level 3 digital marketing

A Practical Guide to the Level 3 Digital Marketer Apprenticeship

by

A Digital Marketer uses online and social media platforms to design, set up and implement campaigns. They use digital tools and techniques to drive customer sales and conversions. Almost every company needs a Digital Marketer to build their brand and promote their products or services, so the opportunities are endless! A great way to earn an apprenticeship wage while you learn is through the Level 3 Digital Marketer Apprenticeship. Stay tuned to find out what it takes to kick-start your career in Digital Marketing.

The Role of a Digital Marketer

The main role of a Digital Marketer is to define, design, set up and implement digital campaigns across various online and social media platforms. Through marketing efforts and campaigns, they drive customer acquisition, engagement and retention. Digital Marketers usually sit in a wider Marketing team, working together to deliver on the overall marketing plan or strategy.

You could be reporting to:

  • Digital Marketing Manager
  • Marketing Manager
  • IT Manager

 Potential job roles include, but are not limited to:

  • Digital Marketing Assistant
  • Digital Marketing Executive
  • Digital Marketing Co-ordinator
  • Campaign Executive
  • Social Media Executive
  • Content Co-ordinator
  • Email Marketing Executive
  • SEO Executive

There’s a lot of different specialties within Digital Marketing, you just need to find your niche! A great place to start is by looking at various apprenticeship training providers, such as Apprentice Now.

How to Qualify for the Level 3 Digital Marketer Apprenticeship

Each employer has their own requirements when choosing apprentices, the application process could be similar to that of any other job. One of the most important criteria will be your passion for social media, digital media and marketing trends. Any existing knowledge and enthusiasm will be welcomed.

Technical criteria could include:

  • GCSEs
  • A Levels
  • Level 2 Apprenticeship (or other relevant qualifications)
  • Previous experience in a relevant field
  • Aptitude test assessing functional maths

Cube blocks with digital marketer and social media platform graphics

Top 11 Technical Skills Digital Marketing Employers Look For

  1. Written Communication

    There’s a lot of different teams involved in executing strong digital strategy, so you’ll need to show that you can communicate well with different people. Marketing is all about messaging, so clear written communication is key. Digital marketers need to be able to adapt their communication to connect with different audiences.

  2. Research

    The world of Digital Marketing is becoming increasingly data driven. Employers are looking for apprentices who can interpret and present data to inform strategies and insights. Strong analysis skills and opinions are essential.

  3. Technologies

    Are you tech savvy? You’ll need to have a good eye for recommendations and applications of technology, including exciting developments. Employers need apprentices to apply effective and secure solutions using various digital tools and technologies, across platforms, to achieve marketing goals.

  4. Data

    Excel. You’re all over it. Digital marketers must be able to monitor, analyse and manipulate data sets to understand online activity and offer actionable insights to the wider team and clients.

  5. Customer Service

    A Digital Marketer is responsible for growing and nurturing online communities. Strong customer service is needed when responding effectively to enquiries on social media platforms and filtering through requests.

  6. Problem Solving

    You’ve got to be a fixer. If you love thinking outside of the box to find solutions, digital marketing is for you. Across a variety of digital platforms, you’ll be applying problem solving techniques and analysing issues.

  7. Analysis

    It’s all about understanding complex information and presenting it in a simple way. You’ll be an asset if you can understand and create analytical dashboards using various tools.

  8. Implementation

    Try to pick up processes quickly, setting up digital campaigns on lots of different digital platforms.

  9. Specialist Areas

    There are lots of different areas of Digital Marketing that you could specialise in. If you want to become the go to expert, employers look for expertise in at least two of the following areas: search marketing, search engine optimisation, e mail marketing, web analytics and metrics, mobile apps and Pay-Per-Click
  10. Digital Analytics

    You’ll need to present evidence to prove performance or delivery success when evaluating and measuring marketing activity.
  11. Interprets and Follows

    Employers are looking for apprentices that are immersed in the industry and hungry to stay ahead of the trends. You’ll benefit from knowing the latest news in digital media technologies and marketing trends. You’ll also need to execute marketing briefs or plans and uphold company client standards.

Click here to find out more.

Conclusion

Working on these technical skills will put you in a great position to pursue the Level 3 Digital Marketer Apprenticeship with an exciting employer. There’s a world of opportunity in the Sales, Marketing and Procurement industry, and this apprenticeship could be your next best step. If you’d like to find out more, subscribe to our newsletter below!

Click on the banner to subscribe to Apprentice Tips newsletter.

