Social media is a great platform for online marketing and encouraging website traffic, however you should also be using it to establish your brand reputation and build valuable customer relationships by providing quality customer service.
Good customer service allows you to build trust with your consumer, as well as providing them with tailored information about your product or service. On social media, all comments are in the public eye, meaning it’s especially important to showcase how you treat your customers to a wider audience. Interacting online also gives you better understanding of your customers so you can develop and tailor future content to their interests.
Interacting on social media is an example of a ‘touchpoint’. This is any interaction that the company has with customers or prospects. The better this experience is, the more likely it is that your business will retain the customer or sell to the prospect. For new customers, this can be the ’Reach’ stage of the Customer Lifecycle, the point when you first make contact with your potential customer. For existing customers, customer support aids the ‘Retention’ stage, where you continue to build and maintain your relationship with that customer.
So, how do I do it?
You know why good customer care is important, but what can you do to make sure you’re providing it? Here’s some of our top tips:
Tone of voice – reply to queries professionally, clearly and in a friendly manner. Depending on the nature of your business, replies can also incorporate humour.
Personalise – reply to each comment independently and address the user by their name. Do not use an automated reply system on social media as they may not match the situation and could deter the customer. Take the time to respond directly to your followers as needed to create a relationship and answer their question.
Solve the issue – provide a clear solution to the customer’s query. If you aren’t sure, politely ask for more information. If you are not able to find a solution, offer alternatives such as similar products or services that your company could provide.
Response time – responding quickly will prevent the customer losing interest and going elsewhere.
Be consistent and fair – treat each customer with the same level of service regardless of your relationship with them.
Provide follow up – provide ‘next steps’ information such as a contact number, email or web address. Adding a call to action can also encourage traffic to your website, allowing users to discover and potentially invest in your products/services that they were not initially looking for.
Use positive language – Redirecting a conversation from negative to positive places focus on a proposed solution and can avoid conflict from miscommunication.
Finally, remember to reply to all comments, even if they aren’t a query or complaint. A simple ‘thank you’ on a positive comment shows the customer that you value their custom and appreciate good feedback.
Put your knowledge to the test – apply for a digital marketing apprenticeship
Customer service is a key competency in the Level 3 Digital Marketing Apprenticeship. Digital marketers define, design, build and implement digital campaigns across a variety of online and social media platforms to drive customer acquisition, customer engagement and customer retention.
Find out more about the latest digital apprenticeships available and a host of apprenticeship information on our website, ApprenticeTips.com.
Is Facebook the best platform for social media marketing? Is Facebook the right social media marketing platform for my employer? Should I setup a Facebook page for my business or focus elsewhere? If you are just starting your digital marketing apprenticeship, are new to social media marketing or haven’t used Facebook before, these sorts of questions are completely understandable.
Facebook is Complex
There is a lot to Facebook these days, and there are a lot of social media platforms out there too, so it can be difficult to know where to start.
When you’re starting your digital marketing apprenticeship it can be tricky deciding what social media platform to start marketing on.
But don’t worry, ApprenticeTips.com are here to help: in this article I give you an overview of Facebook as a social media marketing platform and explain why Facebook might be the perfect platform for your business or why you may want to focus your social media activity elsewhere during your digital marketing apprenticeship.
Decide Your Target Audience
Sound good? I hope so! But before
we go any further I’d highly recommend taking some time to make sure you can answer
one very important question:
Who exactly am I trying to reach
with my social media marketing?
Or to put it another way: who are my target audience?
Before you can decide if Facebook
is right for your business you need to be able to answer this question in
detail.
As a starting point you need to know
the following about your target audience:
Age: how old are your target audience?
Location: where are they located? Are they near me or are they all across the UK?
Interests: what do my target audience care about or enjoy doing?
Answered those questions? Good! That’s enough prep work. Let’s get on to the good stuff: read on to find out more about Facebook and its pros and cons
It’s hard to summarise Facebook in
a single sentence, as there’s so much to the platform these days, but in a
nutshell the platform allows users to connect with family and friends,
businesses, public figures and groups of likeminded individuals in public, and in
private.
The central hub for all of this activity is the Facebook newsfeed. Essentially this a carefully curated stream of content from people you follow, brands you are interested in and advertises who have paid to appear on your feed.
Facebook: the pros
You can post a variety of content:
The platform allows you to post lots of different types of content – long articles, short articles, pictures, links, video, polls, live streams, stories etc. – and there’s lots of tools within Facebook to help you create this content.
