Have you felt struggled trying to create an email marketing campaign? Email is a complex aspect of marketing. The landscape always changes. We have listed our top tips on how digital marketing apprentices can improve their email campaigns.
Choose the right email marketing software.
Email marketing is a powerful marketing tool, so it is important to make sure that you are using the right software to improve your marketing campaign. Email marketing software’s include tools that are able to increase your audience, segment your lists and provide reports to grow your business and earn more revenue. Below is a list of 10 free email marketing campaigns to help you save both time and money:
While the ultimate goal of email marketing is to grow your business, you need to realize that promotions are not the core of email marketing. The most important aspect of your email marketing must be to establish and nurture healthy relationships with your customers. It is these healthy relationships that will result in customers providing lifetime value and act as the driving force of your business’ growth.
A/B testing is a must.
Always test important elements in your campaigns to help you constantly improve your campaigns. A/B testing, also known as split testing, is a way of working out which of two campaign options is the most effective in terms of encouraging opens or clicks. In an A/B test you set up two variations of the one campaign and send them to a small percentage of your total recipients. Half of the test group is sent to Version A, while the other half gets Version B. The result, measured by the most opens or clicks, determines the winning version. This is then sent to the remaining subscribers.
Preview your emails before sending.
As every subscriber is important to you, using previews will help you find the optimal format and layout for different platforms. You want to avoid any mistakes in your campaign
Experiment with send times.
Experimenting with send times is a great way to get to know your audience. Try sending email campaigns at different times and see what email receives the most engagement. Over time, you should start to see patterns and be able to pinpoint what works best for your email marketing.
Have a personalised message.
Personalisation is one of the most important elements you need to strive to nail in every campaign. However, many people have misunderstood personalisation to mean addressing a subscriber by name. While that is part of it, there’s more to personalisation such as:
Being relevant
Sending timely emails
Anticipating your subscriber’s needs
Add GIFs to your email campaigns.
Adding GIFs to your email is a great way to grab your subscribers attention, point them toward an action you want them to take, or keep them scrolling to make sure they get your whole message.
Pay attention to subject lines.
Subject lines are one of the most important aspects of email marketing. The subject line of an email is the single line of text people see when they receive your email. This one line of text can often determine whether an email is opened or not, so make sure it’s optimized for your audience.
Keep on doing tests on your emails.
Testing your email campaigns is important because it ensures that your campaign looks the way you want it to. This way, you know how the campaign will display on different browsers or email clients. Furthermore, testing lets you figure out what’s working with your campaigns and what’s not.
Conclusion.
In summary, email marketing is an effective marketing method when it is done correctly. By following these tips, digital marketing apprentices will be ready to create amazing email marketing campaigns.
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Staying informed about the latest technology evolutions in digital marketing has become a crucial aspect of success in today’s rapidly changing digital world. The digital marketing industry is continuously evolving, and businesses must keep up with the latest advancements in technology and digital tools in order to effectively reach and engage with customers. This requires a strong understanding of the wide range of activities that fall under digital marketing, including SEO, content creation, data analysis, and email marketing, and how the latest technologies and tools can be leveraged to achieve marketing goals.
Level 3 digital marketing apprenticeships, such as the one offered by Apprentice Now, provide a valuable opportunity for individuals to gain the skills and knowledge needed to succeed in the digital marketing industry. From learning about the latest technology evolutions to developing a deep understanding of various digital marketing tools and techniques, these apprenticeships equip individuals with the skills they need to succeed in this ever-changing landscape. By staying informed about new technologies and how they can benefit their business, individuals can gain a competitive edge and position themselves for success in the digital marketing industry.
One of the most important benefits of staying informed about technology evolutions in digital marketing is that it can help you stay ahead of the competition. By being early adoptersof new technologies, you can give your business a competitive edge and stand out from the crowd. For example, by utilizingartificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies, you can personalize your marketing efforts, improving customer engagement and conversions.
Another advantage of staying informed about the latest technology evolutions in digital marketing is the ability to make more effective use of your marketing budget. By utilizing the most advanced tools and technologies, you can optimize your marketing efforts, streamlining processes and reducing the time and resources required to achieve your desired outcomes. This not only helps to reduce overall costs, but it also has the potential to improve your return on investment (ROI), providing greater value for your business.