Digital Marketing Apprenticeship: SEO and PPC Integration

by

Search engine optimisation (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) are two methods of conducting search marketing. This is the process of gaining traffic and visitors from search engines both through unpaid and paid tactics. That is the key here – as a digital marketing apprentice it’s important to remember both paid and unpaid methods of gaining traffic are important contributions to a successful search strategy. SEO and PPC integration can help a company get the best of both worlds.

What is SEO?

SEO is the organic process of improving the quantity and quality of web traffic to a site through a search engine. The more visible a website is on a search engine (like Google, Bing or Yahoo) the more likely the website is to attract visitors.

Search engines use bots to crawl a site, they will gather information about a page or website and rank it based on several technical factors. It will then use that information to determine where a page or website appears in a search engine results page (SERP). There are two parts to an SEO score: the content and the infrastructure of the page. For content, an SEO score will depend on a number of factors. These include keyword targeting, page titles, subheadings, content quality, meta description, and much more. Infrastructure is determined by the site speed, mobile optimisation, and the structure of a website. The benefits of SEO include: 

  • A long-term strategy to help build traffic to a site 
  • Encourages businesses to focus on user experience 
  • Tracking a user’s journey across a site to gain a high level of data 
  • Gain quality traffic to a site 
  • Can be implemented on a budget 
  • Increases brand awareness 
Laptop on a table with graphs and charts on the screen

What is PPC?

PPC is an advertising model used to drive traffic to a page or website. The advertiser will pay every time someone clicks on their link in an SERP. An advertiser will choose to display a paid advert on a SERP – it’s a way to buy visits to a page or website, instead of earning them organically through SEO. There are many benefits to PPC, these include: 

  • The advertiser will only pay if the ad is clicked on  
  • Advertisers can choose to spend as much or as little as they want 
  • Can target an audience through extensive demographics 
  • The data received can benefit other strategies, like social media 
  • Can provide instant traffic to a page or website 
  • Ability to test keywords in the ads 

SEO and PPC integration

Throughout your digital marketing apprenticeship, it’s best to consider both SEO and PPC tactics when creating search marketing strategies. SEO (organic) and PPC (paid) are two different strategies, within the same category, used to help drive traffic to a page or website. However, they work best for most companies as an integrated approach. According to Google, when a site has strong organic search results, they will increase their click-through rate for their PPC ads on the same SERP.

It’s rare for most companies to have the resource to run long and expensive PPC campaigns – this is when SEO steps in. Using the keyword data gathered from paid ads can be fed into SEO and help improve website visibility in the long-term. SEO and PPC integration, allows the results from A/B testing of copy to be used when optimising pages on a website organically. Both strategies can help target an audience at all stages of the customer journey, catching as many people as possible. Using an integrated approach can help build brand confidence and awareness, as people are more trusting of organic results. 

Man holding a tablet which shows graphs and charts on the screen

3 key things to remember

  • Creating a search strategy will allow you to plan and research before making any decisions
  • SEO is a long-term search strategy, whereas PPC can boost traffic quickly and in the short-term
  • SEO and PPC are ideally used together to get the best website optimisation result

Find out more

Visit our website for more information that will help you work towards your digital marketing apprenticeship. 

Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn for regular updates. Sign-up to our mailing list to be kept up to date with the latest UK apprenticeship information. 

Digital Marketing Apprenticeship – Strategy Tips

by
Digital Marketing Apprenticeship

If you’re looking to start a level 3 digital marketing apprenticeship, one of the main roles will involve working on strategies to help promote businesses and their content. There are a lot of things to think about, therefore this guide will help break down some of the key elements to be considered in your strategy.

Digital Marketing Apprenticeship
Image from StartupStockPhotos on Pixabay

1. Think of the Marketing Theme

What is the main aim of your digital marketing strategy? A theme can help to focus your ideas and make planning the strategy easier. Think of the main objective of your strategy and craft your content so it aligns with the main goal – is it to understand your audience more, increase engagement, boost traffic to a particular page or product or is it to raise awareness? On social media, reinforce the theme with the use of hashtags and consider a narrative arc for your posts.

2. All About the Audience

A very important aspect of your digital marketing strategy is understanding the audience you are targeting. You need to understand their needs to be able to provide the content, product, or services they are searching for. To define your target audience, categorise by their demographic data (age, location, profession, income, education), define their life stage and lifestyle – are they studying, new parents or retired for example? Think about the behaviour of the target audience such as how they purchase products, where they go online and what competitors do they interact with. This way you will be better equipped to know how to create your content for your audience.