Having lots of flexibility around what you can post and free tools to help you make posts is very helpful when you are starting out with social media marketing as it be can be challenge to keep finding and creating content week in, week out.
Ad targeting:
Facebook’s ad targeting options are “unparalleled” according to one marketing expert. Digital marketers are able to target ads at Facebook users based on their location, age, gender, interests and much more.
For example, a clothes shop that sells clothes to women in their 20’s/30’s could target an ad about their new summer range to women aged 24-34 in a five mile radius of the store, who are interested in their brand’s Facebook page or their key competitor’s Facebook page.
For many businesses the ability to target ads at a specific group of people, at scale and relatively cheaply is an enticing prospect.
I’d highly recommend discussing this feature with your employer if you’re weighing up if Facebook is suitable for their business.
Facebook gives you lots of targeting options when you run ads. The platform can be a very effective at targeting your key customers.
There is also quite a bit of cross over between the two platforms. Image posts that do perform well on Facebook will probably perform well on Instagram too, for example.
The Facebook user demographic data we have for the UK includes Instagram and Facebook Messenger users too, but this data shows that there are more people on these platform ages 25-34, 35-44 and 45-54 than 18-24 year olds.
Better platforms available to reach other businesses
If your target audience is primarily other businesses or business professionals you may be better off focussing your social media marketing efforts on LinkedIn.
There’s far more to the Facebook than this one article can possibly convey, obviously, but hopefully this article has given you a clearer of idea of Facebook as a platform and its good and bad points.
Questions?
If you’ve got questions about Facebook or other digital marketing apprenticeship topics don’t hesitate to get in touch with us on Twitter or on LinkedIn.
As we move on to the third quarter of 2020 (Q3), it is important to keep up to date with the latest trends in Digital Marketing. As a constantly evolving role, marketers need to constantly be on the lookout for the newest tips and tricks revolving around the digital world to thrive and be successful.
Are you someone who is looking for guidance and knowledge of ways to improve your digital marketing skills? Then, keep reading as we explore and talk about the top 5 latest trends in 2020 for Digital Marketing.
Artificial Intelligence
If you haven’t just acknowledged it, 2020 might be the year that many
individuals wake up to the rising popularity of Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI
will certainly be the core of worldwide business and industry in the future –
but right now, it’s doing a great job in taking over numerous jobs.
AI can examine customer behaviour and can store and use data. Therefore, assisting companies with seeing how clients discover their products/services.
“Artificial intelligence is the biggest commercial
opportunity for companies, industries, and nations over the next few
decades” and “will increase global GDP by up to 14% between
now and 2030,” which means that “AI latecomers will find
themselves at a serious competitive disadvantage within the next several
years.”
AI Chatbots:
With AI proving to be a dominant component in 2020, it is key to understand how to implement it within your business. Understandably, there has been a rise in a digital sales assistant and simply the use of chatbots being used in company websites to help guide visitors and answer questions instantly.
Including an AI-powered chatbot within your site could drive your general customer service levels up. In other words, this is a key technical aspect you need to have as a digital marketer, and by using AI, you are making sure your business provides fast and efficient customer service.
Overall, AI is a flourishing element within digital
marketing that is constantly evolving. Adding a chatbot software powered by AI
within your business site will reduce employee costs, and provide great
customer satisfaction. Also, their multipurpose structure allows customers to
ask anything and receive an instant response of data it has stored from the
whole site.
Email Marketing
Confronted with the growing use of social media, email despite
everything presents amazing advantages that other media channels can’t compete
with. According to Statista, in 2019, there were an estimated 3.9 billion
worldwide email users, however, this is likely to grow to an astounding 4.48
billion users by 2024.
With an overwhelming number of emails and spam, it is easy for your email campaign to get lost in the inbox or irritate your customers. With this being said, email marketing requires a skillful amount of written communication and implementation (of campaign) skills which is, specifically, highly essential an excellent digital marketer.
MailChimp:
One of the best email marketing platforms any digital marketer should be using to produce professional campaigns is MailChimp. In fact, this all-in-one marketing platform gives users the ability to import mailing lists and create newsletters, campaigns fundamentally. Above all, MailChimp allows you to target specific subscribers (audiences), use or create your templates, and manage the performance of your campaigns.
When you send out your beautifully crafted and personalised email campaign, MailChimp offers performance analysis that lets you monitor and interpret performance data. Thus giving you a better understanding of what went well and what didn’t.
