for each thing you may learn (email, SEO, social, analytics, etc.)
Sign up for Inbound and try to stay on top of what hits the top page or two. This will keep you fairly up to date on all the important happenings in inbound marketing.
Next, since we're at the end of 2014, it's a good time to catch up on all the "Best of 2014 Marketing" blog posts.
Throw in a couple great business books (Selling the Invisible, Never Eat Alone, Influence, ReWork, Purple Cow, Blue Ocean Strategy, The TIpping Point, The Slight Edge, Good to Great, etc.)
Keep up with at least 10 to 50 marketing blogs for the next 2+ years and whenever they get stale, change them out for something you don't know as well.
And, if there's time - sleep.
-
Thanks, Lee. I do love all the resources Moz provides! And MozCon too! I am thinking of an education that includes how marketing works into business a little more in depth. Budgets, advertising, etc. What should a marketing department in different sized businesses look like.
-
To Moz, where else
If you've not already done so read these, from left to right.
The white board Friday video's a really good too, they are a little advanced, but as a beginner you can pick bits and pieces that can benefit you early on. Also the Moz blog, Rand's blog and member blogs.
Also ask as much as you like here, are some amazing people, willing to help you out
Have the willingness to learn and you'll learn lots here, in my opinion a lot more than at college or uni - what you learn on a course is usually outdated by the time you leave.
As to education and paricular courses, I'll leave that upto one of the seo pro's to advise.
Cheers and good luck Lee
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
My site got hacked and now i have 1000s of 404 pages and backlinks. Should i transfer my site to a new domain name and start again?
My site was hacked and I had 1000s of pages that should not exist created and has had 1000s of backlinks put in. Now i have the same pages and backlinks redirecting to 404 pages. Is this why my site crashed out of google and my SEO fixes since have made no progress to my problem?
Industry News | | KeithWarbyUK0 -
Thoughts on Net Neutrality Repeal & Digital Marketing
Hey everyone I was having a discussion with a friend and colleague recently regarding the repeal of net neutrality and what it would mean for marketers and website owners. I wanted to reach out to the community and get your thoughts on what you foresee this FCC decision meaning for your efforts and if your plans have changed at all. Obviously, there are appeals happening and any changes are said to be subtle and gradual, but I'd still like to see what is on everyone's mind at this time should the repeal stick. Excited for the conversation!
Industry News | | PatrickDelehanty2 -
Article marketing sites
Hi, I'm looking for article marketing sites in English. I have searched and analyzed over 50 sites but I have not find any with the specifics I'm searching to: high/average DA, dofollow, and the possibility to have an anchored text, any suggestions? Thanks!
Industry News | | eriksatie0 -
I have a new domain, how should i best use it?
Hi all, Recently signed upto Moz and loving what i am seeing at the moment.I do alot of microsites and push both adwords and affiliate programmes and products and earn enough to give me some fun money. For a long time i have wanted to get into the mobile phone market as i have spoken to alot of people who get anything upto £100 a time from affiliate programmes. I have just purchased a new domain after doing some digging around and though that before i dive into doing things how i normally would , i thought id ask advice on how to best utilise the domain i have bought. Ive just purchased newiphone.co.uk and will put up a holding page once all of the registration has gone through and i have access to everything. According to Google keyword planner the term 'new iphone' gets around 368k searches a month. Moz says this is an extremely difficult keyword to rank for with a 80% difficulty rating so i appreciate i wont be at number 1 in a couple of weeks. Id appreciate your ideas and suggestions as a community to see how i go forward. Many tanks in advancePaul
Industry News | | Wilkesy0 -
Did Google Search Just Get Crazy Local?