3. Pick your Digital Marketing Platform

There are several different social media platforms for digital marketing, but they all have different benefits for different campaigns. It is paramount to pick the right place to post your content to make sure your chosen audience will see it and engage with it. Twitter is good for short term, real-life, fast-moving conversation with content that needs high interactivity. Instagram is a more visual platform that works well for story telling and connecting people with brands and ideas.  Whilst if you are looking to share viral short form content and connect with communities then Facebook is an effective platform.

4. Create your Digital Marketing Content Plan

For the digital marketing apprenticeship you will have to create content and the type of content will be determined in your strategy. Define what your content is aiming to achieve –try to use ideas that match your aims such as the following.

To entertain:

  • Run competitions
  • Quizzes
  • Create games
  • Share branded videos

To inspire:

  • Collaborate with influencers
  • Set up a community forum
  • Promote events

To convince:

  • Use data sheets and price guides
  • Create interactive demos
  • Share customer reviews

To educate:

  • Create infographics
  • Share demos
  • Produce guides

5. Specify Digital Marketing SEO

In your strategy it is not just about what content you will produce but how you will optimise it, make sure you list your ideas such as:

  • Using relevant keywords
  • Internal linking to relevant pages
  • Using clear structure and subheadings throughout written content
  • Tagging products
  • Using keywords in alt text for images
  • Adding keywords and hashtags to social posts

6. Measure the Marketing Metrics

During an apprenticeship it is important to reflect on your performance and identify what is going well and what could be improved. The same applies to your strategies. It is good to outline what you will use to track the results of your digital marketing strategies. Utilise the analytics tools in the chosen social media platforms you use, dashboards can give a clear overview and you should specify what Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) you want to check. It is recommended to track throughout campaigns, so refer to your strategy which should detail what you want to monitor. Regularly checking the metrics will allow you to amend the strategy, if necessary, based on the insights you review.

Conclusion

A level 3 digital marketing apprenticeship is a perfect way to get involved in the digital industry. During the apprenticeship you will learn all about creating digital and social media strategies, these are just some of the core elements to producing a strategy for success. Learn about more of the skills you can gain from a digital marketing apprenticeship here.

Top tips for your Web Content as a Digital Marketer

by
Man in Striped Long Sleeve Shirt Sitting on Table Using Laptop writing web content with ApprenticeTIps.com logo in bottom right

Having trouble with your web content? As a Digital Marketer your web content should be the cornerstone of your output. As a result of this it is crucial that what goes on your website is to a high standard and above all engaging!

No matter what Content Management System (CMS) you use whether it is WordPress, Joomla or Jadu, this article will help provide an easy-to-follow web content framework for you.

Aims of Web Content

Before you post anything on your website it is important to identify what the aims and objectives are for that web content. This should have been agreed in a marketing plan or campaign plan during the planning stage of a project/campaign. An example of this could be: To provide information on apprenticeships in the UK to help grow the business.

All content should work together to help reach the agreed goal, in other words don’t just post for the sake of posting but upload content that is engaging, original and targeted.

Having a content/project managing plan is helpful to ensure what you are posting matches the aims.

User Experience

Now you know why you are posting; the next step is thinking how you are posting. You will have heard the phrase ‘customer is king’, this applies to web content too! If the user doesn’t find what you are posting easy to read, engaging and original it is unlucky they will return to your site or content in the future. Using the Yoast plugin’s readability function can help with ensuring your content is of the highest quality and what you may need to improve it. If text is too long and confusing then it may need simplifying, think to yourself can I say this in less words?

You need to ensure all links within your content are up-to-date and working because if someone is sent off your site to the wrong place, they might not find your content trustworthy or could not return. Using website monitoring tools such as SilkTide and Monsido run regular scans of your site’s content and provide reports on spelling mistakes, grammar issues and broken links.

Accessibility within your Web Content

When posting anything to your website you need to take everyone into consideration. As a result of this you provide yourself the biggest possible user base. When including links into your content make sure it is within the text and makes sense instead of just having a ‘click here’ link, as these can cause an issue for those using screen readers on your site. Similarly, if an image has been used Alt-text should be applied to it. Alt-text allows for an image to be described to someone who is using a screen reader on your site, so this will allow them to engage with your content the way you intended.