The types of analysis MailChimp offer include:
24-hour performance
Seeing who has opened the email (Open rates)
Who received the email
If they clicked any links (Click rate)
Successful deliveries/bounce-back rates
Plus more…
To conclude, email marketing covers many required aspects of a digital marketer, for instance being able to interpret data and analyse reports using the correct digital tools available. Moreover, email marketing is a specialist are in digital marketing, thus the use of technologies is prominent. Being able to understand how to work them effectively and implement a suitable strategy is vital.
Social Media
As the world of social networking becomes increasingly
popular, digital marketing techniques are being applied to social media
platforms to increase brand awareness, reach a bigger audience, receive more
traffic and overall promote products/services successfully.
By having a social media account for your business, you can be sure to develop your audience and increase growth online and as a company. For that reason, there are a few methodical ways to assure you are making the most out of your social media channels and achieve a prosperous social campaign.
3 tips on how to improve social media strategy:
Paid ads (boosted posts)
A great way to make your posts on social media reach a more
filtered audience (target) is boosting posts by using paid ads. By adding a
budget, even as little as £1, you can boost any selected posts that you have
published and analyse its performance analysis compared to the original organic
reach. Once you have chosen a budget and how many days you want to run the
campaign for, you can then choose and optimise the demographic you would want to
reach (age, gender, location, and interests), suggesting a suitable investment
option because you know that a big majority of your target audience will be
attained.
Stories
Secondly, adding relevant content to stories on social media
(for instance, Facebook and Instagram) can be a cost-effective method of
gaining the attention of potential customers. As a digital marketer, you have
to understand the elements of customer needs to adequately interact with the
audience. Try and utilise stories for the content which is suited and be sure
to include specific landing page URL’s when it seems fitting to allow potential
customers to swipe up to a designated page. Understand your market and realise
when it’s the appropriate way of communication to use.
Business Profile
Finally, a logical way to guarantee you are using a social media channel well is to convert your profile into a business page. This way, you will gain access to more analytical tools/insights about your performance and reach. In addition, business profiles tend to allow users to add a contact button for better business-to-customer interaction, and allow you to showcase your customer service skills to a high standard.
Smart Bidding on Google Ads
What are Google Ads you may be asking? Google Ads, is an advertising
platform created to allow advertisers to pay/bid on specific keywords, in hope
that their clickable ads appear in Google’s search engine results. This
ultimately leads to an increase in clicks, therefore leads. A sufficient amount
of research skills would be necessary for any digital marketer wondering whether
if they should use Google Ads or not, for example, you need to find out what
keywords work well with your business and bid on them.
Smart Bidding consists of automated bid methods in Google
Ads that use machine learning to increase conversions (awesome, right?). Google
analyses customer search behaviour and data to predict when there is a high
chance of a conversion happening, then raises your bids when a conversion seems
likely to occur.
Why use Smart Bidding?:
Increase Conversions
Maximised CPC (optimises your cost-per-click (CPC) to increase conversions)
Enhance traffic to your site
Interactive Content
The way to continue maximising your online strategy well might be interactive content. SubseBy incorporating a piece of interactive content on your site, you will find you can reach an audience via any devices (e.g. mobiles or laptops) and provide a great user experience. A creative mind-set is required for this because ideas for content need to be original, enjoyable, and have an eye-catching design.
Types of interactive content you could start implementing:
Quiz
Polls/Surveys
Competitions
Images or videos
Content being interactive ensures visitors keep returning to
your site and help them make a decision (e.g. what product they should buy). It
may be the key to new leads, obtaining more data, and all together create a
sense of brand loyalty for customers.
Conclusion
As you can see, digital marketing is a fast-paced role, that is always evolving. However, in 2020, AI technology, social media, email marketing, Google Ads, and interactive content have been a few of the most noteworthy trends. It’s time to connect with your customers in newer and more exciting ways and make their experience enjoyable!
Do you think you will give these trends a try?
Click the button below to find more information on digital marketing and read interesting blogs about digital apprenticeships on our website:
Are you looking for some top tips for writing engaging digital content?
Maybe you’re new to blogging, trying to drive your website up Google’s
rankings, dreaming of making it big on social media or simply trying to impress
your boss with your email marketing expertise.
The internet is littered with advice on ways to improve copywriting skills,
but to save you time surfing, I’ve scoured all the pages I can find on digital
marketing content writing and condensed all the best points into a quick list.
So here they are, my top digital writing and general copywriting tips:
Establish your audience
Before you put pen to paper, or finger to keyboard, stop and question who you’re writing for.