In addition, staying informed about new technologies also allows you to be more innovative in your marketing approach. You can explore new and creative ways to reach your target audience and engage with them, using the latest tools and technologies to enhance your marketing strategies. This not only sets you apart from your competitors, but it also helps you stay ahead of consumer trends and keep your business at the forefront of the industry.
Also, another reason why it is important to stay informed about the latest technology evolutions in digital marketing is to be able to adapt to changes in consumer behaviour. Technology and the way people interact with it is always changing, and it’s essential to keep up with these changes in order to effectively reach and engage with customers. For example, the rise of voice search and the increasing use of mobile devices has dramatically changed the way people search for information and make purchasing decisions. By staying informed about these changes, digital marketing professionals can adapt their strategies to ensure that their clients’ products and services are being marketed in the most effective way possible. Additionally, staying informed about the latest technology evolutions allows digital marketing professionals to stay ahead of the curve and be proactive in their approach, rather than simply reacting to changes as they occur.
In conclusion, staying informed about the latest technology evolutions is an essential skill for digital marketing professionals. By participating in a Level 3 digital marketing apprenticeship, you can gain a strong understanding of the digital marketing industry and the tools and technologies necessary to succeed in your role. Whether you are just starting out in your career or looking to take your skills to the next level, staying informed about the latest technology evolutions is a critical aspect of success in the digital marketing industry.
For more information about Level 3 Digital Marketing Apprenticeships or progression to higher levels, visit our top tips on our other blogs.
‘White Hat SEO’ is the term used for SEO tactics that are in line with the terms and conditions set out by major search engines, including Google. Equally, you can brush up on what SEO is on our post ‘What is SEO and why is it important?‘.
The opposite to to this is Black Hat SEO. Black Hat SEO is the term for SEO tactics that are not within the search engine’s terms of service. White Hat SEO refers to any tactics that have been approved by the search engine’s terms of service. Additionally, this will increase the search rating of your website whilst maintaining the integrity of your website. These tactics are in line with the guidelines Google has outlined and you can find more information on all of them here. These tactics are the best way to increase your search ranking without even spending a penny though it may take some time to kick in. It can be up to 6-12 months before you will start to see the effects, regardless, don’t let that put you off because these will work in the long run.
White Hat SEO just out of the top 5
Have compelling Title Tags and Meta Descriptions – These are 2 of the most important Tags on your page. If these are not enticing, people will not click on your page.
Optimise your Images – Make sure to use the best file format, compress those images, add in Alt Tags and lastly, use lazy loading to make sure crucial content in displayed
Loading Speed is Key – Use Googles PageSpeed Insights tool to analyse you pages loading speed, as this is a primary ranking factor
Internal and External Links – Make sure to build an internal link structure to establish a hierarchy for your website. Also the right External links will increase your credibility
Our Top 5 White Hat SEO Tips
1. Be familiar with the webmasters SEO Guidelines.
To make sure you are adhering to the White Hat SEO tactics laid out by the Webmasters. You can see Google’s Guidelines to help you understand what you will need. By sticking to this you will not enter the ‘grey’ area of Black Hat SEO.
These guidelines inform you on how Google finds, indexes and ranks sites. Learning about these will give you an insight into how and why Google ranks sites an will allow you to optimise your site safely. It also details illicit methods that can lead to your site being blacklisted or banned permanently.
You may want to consider performing an SEO Audit of your website. Tips on how to do this can be found in our post: How to Do an SEO Audit: The Ultimate Checklist. This process will help you further your understanding of SEO and help you improve the effectiveness of your current strategy.
2. Publish relevant, unique and quality content
Publishing original content that is unique and helpful to the users. That does not mean that it has to be in depth and extremely long. Though Google doesn’t recommend a specific post length, we think, for the best results you should aim to hit at least 1000 words. Try to solve hard problems and share your learnings, data and challenge the way that people think.
A great way to do this is to find topics that are relevant and trending in the industry and tackle them from a different angle with new data and perspectives. Having great quality content that is unique will need to be relevant to the users, this will be touched on when we talk about the User Intent. In Contrast, if you decided to produce content that is ‘low-quality’, often duplicated and only intended to get people to a page, this is Black Hat SEO. Stay clear of this as is those bots at google catch you, you will have to start all over again.