"Designers should always keep their users in mind" on laptop screen

SEO Optimisation

The next step is to ensure your web content can be found. There is little point to posting content no one is going to see; this is where SEO comes in. You will need to do some keyword research and decide what search terms you want to be found for. Using tools like Google Trends can help you decide if you want to target a highly competitive keyword which will be harder to be found for or a less competitive keyword which will have a lower possible user base.  Now you know your keyword you want all the content you post to be SEO Optimised. Using Yoast plugin will help you track how optimised your content is.

Key factors in SEO Optimisation include:

  • Keyword Density
  • Meta Description length
  • Mobile Friendliness
  • Internal and External Links
  • Content length

Success of your Web Content

You’ve posted your engaging, optimised and accessible now what? The next stage is to track the success of your web content. The most popular tool used by digital marketers is Google Analytics, this is because Google is the most used search engine, this is what you want to be ranked on.

Google Analytics provides a wide variety of data such as:

  • Unique Page View
  • Time on Page
  • Bounce Rate
  • Sessions

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) will have been agreed in a marketing plan and these will provide the framework for what you are tracking. An example of a KPI for web content could be: Increase our average page views each month by 20%, this can be achieved with SEO optimising the posts and increasing the rankings.

Conclusion

These tips should help you on your way to posting engaging, optimised and accessible content, to meet those aims! If you would like to know more about any of the topics mentioned within this article, please find out more on our website.  

For the latest updates, connect with us!

Follow us on socials: LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook

Never miss out on an apprenticeship update, sign up to our mailing list for the week’s latest blog posts and apprentice opportunities.

5 Free Email Marketing Tools to Create Effective Campaigns in 2022

by
Three emails in a Gmail Workspace inbox

Contrary to what many may think, email marketing isn’t dead. In fact, the average order value of an email is three times higher than that of social media. It is thus no wonder that email marketing remains one of the specialisms listed in the digital marketing apprenticeship standard. Use these best email marketing tools and software to develop effective email marketing campaigns.

  1. Best Email Service Provider (ESP) | Mailchimp
  2. Best Email Template Builder | Stripo
  3. Best for Email Marketing Analysis | Google Analytics
  4. Best Email Copywriting Tool | Grammarly
  5. Best for Email Compression | Compress JPEG

Best Email Service Provider (ESP) | Mailchimp

Let’s start with the most essential: email service providers. ESPs allow you to send email campaigns to a list of subscribers using email software. Mailchimp is a great free one because you can split your subscribers up into groups and segments. This means you can send targeted emails improving click-through rates and conversions. In 2022, personalisation continues to be an important part of email marketing strategies, and email automation is a great way to achieve this. Email automation is available on Mailchimp and can be used to create effective drip marketing campaigns, ensuring you send the right message at the right moment to the right people. Other ESPs you could look at are Zoho Campaigns, which is free with up to 6,000 emails per month to 2,000 contacts, and Klaviyo, which is also free with up to 500 emails to up to 250 contacts.

Cost: Mailchimp Free includes up to 2,000 contacts, with 10,000 sends per month and a daily limit of 2,000.

Digital marketing apprenticeship standard: Technologies, implementation, specialist areas (email marketing), digital tools

A person planning their email workflow strategy on a whiteboard for abandoned cart emails
Email automation workflows can be directly created in Mailchimp

Best Email Template Builder | Stripo

Most ESPs provide a host of free email marketing templates, but they are usually basic newsletter designs. Stripo utilises drag-and-drop content modules to help you create HTML email templates, and is one of my personal favourites as you can set the branding for headings and other design elements. Additionally, each content block can be optimised for mobile. Using Stripo you can create beautiful email mock-ups and reuse the templates. Sections of your email templates can also be saved as modules, which can be dragged into new designs. Altogether, Stripo guarantees brand consistency across your email campaigns.

Cost: The free version of Stripo allows you to create two email templates and export 4 emails to ESPs per month

Digital marketing apprenticeship standard: Technologies, specialist area, digital tools

Best Email Marketing Analysis | Google Analytics

ESPs are great sources to collect email metrics, such as open rates, click-through rates and email deliverability. But, once a user clicks on a link and leaves their email inbox, ESPs can no longer track their behaviour. This is where Google Analytics comes in. Using UTM tracking parameters, Google Analytics can track where users came from, how long they spend on a page and whether they ended up completing a goal. As a result, digital marketers can calculate their return on investment for their email marketing strategy.