Where will they be reading this?
Why will they be reading this? How much time will they have to read this?
Writing is all about knowing your
reader, so work out who they are before you start. This will help you decide on
the tone of voice you’ll need to adopt – will you be going for serious and
professional or informal and fun?
Keep it short and simple
Digital
content isn’t the same as print content. You wouldn’t read a four-page feature
in a magazine the same way you would browse a headline story on the BBC News
app would you?
Of course not. People scan-read online
content more than they do print content, so you need to write it differently.
Language
is most effective when used economically, so when you’re writing digital
content try to keep to a maximum of 30 words per sentence, one or two sentences
per paragraph and four to six words per headline.
Of
course, you don’t have to stick to these rules religiously – they’re just
guidelines.
Also, avoid jargon and acronyms at all cost – no one apart from you knows what you’re talking about!
Structure your content
When structuring your work, think
of an inverted pyramid with all the essentials at the top and the ‘nice to
haves’ at the bottom.
The most important information should always come first (who, what, when, where, why) and the supporting details and background information later.
Once you’ve got your basic
pyramid sorted, you can then take it to the next level by breaking down your
content further into smaller, organised sections with subheadings.
Consider text size and font
Many of us struggle reading off
paper, but it’s even harder to read off a screen.
Help your reader by using a text
size that’s as large as practical and as clear as possible. We all enjoy
experimenting with wacky fonts, but if you want to look professional, it’s best
to stick with something traditional like Arial or Calibri.
Using bold and italicised text is
okay to make a point stand out, but don’t use it too often or you’ll cancel out
what you’re trying to achieve.
Reserve using underlined text for
hyperlinks only; underlining text just to highlight a point will make your
reader assume that it’s hyperlinked and potentially confuse them.
Pay attention to spelling and grammar
Poor speling and gramar can
undermine the credibility of your message.
Can you see the point I’m making?
Make sure good spelling and grammar is a priority in all your written
communication. There’s no shame in admitting that you don’t know how to use an
apostrophe – the only shame is in making a mistake for everyone to see!
So if you’re not sure on
something, look it up. And if you’re still not sure? Ask someone who is.
We all go blind after spending
too long on a piece of work, so taking a break and revisiting your writing
another day can help you identify mistakes that you might previously have
missed.
Inspire
Is your writing dynamic enough to
evoke a response?
Strong verbs can inject life and
energy into any text, and active voice is more lively than passive.
Always write concisely and with confidence. Looking at the following two statements, which would you trust more?
“I think that writing with confidence might sometimes be important.”
“Writing with confidence is important.”
I’d go with the second. The words take up less space on the page, but they’re actually more impactful because they’re decisive.
Write to be found
What words will people be typing
into Google to find you?
Get found on Google
Try and use those words in your
copy – especially in titles, headings and descriptions.
There’s no need to go overboard, squashing 10 keyword phrases into every sentence, as this is likely to backfire on you when your reader no longer understands your message, but Google’s Keyword Planner really is worth checking out if you haven’t done so already.
Parade your personality
Nobody likes a bland brand.
You might be reading this blog
because you’re trying to improve your writing for work purposes, but work
doesn’t have to be boring.
With the internet being a truly
global platform, the content you publish online will be competing with millions
of other people’s all over the world. Therefore, letting your individuality
shine in digital copy is even more important than it is in print.
There is always a way to infuse
even the most restrained copy with character. Keep your brand voice in mind at
all times.
Want more digital marketing top tips?
Why
not check out this blog for more industry advice?
Are you an individual or small team starting out in the digital marketing world? Or are you an online expert interested in topping up knowledge or refreshing your experience? Or somewhere in between? Hopefully, this will spark ideas for all readers as we go through some of the best Digital Marketing practices.
Keep Up to Date
With as fast paced as the world is nowadays, it can be a struggle to keep up with relevant trends or the ever-changing wants and needs of customers. Therefore, it is important to stay with it! Achieving this can be done in very simple ways. Like: signing up for newsletters, staying active on social media sites like LinkedIn, and subscribe to mailing lists of companies with similar aims and objectives. Not only then do you keep up with your competitors, you can notice changes in the market, discover new technologies and see software developments as they are introduced. All which will benefit progression for your organisation however big or small.
Similarly, as mentioned before you can keep up with trends and changes in the industry. All while keeping up with other people/organisations, using LinkedIn. As you can see here on the #DigitalMarketing feed.