3. Use Keyword tools and place them strategically and organically
Using keywords is important. Using them organically and strategically is better. The best tool to use for this is the Google Ads Keyword Planner. Conducting keyword analysis will help you stay away from keywords that are overly competitive and identify the best short and long-tail keywords to use on your site. This will also help you to match the User Intent (there’s that phrase again).
Another good way to brainstorm long-tail keywords is to go to google and search for something. Google will then give you options on how to finish off the search. These are the most common search’s related to what you’ve typed already. E.G. If you type in ‘Harry’, google will list the most common search’s i.e. ‘Harry Potter’, ‘Harry Kane’, ‘Harry & Megan’ and ‘Harry Styles’.
Begin to type the words you want to rank for note the phrases that Google suggests, these key phrases tend to be less competitive whilst also being more appropriate to your page.
To use keywords organically on your page try to utilise them in page titles, meta descriptions and image alt tags. This is very important as it will boost your SEO greatly. Additionally, you don’t have to have the exact match keyword in your content. For example, if your longtail keyword is ‘Vegetarian pizza recipes no tomato‘ then this could be hard to get into a sentence naturally. Search engines will recognise those words within a sentence like this ‘these are the best recipes for vegetarian pizza with no tomato that I’ve ever tried’.
It is important not to over do it with keywords as this would be classed as ‘keyword stuffing’. Overuse of the keywords in Titles, Headers and meta data is deemed as a Black Hat SEO technique. Try to incorporate them naturally to avoid any danger.
4. Consider User intent
User intent (also called ‘Search Intent’) is highly important to understand when creating your content. This is the search query that the user has typed into their search engine. The better the match to your page, the higher you will appear.
Firstly, understanding what people are going to search for and satisfying search intent is a top priority for Search Engines. By doing this you will pass their test and be much more likely to appear on the first page on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page).
Also consider how people search for what you are providing. Test it out on colleagues, family and friends. Furthermore, use Googles search function to pinpoint the best way to match the users Search Intent.
There are 4 common types of search intent:
Informational – when users are searching to learn about a subject
Navigational – when users are looking for a specific page or website
Commercial – when users are trying to learn about a product before making a purchase
Transactional – when a user is intending on completing a purchase or action.
Also make sure to use this along side step 3 and match the Keywords to the intent of the user.
5. Strive for a positive User Experience (UX)
The User Experience (otherwise known as UX) plays a big role in improving your Search Rankings. Google would much rather send you to a page that users find easy to use, loads quickly, is well structured and is mobile friendly.
There are several ways to improve your UX as shown above but the mot common ones to look out for are:
Headers and Sub-headers – using these will help build a structure to the website that helps the likes of Google to better understand your content. Using Sub-headings within headings (H1, H2, H3) will make the text more accessible an readable to users.
Make the Content Visually Appealing – Visuals like Images, videos, screenshots and infographics will also help readers understand your content better as it will help segregate the the content and get the points across
Avoid using intrusive pop-ups – In 2017 Google introduced guidelines that would penalise sites that use intrusive pop-up ads. They can be seen as annoying and cause users to leave the site. It is wise to use these sparingly. Find out more on this here.
Use White Space – Including white space on a webpage will increase legibility, branding and focus. The Interaction Design Foundation stands by this in their article and so does Google! Using white space in fundamental in a good design.
Mobile Friendly Sites are Key – 99.4% of the UK used mobile phones as of January 2021 so if your site is not mobile friendly you could be missing out on a huge audience. However, it is also crucial when it comes to UX because Google uses mobile-first Indexing. Use Google’s mobile-friendly test to check your site.
These tips will help you improve your UX. Not to mention that you Loading Speed will also have an impact on your UX.
If you found this information useful and would like to learn more take a look at our other posts helping with a variety of Digital Marketing tips.
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Sometimes, when you are going down a career path, you might end up changing your mind or becoming unsure of what you want to do. There have been many people who have felt that way at one point or another. It could be at college/sixth form or a different point in their life. You can figure out what career you want and how to achieve your career goals, whether you are thinking of how to be a digital marketer or any other career. Within this blog, I would like to share with you a story of one peer that I knew from school who had changed their minds about their career paths and what they did after. Do continue so that you have some more ways to be inspired in your career. Always remember there is help available to you, in both your career and personal life. To respect their privacy and gender identification, I have kept their identity anonymous and will be referring to them as ‘they’.