Cost: Google Analytics is free for small and medium-sized businesses

Digital marketing apprenticeship standard: Data, analysis, digital tools, digital analytics

Best Email Copywriting Tool | Grammarly

Have you ever sent an email and then realised there’s a typo? It can happen, but unfortunately, it could make your brand look unprofessional. While email best practice is to write copy in Google Docs or a Word Document, this can often be time-consuming. These word processors do not analyse the text for the tone of voice either. Grammarly is a writing assistant that does not only review your spelling but also your grammar, inflexion, and clarity of the sentences. The best features are Grammarly’s plug-ins that can be used in apps, word processors and, you guessed it, email clients. This ensures you can write easily readable and typo-free email campaigns even when time is of the essence.

Cost: Grammarly free checks for spelling, grammar and punctuation.

Digital marketing apprenticeship standard: Written communication, technologies

Best for Email Compression | Compress JPEG

If you have used an ESP before, you may have noticed a warning comes up when you try to import an image that is too big. The reason ESPs have these pop-ups is that emails over 3MB in size risk being flagged as spam. One way to reduce an email’s size is to compress the photos in it. Compress JPEG makes it easy to import or drop the files into its compressor. After the software compresses the file, you can download the minimised version. Any files uploaded on Compress JPEG are deleted after one hour because security and privacy are key to the operations of most businesses. You can also adjust the quality, and in turn the file size, manually. In addition to JPEGs, PNGs, GIFs and PDF files can also be compressed by clicking on the appropriate tab on the website.

Cost: Compress JPEG and its sister sites are free to use with unlimited file compressions

Digital marketing apprenticeship standard: Problem-solving, digital tools, interprets and follows

Screenshots of where you can upload the file, adjust the quality and download the minimised file format on Compress JPEG
On Compress JPEG, you can upload a file, adjust the quality and then download the minimised version.

Creating Effective Email Marketing Campaigns

As a digital marketer, it is important to understand the wide range of tools at your disposal. Using various email marketing tools will bring you one step closer to building and implementing a great email campaign that is sure to impress your line manager and EPA organisation.

Follow us on social media to get digital marketing tips and tricks in your daily feed.

Twitter Link
LinkedIn Link

Must Do’s when creating Social Media Strategies

by
Blog post of Must Do’s when creating Social Media Strategies – Tips for L3 Digital Marketer Apprentices

Tips for L3 Digital Marketer Apprentices

A social media strategy is a plan of action for using your social media platforms as a marketing tool. As a Level 3 Digital Marketing apprentice, being able to create and implement social media strategies is a key factor.

The objectives of any strategy are to increase brand awareness, build brand recognition and create brand loyalty.

The 4 Ps of the Marketing Mix on Social Media

Social media marketing strategies are typically executed by the following four P’s:

  • Product: What is being sold? Is it a product, service, idea or information?
  • Place: Where should it be sold? Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn?
  • Promotion: How should it be promoted on the platform? E.g. sponsored posts or ads on Instagram
  • Patience: How long will it take before reach goals are met?

Do’s and Don’ts of Social Media Marketing Strategies

We have gathered a guide listing the best practices, and things to do and to avoid when it comes to social media marketing strategies.

Social media marketing, when done right, can be a powerful tool. But many companies make mistakes in their approach to it. This section explores the common mistakes made by companies when they use social media in their campaigns and how to avoid these things when starting a campaign of your own.

Must Do’s of Social Media Marketing for businesses:

1) Have complete and updated profiles and pages on each platform. The saying “first impressions are everything” certainly rings true on the Internet. People might be meeting the company for the first time via these social media accounts and it’s vital that you depict the company in a positive way from the very start. If you want people to trust what you’re advertising, make sure your profiles are fully-fledged (completed), professional looking and that you upload high quality profile and cover pictures.

2) Post regularly. Make sure to engage with your community at least once or twice a week. Post too sparsely and you risk missing opportunities to drive awareness of your brand, but post too frequently and you might annoy your followers instead!

3) Nurture your followers by interacting with them. It’s important to show your audience that you’re active in social media. Not only active posting content, but also active listening to them, and caring for them. 1-2-1 genuine interactions can increase not only the engagement rate on your posts, but also the number of shares and even reach.

4) Post original content. The content you post must always be owned by you/your company. Not only that, but if it’s too similar and many ways to other content from competitors and other accounts, apart from plagiarism and copyright issues, you will be facing a bored audience who will lose trust. The reason for many people to follow an account is to see what original content they share.

5) Create a content calendar. This will save you tons of time and headaches. You can either use your own spreadsheets, or some more sophisticated ones, such as this HubSpot’s Downloadable Template for Excel.