Know Your Audience
The most important step to being a digital marketing ‘pro’ is to understand who your target audience really is. What it is they truly want from either your products or services. Sometimes company lose sight of who they are working for, the customer. But there are many ways to ensure that you are always customer-orientated and therefore keeping the aim in sight. The below being examples of how to keep up to date with your audience:
Look at your competitors, often – Evaluate their brand, their marketing strategies and what they are offering to the public that you are not. How are the customers reacting to these differing products and services or marketing methods.
Monitor your social media engagements – watch their reactions, hear their feedback, and learn from what they say or show you. Analyse the data shown in the form of likes, shares, follows, comments etc. More often than not social media platforms offer a metrics page (e.g. Facebook Insights). Which makes engagement analysis easier and faster to collate.
If you wish to analyse in greater depth. You can compare social media results, website views, and leads in a analytics tool like Google Analytics or Adverity.
Ask them – Using surveys to ask your customers directly what they want in a generally affordable way. Allows you to use a question format which is an easy way to collect information from your audience. Once created it can be submitted to your social media followers and email subscribers. We recommend using a tool such as Survey Monkey.
Some other plugins you might find useful for collecting customer opinions might be:
It is extremely important for a company to always be consistent in both branding themes and the brand personality. Consistency is one of the most important and easily overlooked factors in any company, especially digital marketing-based organisations. Often being completely online based it is harder to put forward a cohesive and complete brand identity together. It promotes a professional appearance and earns respect and trust from your customers. See below the top 3 points to remember in Digital Marketing.
“Consistency is the true foundation of trust. Either keep your promises or do not make them”
Roy T. Bennett
Dependable Brand Personality – Always keep the same tone and personality for your brand across all channels. On both digital platforms and when using offline marketing methods. In order to achieve this, all staff should be receiving training on how to respond and post for the company. This ensures they post the same way with the same style of language to continue an overall ‘personality’.
Unvarying Aesthetic Theme – The synonymous layouts across all channels and platforms. Along with the corresponding logo, colour schemes, fonts, symbols, style of imagery and illustrations etc.
Reliable Quality – Having a constant standard of quality of products and/or services at all times is crucial. This creates a trustworthy, safe and respected brand for yourself. While also further complimenting the brand identity created in both point 1) and 2) above. So when mistakes are made handle them with impeccable service and professionalism.
TOP TIP! Use shared cloud storage services for general imagery, logos, downloaded font folders, colour charts/samples. This is beneficial so all staff can access the materials. An example of software’s you could use would be Dropboxor Google Docs.
Personalise!
Keep content for customers and contact with them, personalised. There are many ways of doing this and the simplest ones can help you drastically. When customers do not feel important to a company, they get bored. Ways of doing this can include mail merges in newsletters or email sends. Very simple to do but just feels as if the reader is being directly spoken to. Even using mail merge tags for email address or postcode, further personalising the content to them or their local area.
Similarly, in email or social media campaign content, it could be beneficial to target customers geographically with location-based content (e.g. City of Leeds aimed events or deals for a particular County). More on this would be, Geo-Location based targeting.
Which is identifying your site visitor’s location in order to connect with them. An example of how companies can use this their advantage, would be in online clothing/department stores websites. By tracking a user’s Geo-location they can tell if a user has visited the site before – if not? They can use this opportunity to showcase special discounts or offer for ‘first time shoppers’.
Another method for commerce sites selling products is to identify items in a customer’s basket and recommend complimenting products. Showing personalised and individualistic results heightens the possibility of a last minute ‘add to basket’ and boosting the sales total.
Focus on the Long Term Goals
Don’t be short sighted.
Remembering the big picture, always. Getting wrapped up in setting quick, short term goals to boost engagement and sales is easily done. But this is not always as beneficial as we’d first hope. While this can work effectively and may generate a momentary spike. It does not mean it’ll work effectively in the long run and is not certain to maintain that customer base.
There are ways to keep up with your long term goals and track success towards these goals. The site Perdoo.com who helps you set and track goals. Another one you can use to closely track your goals and your progression in immense detail is Google Analytics.
Conclusion
No one can be perfect at digital marketing however we hope this will helps you to improve yourself or your company, if only by a little.
Thanks for Reading!
For more information about digital marketing, apprenticeships or much more visit our site with the button below:
The customer lifecycle outlines the steps taken by a customer as they progress through the marketing and sales funnel. It gives marketing, sales, and customer service teams a complete picture of the customer’s journey and highlights areas for improvement.