Their background
My peer who was a year older than me had dropped out of college. They had an interest in teaching and had picked teacher training as a course in their college. This is because they thought the idea of watching someone you taught grow and that having extra holidays during half term would be give a better work-life balance. However, when they were studying teacher training, my peer realised that teaching was not what they expected and had not found a starting salary that appealed to them, when searching for teacher assistant jobs as a starting point.
Career prospects
Whilst my peer felt lost and was contemplating what they wanted to do in their career. I too was thinking about career prospects. First, I searched online for digital marketing apprenticeships, as a viable career option. I knew it would be a blend of creativity and being analytical. Some of the creative aspects would be in making content and coming up with new ideas that would attract audiences to a service/product. A few of the analytical aspects would be to analyse data from reports for different channels. E.g. Viewing Snapchat analytics to see the type of audiences that had clicked on an ad, the number of views, impressions etc.
My peer spoke to me and told me that they were unsure of their options after dropping out of college, as they no longer wanted to teach. We spoke to each other, and I informed them that digital marketing apprenticeships were available. Even though, they had not studied digital marketing in school, from the conversation, they were able to see that digital marketing had a higher scope for them. They realised that they would be able to take different career paths, as there were so many options within digital marketing. Also, there were many transferable skills that they had learnt from their teaching training which were: problem-solving, handling conflict, managing others, planning, and organising, communication etc. Additionally, working from home and hybrid working is a common occurrence in digital marketing, so they would have work-life-balance.
Their journey to digital marketing
With my recommendation, they checked out available apprenticeships
for digital marketing and were able to start one at a creative agency called
OLIVER. They started making content/ ads for clients to promote their services to
intended target audience. Like other apprenticeships, which ‘Apprentice Now
offers’ such as: Level 4 Data Analyst; Level 3 Infrastructure technician; Level
3 Network engineer; Level 4 Software
Developer and Level 4 Software Tester, there is a structure that is
followed. The structure is that that apprentices complete a portfolio, so they
have a reference for all the work they are proud of and to showcase their
skills, knowledge, and ability. Then, there is the synoptic project where apprentices
will be given a brief and they need to complete the tasks set in the brief. An
example would be: Making a marketing strategy plan for a client, creating content
following the brief requirements, analysing/reflecting on the work done and
presenting to clients in the form of a deck. The last part would be an
interview, where you communicate what you did in your role, discuss your
portfolio and synoptic project with your assessors.
My peer completed the assessment requirements and finished their
digital marketing apprenticeship. They were promoted within the team and are
enjoying their career.
If you would like your story to be like this, where you find
your way to a career you will love and that will resonate with your values and
beliefs, then do try digital marketing apprenticeships.
Apprentice Now is preparing to open opportunities for Digital Marketing within their apprenticeships so keep a look out…
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You want to do work where you can thrive and earn cash. Do you want to know the Ways to be powerful in your work environment for L3 security role? You will thrive when you are able to hold your own power. Here are ways to be powerful in your work environment for L3 security manager role! Your own internal power will allow you to persevere in the L3 security first line manager role. This blog will go through what the role entails, requirements to manage others and dominate in the workplace. Read on and see if this apprenticeship peaks your interest. Regardless, you will get great ideas for your career path.
What is a security first line manager
A security first line manager is someone who ensures that the work environment is safe and manages the security force. Since security is important to our safety, there are many sectors you can work in. The windows of opportunity are available in sectors such as: Event security, department of transport, transport and border security etc.
Requirements and mindset
The requirements for the
L3 security role can be best summed up as being able problem-solve, effectively
communicate, handle conflict, make decisions, be able to assess risks and take
the appropriate solutions. In order make a start on the requirements mindset is
key. Without the foundation of having strong core values, you will have more of
a rollercoaster ride. Whether you write a quick note on your wall or make a mantra,
sing empowering affirmations, write in a journal for 5 mins or any creative,
effective method that floats your boat, it will remain in your subconscious
mind. Thoughts and beliefs within our subconscious mind that are empowering
will allow us to be calmer in situations, which is a massive requirement in
this job. Additionally, it will allow us to be resilient. This applies to any role;
however, it is needed for roles which require you to manage others because we
can decide our response to any situation.
A great way to practise
your mindset is through roleplay and being aware of your feelings regarding
different situations.