Things to avoid on Social Media Marketing for businesses:

1) Using automated tools that promote your content and grow your audience. It’s tempting to use tools that do this for you but the problem is that the followers they create for you are not interested in what you have to say and will unfollow after a few days.

2) Posting irrelevant content. Always try to post content on social media platforms which are relevant to your business or industry. If your company is an app development company, don’t talk about how much weight people lost over the past year!

3) Posting uninspiring content without any call-to-action. Often times, marketers just post an image or video without explaining what they want their audience members to do.

Conclusion: Keep the Basics in Mind

As a Level 3 Digital Marketer apprentice, you will find yourself working on social media marketing strategies many times throughout your journey.

It’s important you always keep some basic guidelines in mind, and stick to them, breaking them only when you know it will work. The rules are made to be broken, but only with a study and research behind, that supports those decisions. Ideally, you should stick to the best practices, which have been proven to work.

We post apprenticeship tips, guides, news and general information on a weekly basis. Sign Up to our mailing list to receive the content that is most of your interest directly on your inbox!

Did you find this content useful? Share it with your followers on social media!

Acing the Level 3 Digital Marketing Apprenticeship portfolio

by

A Digital Marketing apprenticeship is a great way to kickstart your career in the tech industry, and you can find one near you today. Upon completion you will gain a Level 3 qualification, and we have constructed the ultimate guide to acing your apprenticeship portfolio and getting a Distinction grade.

The core components of the Digital Marketing apprenticeship

There are 4 main components to passing your 15 month long Digital Marketing apprenticeship:

  • The 3 exams – Principles of coding, Marketing principles & Google Analytics Individual Qualification
  • Your summative portfolio – This will serve as a summary of all the work you have completed throughout your apprenticeship, and provide evidence that you have met a certain list of competencies which we will explore more below
  • A synoptic project – A 4 day project where you receive a marketing brief and work to complete it to display the knowledge you have gained over the course of the apprenticeship
  • The end point assessment – An interview with a governing body to discuss what you have worked on over the past 15 months

In this article we will explore the portfolio component of the apprenticeship and teach you how to produce it to the highest standard.

What is the summative portfolio?

The summative portfolio is a way for you to document all the amazing work you do throughout your apprenticeship, and plays a big part in the grade you receive. In the Digital Marketing apprenticeship there are 19 competencies you have to provide evidence for in your portfolio, across 3 different criteria: 

The What

  • Written communication – applies a good level of written communication skills for a range of audiences and digital platforms and with regard to the sensitivity of communication
  • Research – analyses and contributes information on the digital environment to inform short and long term digital communications strategies and campaigns
  • Technologies – recommends and applies effective, secure and appropriate solution using a wide variety of digital technologies and tools over a range of platforms and user interfaces to achieve marketing objectives 
  • Data – reviews, monitors and analyses online activity and provides recommendations and insights to others
  • Customer service – responds efficiently to enquiries using online and social media platforms
  • Problem solving – applies structured techniques to problem solving, and analyses problems and resolves issues across a variety of digital platforms
  • Analysis – understands and creates basic analytical dashboards using appropriate digital tools
  • Implementation – builds and implements digital campaigns across a variety of digital media platforms
  • Specialist areas – search marketing, search engine optimisation and Pay-Per-Click, email marketing, web analytics and metrics, mobile apps 
  • Digital Tools – uses digital tools effectively 
  • Digital Analytics –  measures and evaluates the success of digital marketing activities 
  • Interprets and follows – latest developments in digital media technologies and trends, marketing briefs and plans, company defined ‘customer standards’ or industry good practice for marketing company, team or client approaches to continuous integration
  • Operate – can operate effectively in their own business, their customers’ and the industry’s environments

The How

  • Demonstrating skills – can demonstrate the full range of skills, knowledge and behaviours required to fulfil their job role
  • Business objectives –  can demonstrate how they contribute to the wider business objectives and show an understanding of the wider business environments
  • Creative and logical thinking skills – can demonstrate the ability to use both logical and creative thinking skills when undertaking work tasks, recognising and applying techniques from both
  • Problem solving – can show that they recognise problems inherent in, or emerging during, work tasks and can tackle them effectively