Why it is importantwhen it comes to Digital marketing
The Customer Lifecycle Value is basically a prediction of how much value a business will gain from the entire course of their relationship with any given customer. Because you never know how long each customer relationship will last, the customer life cycle is basically a way for businesses to estimate a customer’s monetary worth over time. The customer life cycle is important because it helps companies determine how much money they want to spend on bringing in new customers and how much repeat business they can expect to gain from certain customers.
What are the different parts of the cycle and what do they mean?
Awareness
Here is where your relationship with a customer begins. when they first become aware of the existence of your brand, product, or service. Without awareness the customer won’t have any knowledge that your product exists. The chances are that the customer has seen your post or advert multiple times before actually clicking on it too.
Research
Every customer goes through some version of this stage, whether it’s months of research and comparison or just a quick “gut check” before making a decision. One of the most effective ways to stand out from your competitors at this point is by offering robust digital self-service. Just like customers seeking support, consumers who are evaluating products or services start by trying to find the answers themselves.
Comparison
In our opinion this part is fairly similar to the research part of the cycle as customers will be comparing different products as part of their research. Retaining the customers attention during the comparison phase can be done by having the best deal, having the best quality product, being the easiest to buy from e.g. fastest delivery and much more. It’s important to consider all these factors as any drop in quality is likely to be picked up on.
Selection
Once a customer is set on using you as a company it’s important to make their potential selections very clear and understandable. Remember, just because a customer has chosen your company in the comparison phase doesn’t mean you’ll be able to retain them. Especially if your website isn’t clear and or a frustrating user experience.
Purchase
This step may seem simple, the customer buys the product and that’s it. However, there are crucial parts to the purchase phase. Having a simple process for purchasing the product is imperative as you can still lose the customer if they can’t find a fast way to purchase the product. If they have a question before purchasing you might also want to have a live chat feature so the customer doesn’t have to back out of their purchase to answer their question.
Experience
Once the product has been purchased you want the customer to receive it as fast as possible. Having a delay in the delivery can really harm your reputation and even earn you a bad review. Equally, the product has to be as it is described on the website.
Retention
Having a customer buy from you is only half the battle, you want repeat custom from that sale. To do this you can follow up purchases with an email after a set period of time. E.g. A customer has just purchased toothpaste from your online store. In 6 weeks our automated mailing list will send a follow up email asking if they’d like to purchase the product again as they’ve likely gone through the tube of toothpaste by now.
Word of Mouth
Finally comes word of mouth. After your customer has bought from you and hopefully had a good experience they should spread the word about your company. You can help speed this process up by having a good loyalty/recommendation scheme. E.g. recommend this company to a friend and if they sign up you receive a free gift/voucher.
Conclusion
Hopefully you now understand the importance of the customer life cycle. You must fully understand this cycle during a digital marketing apprenticeship in order to be a successful digital marketer. It’s important to keep up to date with any changes to this cycle. When new technologies come out the cycle can change, or be interpreted in slightly different ways.
Looking at getting into IT sales? An Apprenticeship Job in IT Technical Sales could be the best way to achieve your goals. This Apprenticeship covers many bases from Data Security to Project Management. In turn, this opens up a diverse job market. Keep reading to find out more about the IT Technical sales Apprenticeship.
What does Technical sales involve?
The primary role of an IT Technical Salesperson is to sell a company’s technical products and services. They need a good knowledge and understanding of the portfolio of technologies that are available. They work to maintain good relationships with existing clients, gaining repeat business wherever possible from customers both internal and external, UK or internationally. They also approach potential customers with the aim of winning new business. They maintain a thorough understanding of existing technologies and those that are emerging.
What Technical Knowledge Will You Gain On This Apprenticeship?
Understands the basic elements and architecture of computer systems
Acquire a working knowledge of Cloud and Cloud Services
Understand the principles of secure coding
Acquire a working knowledge of the role IT plays within the broader context of a business strategy
Understand the main methodologies used for unified communications
Understand the basics of how data storage works and the main technical options available
Understand how to communicate using the appropriate language and terminology for audience and cultural awareness
Understand the principles and ethics of sales, recognising the importance of delivering value to the customer
Understand the sales life cycle, techniques & processes
Understand how to negotiate, handle objections and close sales
Understand the business product(s) they are responsible for selling including the relevant vendor product(s) as selected by the employer.