Whilst you ponder on potential
scenarios and become mindful of your thoughts towards them, I will take you
through the skills required, method of assessment and at the end summarise the
message of this blog, as well as a key takeaway for you.
Main skillset
Ability to plan and organise so that you are effectively
able to use your resources without any safety hazards like injuries that abide
with security standards.
Managing your environment. This would include
the site to ensure there is sufficient security and protecting valuable assets
of customers.
Ability to analyse- Utilising analytical skills
to assess a security-related issue or to reflect on previous scenarios
Understanding of applying health and safety
practices within security
Method of assessment
Assessment will be a mix
of practical and written. You will be given the chance to capture your work you
are proud of in a portfolio, which will be helpful to you in future roles. The work you do in your role can be done as a
video, audio or in a document.
The following evidence
can be captured within the portfolio:
Presentations.
Feedback received from stakeholders, line
manager, customers, peers etc.
Reports
Products relevant to performance or artefacts
from your work during the role
The apprenticeship is 18
months long and you will be given a synoptic project to do after the portfolio,
where you will be creating improvement plans and risks assessment, then implementing
them. Finally, you will have an interview where assessors will ask about your
projects and role.
Summary
Overall, the most effective ways to be powerful in the workplace is to strengthen your inner power through mindset and affirmations to tackle and manage high pressure situations in a security environment. Managing and organising others as well as yourself is one of the most important skills. The apprenticeship is 18 months long, where you will capture evidence of some of your projects, along with doing a synoptic project and then an interview.
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In a world where technology is constantly growing and evolving you can be at the centre of it all. Design, build and implement campaigns across a variety of platforms. Develop skills, learn new technologies and explore the Metaverse with a Level 3 Digital Marketing Apprenticeship.
Digital Marketing Technologies
Marketers who adapt to newer technologies are able to personalise, engage, and connect with their audience. Developments in system technologies help marketers become better at targeting and predicting the behaviours of their industries consumers. During your apprenticeship you will be recommended technologies to learn and understand. Applying effective secure and appropriate solutions whilst using a wide variety of platforms and user interfaces to achieve marketing objectives. Interfaces mean by which the user and computer system interact. In accordance with the occupational brief the apprentice will be able to demonstrate the use of three digital technology tools over three different platforms or user interfaces to meet objectives.
Examples technologies and tool:
Social Media – Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok etc. As well as social media management tools. Examples include Sprout, Hootsuite and Later.
Design Tools – Creating content for advertising using platforms such as Canva, Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator.
Email Marketing Tools – Using written communication skills in the form of newsletters to encourage brand engagement. Common tools include Mailchimp, Sender and Iterable.
The Importance Of Research
Market research goes hand in hand with digital marketing. Gathering consumer preferences, identifying trends, brand research and social listening. This can help your business eliminate the risk of targeting the wrong audience. This can save your company thousands of pounds when creating paid advertisements. During your apprenticeship you will take and interpret given topics both short and long term and make recommendations and report on the summary of findings to create a strategy. Throughout you will be conducting research sometimes without even realising you are! You will develop technical understanding of the following principles:
Search Marketing
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
Metrics
Pay-Per-Click
Analysing Data
Digital analytics measures and evaluates the success of digital marketing activities. You will analyse digital data from various sources like websites, mobile apps, and social media to provide a vision of how customers are behaving in relation to your company. Through analytics you will obtain an insight into the areas where there may need to be improvement. In line with the occupational brief the apprentice must be able to analyse data and create reports by selecting three appropriate tools. This can include:
Website Data – this identifies who is coming to the company’s site and their activity while they’re there. This can be obtained through Google analytics. Google analytics lets you explore your audience such as demographics, location, retention, and the device in which the user searched on.
Social Media analytics – Data gathered from social channels measures the performance of actioned based decisions through social media. Companies with business accounts have access to information such as accounts reached, accounts engaged, impressions and profile activity. Tools such as Hootsuite, Sprout and Later can also be used to gather data.
A Group of People Discussing Charts
Digital Marketer Assessment
Technical knowledge and understanding are formally assessed at relevant times during your apprenticeship. The EPA (End Point Assessment) includes an assessment of all requirements of the standard. The following assessment methods are summative portfolio, synoptic project, employer reference and an interview. This displays all the knowledge, behaviours, and technical competencies you have learnt through your apprenticeship.