The With Whom

  • Managing relationships -apprentices can manage relationships with work colleagues, including those in more senior roles, customers/clients and other stakeholders, internal or external and as appropriate to their roles, so as to gain their confidence, keep them involved and maintain their support for the task/project in hand. Apprentices can establish and maintain productive working relationships, and can use a range of different techniques for doing so
  • Communication – apprentices can communicate effectively with a range of people at work, one-to-one and in groups, in different situations and using a variety of methods. apprentices can demonstrate various methods of communication, with an understanding of the strengths, weaknesses and limitations of these
Digital Marketing image
Digital Marketing

Advice for creating a Distinction summative portfolio

In order to maximise your chances of getting a top grade in your Digital Marketing apprenticeship, we have put together our top tips for creating a great portfolio:

  • Screenshot your evidence from the beginning – This one is the most important! Make sure you screenshot your work as you progress with the projects you are working on so that when it comes to the assessment, it is easy to see where you have hit the competencies
  • Keep your formatting consistent – To make the portfolio readable, try to stick to a consistent format throughout 
  • Write as much as you can – The more detail the better in this instance, it is your time to shine so make sure you include all the work you have done
  • Add in 20% projects – If you have any projects outside of your core work you can include these too – they may help you hit a competency you are otherwise missing
  • Work on it over time – The portfolio is something you should be adding to throughout the course of the apprenticeship, and not at the very last minute – being consistent will save you stress in the future

Conclusion

A portfolio is not only a great way to demonstrate the work you have done in your end point assessment, it can also be used to show future employers the impact you have had on the business you work for – try to make it as reflective of your great work as possible.

If you would like to learn more about Digital Marketing, check out our other articles here.

Digital Marketing Apprenticeship Level 3 | Top 5 Tips for Email Marketing

by
Male using laptop with mobile on desk for digital marketing apprenticeship

Email marketing is a specialist area of your Digital Marketing apprenticeship and also remains as one of the most powerful marketing tools, it has truly stood the test of time. Whilst Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tik Tok all pose big opportunities for your company, algorithms, spend and following all have a substantial impact on ROI. With email marketing you have the opportunity to digitally ‘hand-deliver’ a message, promotion or information directly to the customer. Yes, they will need to have signed up to your mailing list, but as soon as they do, you have an open door to one of the most personal possessions, their email inbox.

Below I cover five top tips for email marketing within your organisation and as part of your level 3 digital marketing apprenticeship.

1. Know your audience and make it personal

So, to make this work you need to learn about your email subscribers, 77% of consumers want personalized content. With Mailchimp predicted demographics you instantly get a better idea of who you are talking to. At this point, what you know about the customer is, rough age, gender, name and email address… This is all useful information, but your emails would benefit from a little more background before they are created. Key information to learn:

  • Date of birth – good for birthday vouchers, discount codes and knowing age.
  • Location
  • Product preferences
  • Lifestyle interests

If you are using Mailchimp for your email campaigns, see the survey builder here.

Knowing your audience not only allows you to better connect with them, but you can also tailor campaigns to them, segmenting your audience into different groups with different needs. This will help you build a positive relationship with the customer, and keep your email being opened.

2. Invest time in your subject line

The subject line is the first impression of the whole email, all the hard work you have put into the email campaign itself could be lost if you are not successful in crafting a catchy, relevant or interesting subject line, they can make and break your campaign. Mailchimp carried out an email marketing study and found that short, personal and descriptive subject lines that gives the reader a reason to learn more work best. One approach may not work for the entirety of your audience though, be sure to segment your audience into groups so you can adjust the subject lines to better suit them. Also, you can use merge tags to include the customer name or location in the subject line, this making the email very specific to that person.

3. Easy reading and good imagery

In a digital world where everything is so busy, advertisements are everywhere, and we have less and less time, it is important that you make emails easy to read, skimmable and interesting to look at. It is important that you communicate your message as quickly as possible to ensure the audience will open your email and give it any time or thought. Content structure is crucial to enabling easy reading and understanding. Use bullet point, lists and headings so the important part of your message is delivered quickly. Keeping the valuable content in your email above the fold is a useful tactic, this saves the reader time, without sacrificing what you want to tell them.

Making your emails easy on the eye will also prove beneficial, keeping the campaign text down and complimenting this with good visuals will reinforce your email message and give you more chance of the campaign being successful, would you read a white page full of text if it landed in your inbox?

