Brush up on your digital marketing skills
Click image to view list of SMU’s interactive courses
Does your college diploma have a little dust on it? Experts say most of what you learned in marketing class is now (or soon will be) obsolete. The world of social media and digital marketing is constantly changing at such a rapid rate, you have to move fast to stay up-to-date.
How will you keep up with the ever-evolving digital marketing industry?
You could spend most of your time attempting to stay on top of the latest updates in SEO, content marketing and digital marketing best practices. Or you might spend countless hours reading e-books and blogs or listening to podcasts trying to absorb the latest and greatest trends. While these are all viable options, they leave you with very little time to focus on building your business.
Fortunately, SMU’s Continuing and Professional Education (CAPE) program now offers interactive digital marketing and communications courses. They have kept up with the fast paced digital marketing industry and are offering a timely line up of interactive courses:
Search Engine Optimization and Marketing Strategies
DFWSEM board member, Beth Kahlich, will be the instructor for this course on SEO. You will get hands-on experience as you learn how to set up, implement, and measure the effectiveness of an SEO/SEM campaign. The course will cover:
- SEO and Social Media
- The process and basic building blocks for SEO/SEM
- Overview of SEO tools, websites and software and how to choose the right ones
- Keyword research, planning and optimization
- Understanding what Google and the other search engines are looking for in your website
- Link building and citation strategies
- Content writing for SEO
WHEN: April 20 through June 1, 2015
6:00 PM to 9:00 PM (6 Monday night sessions)
DFWSEM members get $50 off any of the courses listed at smu.edu/masteringdigital with the code DFWSEM15.
Building your Website with WordPress
This class teaches you how to get your website up and running quickly, while understanding the right way to install, administer and customize your website. You will learn how to find and install various themes and plugins as well as learn how themes work behind the scenes using template tags with PHP.
WHEN: March 18 through April 22, 2015
6:00 PM to 9:00 PM (6 Wednesday night sessions)
Usability Testing and Research
Learn the step-by–step process of how to perform usability testing from planning, to execution and reporting of your results. Receive practical advice and insight from an actual industry expert on how to interpret your findings, how to determine the best recommendations, and how to present your results.
WHEN: March 24 through April 14, 2015
6:00 PM to 9:00 PM (4 Tuesday night sessions)
Infographics and Data Visualization Design
Companies now have high expectations to take big data and creatively visualize it for both internal purposes as well as external customers. Learn the best practices of data visualization enabling you to take boring data and turn it into something visually spectacular.
WHEN: April 7 through May 19, 2015
6:00 to 9:00 PM (6 Tuesday night sessions, skip 4/21)
Gamification in Business: Engaging Your Customers and Employees
During this 3-day boot camp you will learn how to creatively leverage gamification techniques to educate, inform, and connect your customers as well as influence behaviors that drive results.
WHEN: May 27 through Friday, May 29
Daily from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM (3 sessions)
Copywriting: Crafting Compelling and Engaging Content
Would you like to improve your writing skills? This course will cover writing for the web, from social media and email copy to landing pages and websites. You will also learn how to write in different voices and how to be persuasive and compelling by using imaging, metaphors and story telling. You will also learn about writing headlines and body in different voices.
WHEN: April 2 through May 7, 2015
6:00 PM to 9:00 PM (6 Thursday night sessions)
Communicating Technical Concepts to Non-Technical People
Ever find yourself trying to explain something fairly technical only to get a blank stare in return? This 2-day boot camp will cover how to communicate technical concepts using visual examples and analogies to successfully get your point across to those not technically inclined.
We look forward to seeing many of you at these courses. Be sure to let me know if you have any questions – and be sure to use your coupon code DFWSEM15 for $50 off any of the ones listed on smu.edu/masteringdigital.