Conclusion
As you can see, the Level 3 Digital Marketer apprenticeship includes various technical aspects. With technology constantly evolving it has the power to predict your consumer’s next move. I hope this blog gives you an insight into the technologies you will learn during the apprenticeship including analytics, research, and social media tools.
Have you just started your summative portfolio and/or are you struggling to process how to complete the “Implementation” Competency? Well you have come to the right place! As this blog post will cover one of the many competencies you will need to complete within your Digital Marketing (DM) Summative Portfolio.
What is the ‘Implementation’ Competency & Summative Portfolio?
The summative portfolio is a document that holds all your evidence of projects you have completed within the duration of your apprenticeship at work. It is recommended to start working on your portfolio as soon as you obtain your occupational brief in order to make your workload more manageable. You should also absorb any information and try to take part in many projects as you can to gather more evidence for your portfolio to write about, the more the merrier – from here you can choose which projects you believe are your best projects to present.
In your Summative Portfolio you are aiming to complete all competencies in order to get ready for Gateway. We will be going through one of the competencies today which is ‘Implementation’ Competency as I would like to show others how this competency is actually far more manageable and easier once you understand how to complete it to the best you can.
Why do I need to do the Implementation Competency?
In order to complete your L3 Digital Marketing
Apprenticeship, you will need to complete main things which are:
Summative portfolio – You will need to aim and
complete all competencies from the occupational brief. (We will be going
through one of the competencies out of all to help you kick start your
portfolio)
Exams – Complete all required examinations within
the apprenticeship.
Synoptic Project – Choose either Project A or
Project B to do (this will take place once you go through your gateway)
Employer Reference – A reference document that
your employer completes to refer back to your portfolio work to show you have
completed all competencies successfully.
End-Point Assessment Interview – this is where
you will showcase your portfolio and synoptic project mainly and be assessed on
this.
Tips on understanding how to complete the ‘Implementation’ Competency
I was one of many apprentices who struggled to tick off the competency ‘Implementation’. You need to aim to hit the Pass criteria minimum in the occupational brief. In order to achieve the Pass criteria for this competency, “To meet this competency the apprentice will need to build and implement campaigns across at least 3 different digital media, including social media platforms.” Remember they must be all different types of Implementation so avoid doing the same extra implementation that won’t count as another since you already showcased it. For example three different pay per click platforms (e.g. Google Ads PPC, Amazon PPC, Facebook Ads) would not be three different digital media.
Out of the options below, you will choose three different
ones and showcase a project about each of the three different types you chose:
Email – Email marketing campaign
Social – Organic Social Campaign
Affiliate – Affiliate marketing
Mobile Apps – Mobile app development
PPC – Google Ads PPC, Facebook Ads
Display – Google Ads, display/video
SEO – Off Page SEO, On Page SEO (technical)
These may come across as if they are a lot of options to take in but we will go through a few steps/tips I used for my own personal experience in ensuring I managed this workload correctly.
Tip 1 – Creating a plan
I know it is easy to say to create a plan however for each individual it differs how one may choose to plan their schedule and work out. I used a project management tool called Asana on my laptop to maintain all my work on and easily edit and add to whenever and wherever I wanted to; that too all online. Asana is a great tool to use to manage your tasks, projects, you are even able to collaborate with others on a task and are easily able to keep them updated with a simple click.
Furthermore, it is very vital for you to plan out any project you’re doing beforehand and ensuring you are keeping both your coach and line manager up-to-date with the work you will do. This is because this will allow your coach and line manager to begin helping you with job shadowing, understanding how to portray your project, what screenshots you will need to showcase within your portfolio. Having a simple online tool or a notebook to utilise is great as it will act almost like a checklist and evidence of proof-reading your work before submitting it. Another useful tip when writing up your projects in your portfolio use the STAR framework.
Tip 2 – Aligning with the team
Understand which implementation projects you are able to have responsibility for and align this work with your line manager/colleagues who are able to provide you with a job responsibility for that specific implementation. For example for SEO, you could choose to do SEO On Page where it will require you to work with someone in your team who works in SEO and Analytics team and you are able to go through what tools (SEMRush) they use to do a free site audit check, etc. Make sure you ask for an email outline of what will be needed from your presence within the project and ensure you are aligned with required colleagues for this project such as arranging time together. This can be done with using a conference technology tool such as Google Meets.