Underpinning Skills, Attitudes and BehavioursRequired/Acquired
Logical and creative thinking skills
The ability to interact effectively and professionally with a range of different types of customer
Ability to think analytically and to solve problems
Ability to work independently and to take responsibility
Can use own initiative
A thorough and organised approach
Ability to work with a range of internal and external people
Ability to communicate effectively in a variety of situations
Maintain productive, professional and secure working environment
Ability to operate in a secure manner
Professional recognition
This apprenticeship is recognised for entry on to the Register of IT Technicians and those completing their apprenticeships are eligible to apply for registration.
Conclusion
As you now know an IT Technical sales Apprenticeship covers quite a wide variety of specialist skills and jobs. Don’t let this put you off from applying as not every area of this apprenticeship has to interest you to make it worth while. Please follow the link below to find out more. information on this apprenticeship.
Are you interested in starting a digital marketing apprenticeship? With different levels of apprenticeship available, and the diversity within the digital marketing industry, it can be useful to have an idea of what a digital marketing role might involve. Keep reading below to find out what typical duties and responsibilities are for a digital marketing apprentice.
What Does Digital Marketing Involve?
Digital
marketing is broad subject and covers a lot of different
sub-topics. So, as a digital marketing apprentice your role will
very much depend on the organisation you are working for, and what
their requirements are.
In general,
digital marketing relates to advertising and promotion done
online. That could include managing a website, social media
account, running ad campaigns, making sure your organisation shows
up in search results, or something else. But, there are few key
areas that digital marketing is often broken down into.
Search Engine Marketing
Search engine
marketing is an inclusive term for any marketing meant to help a
website get seen in search results. This is often broken down
further into two more specific areas: search engine optimisation
(SEO), and pay-per-click (PPC).
SEO, sometimes
called organic search, is how to structure a website, write
content, and generate links back to your website, which all
contribute to search engine algorithms finding your website to be
of high quality, authority, and trustworthiness. It’s all
focused around what search algorithms rank highly in results, but
that usually just means doing what is best for the user. There are
hundreds of factors that go into helping a website rank highly on
search engines, so this can be a very specialist area to get into.
PPC on the
other hand relates to paid ads. This involves creating ads to show
on search pages and bidding on which position your ads will be
shown in – will they be shown at the top of the page, above
organic results? Or will they be shown at the bottom, or on the
second or third page of results? That’s what a PPC manager works
to improve, while also keeping the cost of clicks and leads as low
as possible.
Social Media
Like search,
social media also has an organic aspect and a paid ads aspect.
Organic social media is, simply put, publishing content that you
share for free on websites such as Facebook and Instagram. Paid
social media, however, involves paying those sites to show your
content in front of specific audience segments that you specify.
For example, you can pay for Facebook to show a post sharing a
link to your blog post about Lord Of The Rings, to people that
have shown an interest in Lord Of The Rings. Like PPC managers,
social ads managers will work to make sure content is shown to the
most relevant audiences, for the lowest cost.
Email Marketing
As a staple of
online communication, email can often be overlooked as a form of
marketing. However, email still boasts one of the highest click
through rates of any digital medium. Email marketing is all about
building an email list of people who are interested in what your
business offers, and send them emails that is beneficial to them.
What Will You Learn On Your Apprenticeship?
As a part of
your apprenticeship, you can learn how to effectively manage
campaigns for what we’ve described already. But, you will also
learn how to:
Conduct
keyword research to inform search engine marketing
Create a
marketing plan and schedule to help you manage your campaigns
Write
compelling copy to prompt readers to get in touch with your
organisation
Measure
and evaluate campaign performance, to highlight areas for
improvement
Digital
marketing is an incredibly varied field to work in, with many
specialisms available. So, be sure to do your own research to find
out which areas interest you.
Conclusion
As mentioned,
digital marketing is a wide area to pursue. The number of
specialist areas available is immense, but that does mean that
some areas won’t interest you – but there are almost certainly
some areas that will! Take a look at the digital apprenticeships
we offer, such as the level 3 or level 4 digital marketing
apprenticeship, to see what’s available to get started with your
career in digital marketing.
Drive customer acquisition, engagement and retention through digital mediums with a Digital Marketing Apprenticeship. Hone your skills in the digital industry by helping to develop digital campaigns over a variety of different online & social platforms. This blog focuses on skills, knowledge and behaviours outlined by the standard.
Digital Marketing Skills & Technical Competencies
Believe it or not a Digital Marketing Apprenticeship requires a good level of written communication. Having a good level of skill in writing will massively benefit you for this apprenticeship. This is important as you will need to be able to write for a range of different audiences with blog writing. The sensitivity of communication is also important for customer service; you need to be able to respond effectively to enquiries using online and social mediums.