Hey All, I think it's a known fact at this point that when signed into a personal Google account while doing a search, the results are very oriented around keywords and phrases you have already searched for, as well as your account's perceived location; for instance when I wanted to check one of my own web properties in SE listings I would sign out or it would likely appear first as a false reading. Today I noticed something very interesting: even when not signed in, Google's listings were giving precedence to locality. It was to a very extreme degree, as in when searching for "web design," a firm a mile away ranked higher than one 1.5 miles away and such. It would seem that the algos having this high a level of location sensitivity and preference would actually be a boon for the little guys, which is, I assume why it was implemented. However, it brings up a couple of interesting questions for me. 1. How is this going to affect Moz (or any SE ranking platform, for that matter) reports? I assume that Google pulls locations from IP Addresses, therefore would it not simply pull the local results most relevant for the Moz server(s) IP? 2. What can one do to rise above this aggressive level of location based search? I mean, my site (which has a DA of 37 and a PA of 48) appears above sites like webdesign.org (DA of 82, PA of 85). Not that I'm complaining at the moment, but I could see this being a fairly big deal for larger firms looking to rank on a national level. What gives? I'd love to get some opinions from the community here if anyone else has noticed this...
Industry News | | G2W1 -
Has wiki lost some market share?
I work in the financial space for a forex broker, and noticed this week that Wikipedia dropped from #1 for [forex] to about 8. Good for us, but just wondering if anyone else has seen wiki market share drop and if any big data SEO projects have seen any fluctuation for wiki. Researching why this may have happened.
Industry News | | FXCMSEO0 -
How do i get a description in my google local listing
My site is listed in the serps at number one but where google used to list the name of my site with the meta description below it, now Google lists my site title with my address to the right side and below it says Google+page instead of listing my meta description which had my key search phrase in it and also a call to action to see my video on my site. My click through was much better with the meta description below it and the call to action. is there any way i can get the description back under my title in the serps? Maybe by deleting my Google + page? Thanks in advance, Ron
Industry News | | Ron100 -
What is the best method for getting pure Javascript/Ajax pages Indeded by Google for SEO?
I am in the process of researching this further, and wanted to share some of what I have found below. Anyone who can confirm or deny these assumptions or add some insight would be appreciated. Option: 1 If you're starting from scratch, a good approach is to build your site's structure and navigation using only HTML. Then, once you have the site's pages, links, and content in place, you can spice up the appearance and interface with AJAX. Googlebot will be happy looking at the HTML, while users with modern browsers can enjoy your AJAX bonuses. You can use Hijax to help ajax and html links coexist. You can use Meta NoFollow tags etc to prevent the crawlers from accessing the javascript versions of the page. Currently, webmasters create a "parallel universe" of content. Users of JavaScript-enabled browsers will see content that is created dynamically, whereas users of non-JavaScript-enabled browsers as well as crawlers will see content that is static and created offline. In current practice, "progressive enhancement" in the form of Hijax-links are often used. Option: 2
Industry News | | webbroi
In order to make your AJAX application crawlable, your site needs to abide by a new agreement. This agreement rests on the following: The site adopts the AJAX crawling scheme. For each URL that has dynamically produced content, your server provides an HTML snapshot, which is the content a user (with a browser) sees. Often, such URLs will be AJAX URLs, that is, URLs containing a hash fragment, for example www.example.com/index.html#key=value, where #key=value is the hash fragment. An HTML snapshot is all the content that appears on the page after the JavaScript has been executed. The search engine indexes the HTML snapshot and serves your original AJAX URLs in search results. In order to make this work, the application must use a specific syntax in the AJAX URLs (let's call them "pretty URLs;" you'll see why in the following sections). The search engine crawler will temporarily modify these "pretty URLs" into "ugly URLs" and request those from your server. This request of an "ugly URL" indicates to the server that it should not return the regular web page it would give to a browser, but instead an HTML snapshot. When the crawler has obtained the content for the modified ugly URL, it indexes its content, then displays the original pretty URL in the search results. In other words, end users will always see the pretty URL containing a hash fragment. The following diagram summarizes the agreement:
See more in the....... Getting Started Guide. Make sure you avoid this:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66355
Here is a few example Pages that have mostly Javascrip/AJAX : http://catchfree.com/listen-to-music#&tab=top-free-apps-tab https://www.pivotaltracker.com/public_projects This is what the spiders see: view-source:http://catchfree.com/listen-to-music#&tab=top-free-apps-tab This is the best resources I have found regarding Google and Javascript http://code.google.com/web/ajaxcrawling/ - This is step by step instructions.
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=81766
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-allow-google-to-crawl-ajax-content
Some additional Resources: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/10/proposal-for-making-ajax-crawlable.html
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-allow-google-to-crawl-ajax-content
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=357690