Tip 3 – Having a back – to – back responsibility
It is required that you showcase evidence of the whole process of the project. There may be in some projects you do not have all responsibility in however you showing that you was involved throughout the process by capturing screenshots of the whole process; as you will be presenting all these screenshots with annotations within your portfolio to create a step – by – step process. Or you can place all screenshots in chronological order then come back later to write up in further detail.
Tip 4 – STAR Framework
Another useful tip when writing up your projects in your portfolio, use the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result)
Tip 5 – Saving/Uploading your Work
Ensure all your work is organised such as using Google Drive to save/upload your work on and using folders in your drive to neatly organise everything. Like this you will easily label your work and find it much easily.
Always save your work elsewhere too as a backup. For example, I saved all my stuff on Google Drive mainly but I always also saved it on my USB stick just in case the Google servers may be down thus I can’t access my Google Drive however, I can access my personal USB stick and haven’t lost any of my work as a result.
Conclusion
I hope you found this blog post useful! If you have any
questions or comments please reply below this post and I will try my utmost best
to help where I can. Explore our other blogs written by apprentices here.
Are you starting out your career in paid social advertising and are daunted by the complex nuances of social media? Worry no longer, read this guide to find out how to smash your advertising.
Colleagues working on a marketing strategy
Is Paid social advertising worth it?
Paid Social advertising are sponsored ads that run on social media. Brands pay money to run these ads on these platforms to reach users specific to their objective and target audience.
By using Paid Social advertising, it gives your brand a guaranteed reach as you’re essentially paying for your target audience’s attention. Through paid social, you can set up specific target audiences to best accompany the objective of your campaign whilst supporting your organic social media campaigns long-term.
5 key steps into running a successful paid social campaign
1. Pick the right social media platforms to run your ads on
There are so many social media networks to choose from,
however choosing the right platform to advertise your ads on can be tricky.
Facebook/Instagram is one of the most used social media
platforms with over 2 billion active users, which makes this platform great for
awareness and creating a brand presence. This accompanied with its audience
targeting and various content placements make this a great starter platform!
Snapchat, a Gen-Z dominated app, is where users post and
engage with short-form videos which makes it perfect to advertise using the
Snap Ads/Commercials placements. Snapchat also offers Filters/AR Lens which
brands can use to incorporate their business.
Twitter, the platform for conversation around topics, can be
great when using keyword targeting as this puts your ads within the key
conversations taking place in real time.
Lastly is TikTok, which although is a new platform, it has
risen in the ranks of social media popularity tenfold! As this is also a Gen-Z
dominated app, brands can instantly connect with the next generation of
consumers with trending short-form videos which makes it great at driving
awareness and conversions.
2. What is the objective of your campaign?
To consider the objective of your campaign, first you need to decide what your business goals are.
Awareness – shows your ads to people who are most likely to remember them
Engagement – gets more video views, messages, or post engagement
Traffic – sends people to an online destination such as a website or app
Leads – collects leads for your brand
App Promotion – find new people to install your app and continue to use it
Purchases – find people who are likely to purchase your products or services
3. What KPIs will you be measuring for success?
A key performance indicator (KPI) is a measurable value that is used track success. Some options to measure are:
Cost-per-Thousand Impressions (CPM) is the amount you pay for every 1,000 impressions your ad receives.
Cost-per-Click (CPC) is the actual price you pay a publisher every time an online user clicks on your ad.
Click-Through-Rate (CTR) is the percentage of people who click on your ad/url over the number of impressions made.
View-Through-Rate (VTR) is the percentage of completed views of a skippable ad over the number of initial impressions.
4. What are the best creatives and copy for this campaign?
Take some time to research the perfect creatives and copy for your ads. By using Facebook Ad Library, you can spend some time browsing other ads that your competitors may be running but make sure to be original and not to copy! Take note of what creatives jump out at you, and how ‘good’ ads speak to their customers.
5.Track your paid social campaign with analytics
Lastly, tracking your paid social analytics really determines if your campaigns was a success or not. By using the platforms ad reporting tool, you can deep-drive into your campaign’s performance and understand whether you saw an ROI for your campaigns and opportunities to optimise future campaigns.