It’s important for apprentices to have a keen eye on digital advances and updates to ensure they can contribute relevant information to short and long term strategies and campaigns. This is also important as a range of technologies will need to be used to help achieve marketing goals.
Above all, the Digital Marketing Apprenticeship requires a problem solver; ideally, someone that can think on their feet. Apprentices will need to use digital tools effectively to tackle problems and issues across a variety of digital platforms.
Finally, Digital Marketers need to have to offer a level of analysis when going into campaigns to review and monitor the campaign and online activity. This data will then need to be manipulated within a basic analytical dashboard to refer back to clients.
Digital Marketing Knowledge & Understanding
When it comes to a Digital Marketing Apprenticeship it’s useful to have some basic knowledge of other related digital processes. Since you will be dealing a lot with customers it’s important to have a basic understanding of the customer lifecycle, customer relationship marketing and the basic marketing principles.
Alongside these skills its important to understand the principles of:
Coding
Search Marketing
Search Engine Optimization
Email Marketing
Web Analytics & Metrics
Mobile Apps
PPC (Pay Per Click)
With these in mind, it is also imperative to follow digital etiquette with regards to the working environment and following the correct security procedures to protect data. This knowledge will be helped along with knowledge and vendor exams to ensure you are equipped with the right information to take on Digital Marketing in a real working environment.
Digital Marketing Attitudes and Behaviours
Naturally, the apprentice is preferred to have particular supporting skills that will help them when securing a Digital Marketing Apprenticeship. Examples of these skills include:
Sensible and innovative thinking skills.
Problem-solving skills supported with analytics.
The ability to initiate and asses work independently with responsibility.
Organised and thorough with their approach to tasks.
Ability to work with a range of different people, internally and externally.
Ability to communicate effectively to a range of different people with a variety of different situations.
Great work ethic with an ability to keep productive and professional.
Conclusion
A Digital Marketing Apprenticeship is a fantastic starting point to propel you into a digital career or job role. Some job roles and titles include:
Digital Marketing Assistant
Campaign Executive
Social Media Executive
Content Co-ordinator
Digital Marketing Co-ordinator
Email Marketing Assistant
SEO Executive
Digital Marketing Executive
Analytics Executive
Digital Marketing Technologist
Senior management roles within this job role have the ability to earn you over £40,000 a year. The core skills applied correctly from this apprenticeship can open up so many doors! The great thing about apprenticeships is that you earn while you learn, you get the best of both worlds. It also gives you amazing progression opportunities to further your studies, one example is a Level 4 Digital Marketing Apprenticeship. Apprenticeships are great to shape employees to learn and progress within a working environment, the possibilities from this apprenticeship are endless! For more details on how the apprenticeships work; read our blog on more of a deeper look into the Digital Marketing Apprenticeship.
One important aspect of completing the level 4 data analyst apprenticeship is to properly prepare for end-point assessment. A good training provider will share key documentation with you such as the occupational standard, assessment plan and occupational brief. It is important to understand the data analyst occupational brief as this provides the detail on what is expected at EPA. To succeed on the apprenticeship, good apprentices will ensure that they meet the minimum requirements as per the occupational brief.
This is supported by the fact that the assessment plan for the data analyst apprenticeship states that:
The completed portfolio will be assessed against the requirements summarised in the standard and set out in detail in the occupational brief.
Therefore, all good apprentices will consider the full detail outlined in the data analyst occupational brief. The occupational brief described each of the competencies in full detail and gives examples of the types of work that should be included in a portfolio. Using the competency on: Collect and compile data from different sources as an example, the occupational brief will outline the minimum requirement as follows:
Compiling data in preparation for analyses is a core part of data analysis and can involve manually compiling data from multiple sources including: databases, spreadsheets, reports
It’s this type of detail outlined in the data analyst occupational brief that an independent assessor will be looking to see in the portfolio, synoptic project and professional discussion. Our overview of the level 4 data analyst apprenticeship provides detail of the core competencies but the full detail of the occupational brief needs to be included when referencing the core competencies. The occupational brief outlines what needs to be covered for the what to achieve one of the higher grades. In addition to this, it includes the scope of what is required for the how and with whom to work towards one of the higher grades.
Below we have shared the occupational brief to download. Understanding this in relation to the competencies and the what, how and with whom is essential. Only focusing on the occupational standard would be a mistake as the assessment plan clearly outlines the need to consider the occupational brief.
