Implementation competency Archives

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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.

Asana Product Guide Screenshot — Image Source: https://asana.com/guide/help/projects/templates

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.

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Have you just been introduced to the concept of the Summative Portfolio? Or are you part-way through your apprenticeship looking for some competency advice? Well look no further! This blog provides you with some great top 3 tips for the ‘implementation’ competency and will be your go-to resource when completing your portfolio.

Firstly, what is the ‘Summative Portfolio’?

The Summative Portfolio is a documented piece of work completed over the course of an 18-month Level 3 Digital Marketing Apprenticeship. Within this portfolio, there are a list of technical competencies required to tick off, supported by a variety of evidence to showcase completion. The portfolio itself is one out of four assessment methods used to measure the overall performance of the apprentice. The other three methods are the synoptic project, employer reference, and interview. These four together contribute to the overall End Point Assessment (EPA) where a final grade will be granted based on the above factors.

image showing ideal work desk set up with the help of the top 3 tips for the 'implementation' competency

What is the ‘Implementation’ Competency?

A part of the portfolio that many people struggle with is ticking off the Implementation competency. As per the occupational brief, to achieve a minimum of a pass, you ‘must be able to build and implement campaigns across at least 3 different digital media, including social media platforms’.

The different digital medias, and some accompanying digital campaign examples are:

PPC – Google Ads, search PPC
Display – Google Ads, display/video
SEO – On page SEO keyword research
Email – Email marketing newsletter campaign
Social – Paid Social ads e.g. Facebook
Affiliate – Affiliate marketing
Mobile Apps – Mobile app development

You wouldn’t be the first (or last) person to think that the above sounds complicated! So, let me introduce you to my Top 3 Tips for the ‘Implementation’ Competency: Creating a Plan, Job Shadowing, and End to End Responsibility.

My Top 3 Tips for the ‘Implementation’ Competency

Tip 1 – Create a Plan

This is one of the most important things to do from the offset – plan. It’s vital you have a framework in place to work towards. A good plan will consist of input from yourself, your line manager, and your coach. An especially great way to initiate this is by having a meeting with all three parties together. You should talk about what will be possible in your current role, the time it will take to complete the implementations and, if required, possible scope to shadow other teams (advice in Tip 2). Not only will creating a plan keep you on track overall, but it will also help to utilise your time effectively, as it will be time to submit before you realise!

Tip 2 – Job Shadowing

If your current role is limited in meeting a variety of implementations, then you will need to work with colleagues elsewhere to achieve these campaigns. Firstly, establish which implementations are outstanding and ask your manager to identify a team or colleague who can help. Then, ask your line manager to send an email outlining exactly what is needed from the other team to assist and arrange a convenient time for you to spend in their presence. This can be done face to face or remotely through tools such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Loom.

Tip 3 – End to End Responsibility

A key part to the implementation competency is demonstrating that you have managed a campaign from beginning to end. During this process you may identify some gaps to fill e.g. working with the team that is responsible for XYZ. To evidence this end-to-end involvement, you must have screenshots in your portfolio with annotations explaining this step-by-step process. A great way to navigate this is by keeping a folder of screenshots, or by adding them to your portfolio document in chronological order, later coming back to write up the annotations.

Conclusion

Hopefully you are now crystal clear with what the Implementation competency requires and have taken on board my 3 top tips. But don’t worry if you’re still a bit confused; it takes time to fully understand what is expected. A great further read is this guide to a successful portfolio which provides detail about the portfolio and provides some additional tips.

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