Now it’s time to try it yourself!
Remember paid social, like a lot of other marketing channels, takes time and practice so don’t worry if you don’t see results the first time. There’s so much to learn so make sure you keep up to date with industry news and sign up to our newsletter!
Have you felt overwhelmed trying to create and send an email marketing campaign? When it comes to email marketing, there are a lot of elements to consider. We’ve listed eight of our top tips on how digital marketer apprentices can improve email marketing campaigns…
Get personal
With email marketing continuing to be an effective way to
communicate with target audiences, a great way to stand out amongst the crowd is
by personalising your email campaigns. Including someone’s name in a subject
line or the preview copy can help to grab people’s attention and ultimately get
someone to open your email.
Pay attention to subject lines
In addition to testing personalisation, it’s also essential
to pay close attention to the subject lines of your email campaigns. As mentioned
previously, there’s a lot of competition among people’s email inboxes, so it’s
important to write a subject line that will be eye-catching and engaging. Make
sure to keep them short and sweet!
Give A/B testing a go
A great way to find out more about your audience is by giving
A/B testing a go. A/B testing (also known as split testing) is when you create
two variations of one email campaign and send them to a small percentage of
your email list. Half of the test group gets sent Version A, and the other half
of the group gets sent Version B. The winning email is then determined by identifying
which one receives either the most opens or clicks. A/B testing can help you better
understand your audience and the type of emails they engage with most.
Try adding GIFs to your email
Using GIFs in your email campaigns can really help attract people’s attention and consequently improve engagement. Just remember to make sure they are the correct size to ensure they display correctly in recipients’ inboxes. Canvais a great digital tool to utilise when it comes to making creative GIFs.
Optimise your emails for mobile
Optimising your emails for mobile is another important top tip for digital marketer apprentices. Now that such a high percentage of people usually view emails on their phone, it’s more important than ever to make sure your emails are designed for both mobile and desktop views.
Experiment with send times
Another way to learn more about your audience is by
experimenting with send times. Try sending email campaigns at different times
and see what email receives the most engagement. Over time, you should start to
see patterns and be able to pinpoint what works best for your email marketing.
Preview and test your emails before sending
This is probably the most important tip we can give! Do not
forget to preview and test your emails before sending. The last thing you want
to happen is a typo or the wrong image in your email campaign…
Monitor your email marketing performance
And last but certainly not least, make sure to always
monitor and review your email marketing performance. The best way to learn
about the success of your email campaigns and audience is to track and analyse their
performance. Pay particularly close attention to your open rate, click-through
rate, and unsubscribe rate as these metrics will indicate whether people are reading
and engaging with your emails.
Conclusion
To summarise, email marketing can be an incredibly effective
way to communicate with audiences. By following these top tips, digital marketer
apprentices will be more than ready to create amazing email marketing campaigns.
For more advice and support for digital marketer apprentices, take a look at some of our other posts here.
You can also subscribe to our mailing list by clicking the button below.
Social media is a powerful tool, so why not use it to your advantage? As a digital marketing apprentice social media should be one of your most trusted tools when it comes to marketing. Many people can use social media to shop, learn and discover new brands or trends.
Social media marketing is a form of digital marketing that gives a business of any size the power to achieve its goals. It requires thought, measurable and achievable goals and a content or strategy plan. These goals could include:
Engagement, monitoring the number of followers, likes and shares
Reputation and brand awareness through responding to comments, enquires and questions
Posting content such as videos and pictures within a specific time frame
Reaching as many audiences and people as possible
This type of marketing can be organic or paid. Paid social media would include advertising and paying for your product, service or business to appear in someones feed to allow you to target a larger amount of users. As a digital marketing apprentice you will cover many aspects of paid social campaigns as well as content planning, influence marketing and content creation.
Benefits of Social Media Marketing
There are many advantages to using social media, and as an apprentice it is your job to determine when it is appropriate to use social media and why. How will it benefit you and your organisation? Here are a few reasons:
It increases brand awareness
Creates stronger relationship between your organisation and your viewers
Traffic: Driving traffic to your main website is a great use of social media
You are relatable. When you can connect with your viewers, you become more human to them.
Conclusion
Digital Marketers have the power to change the marketing world from their finger tips. You can do the same through a digital marketing apprenticeship. Read more about Digital Marketing Apprenticeships.