Super sale promotional image for interesting content for digital marketing apprenticeship email marketing

4. Limit how frequent your emails are

How often should you email your subscribers? Well, marketers who send only one email per week have the highest open and click-through rates. This being said, if you want to maximise ROI it is important you don’t miss out on valuable sales opportunities. Email frequency can be a balancing act, optimising email frequency is important to get the most out of your campaigns, without losing subscribers. A study carried out by Validity found that primary subscribers could tolerate up to five emails per week before complaints substantially increased. I feel this is pushing the boundary though, depending on your market and products of course. Typically, I would recommend starting with a single solid campaign per week, perhaps increasing this up over time to two, all the while monitoring for positive and negative impacts to open rates, click-throughs and subscribers, then making frequency adjustments accordingly.

5. Make it easy for people to unsubscribe

Yes, that is correct, make it easy to unsubscribe. This goes against everything you will work so hard for, building up you subscribers just to make it easy for them to get away… Well, it is unfortunately inevitable that some people will unsubscribe, it could be anything from changing location, not requiring your services anymore or they were just not satisfied with your emails. Unsubscribers are good and bad; bad because you lose a contact to email, good because it makes your subscriber list cleaner, holding only people that are interested in your campaigns.

To ensure good deliverability and worthwhile data from campaigns it is better that people unsubscribe than put your emails into a separate folder, or even worse… mark as spam.

A few tips to allowing people to easily unsubscribe:

  • Make it clear, “Unsubscribe” as hyperlink text so it is quickly found.
  • Check it is big enough text so that it can be seen on mobile devices.
  • Don’t require subscribers to log into an app or website to confirm, a simple two-click process is desirable.

It is not beneficial to you or the customer if the text is buried somewhere deep into the footer.

Conclusion

Whether you are currently taking part in a Level 3 Digital Marketing apprenticeship or an interested employer, these five tips to email marketing success should set you on the right track to boosting open-rates and click-throughs. Monitoring campaign success, how well each subject line performs and unsubscribe rates is very important in maintaining and expanding a healthy mailing list.

If you are looking to become or hire a Level 3 Digital Marketing apprentice, have a look at our article Level 3 Digital Marketing Apprenticeship for more information.

Level 3 Digital Marketing Apprenticeship

by

Do you want to take control of the marketing future in the digital age? Put your social media skills to work? A digital marketing apprenticeship could be the perfect route for you!

Jobs this apprenticeship could lead to

There are many routes to take of off the back of all the skills you will pick up from this apprenticeship. We have listed a few of the many job titles possible below. All salaries are estimated from Glassdoor.

  • Digital Marketing Executive – £25,000
  • Social Media Executive – £23,673
  • Digital Marketing Analyst – £31,773
  • Digital Advertising Executive – £27,973

Although it’s interesting to see what salary these jobs can land you, there are many more exciting aspects of these roles. Carrying the online presence of a brand is so important in this day and age and this is how the consumer forms their opinions.

Entry Criteria

Individual employers will set their own entry criteria but typically you will have achieved grade C or above in at least five GCSEs including English and Maths. In addition, you will need at least two A levels or equivalent Level 3 qualifications.  For a list of A-Level equivalent qualifications, click here. You may have previously been in a Digital Marketer role or be able to demonstrate a real passion and personal experience in digital marketing but this is not mandatory.

Behaviours you should have

This role takes a person who is really up to the job! Have a look at the following behaviours to see if you are up for the role.

  • Great communication and listening skills
  • Able to work under pressure and well within a team
  • Evaluate how work impacts others in a cultural sense
  • High attention to detail and successfully work to deadlines
  • Respect for compliance, procedures, and regulation
  • Enthusiastic and flexible approach to work and to personal development
  • Logical thinking and a creative approach to problem-solving

There are a plethora of other great attributes that would also make you a great fit to become a digital marketer.

Skills you will develop

Along with all the positive behaviours you will bring to the role, you will also learn and pick up many skills to take with you throughout your career. The aim of an apprenticeship is really that you will be professionally trained whilst continuing to be a great asset to your employer.

  • Apply the 4 marketing principles (product, price, place, promotion) and considerations of the business/marketing campaign.
  • Implement content for the different audiences, online channels and create clear “Call to Actions” and user journey’s
  • Manage, plan, specify, lead and report on digital marketing projects.
  • Manage and optimise key channels and content within a digital marketing plan.
  • Apply a marketing mix / digital marketing mix to meet customer expectations.
  • Identify, recognise and understand internal and external business intelligence and factors that may impact future operations.
  • Interpret, communicate and brief internal or external stakeholders on digital business requirements.
  • An understanding of the principles of coding

Again, although this list is completely accurate, it is not the full extent of all the complex skills you will pick up. You would also come away from this experience with a variety of soft skills. These will be transferable through both your professional and personal life.