It has been about 2 years since I have graduated with my BS in Marketing from Fairleigh Dickinson University. As a young graduate I was just so relieved to finally finish school after four long years of tests, papers, projects, group projects and presentation. I was literally ready to hit the ground running. I thought I had covered everything I needed to know to jump start my marketing career. What else could I possibly need to know?
Naïve as I was, reality hit when I realized there were gaps in my skill set. The marketing landscape was already moving towards digital, but it became more apparent with Covid-19.
As a digital native, social media came natural to me. I knew my way around social channels and the intricacies of likes, shares, comments, retweets etc. Yet the challenge came when I was managing digital marketing and social media, not for myself but for my own company, Westlock Controls.
There was more to marketing than just posting a few things on the various social channels. Beyond the 4Ps, marketing is essentially building a relationship amongst customers and consumers.
I was tasked with developing Westlock’s branding and accomplish their marketing objectives related to NPDs. How could I establish Westlock as an industry authority in the control monitoring segment without the skillset and to build relationships in the digital landscape?
That is when I found the Udacity Digital Marketing Nanodegree program. I wanted to develop my own skillsets in marketing and the DMND program was a perfect piece to complete my marketing skill gap. Content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, SEO, SEM; these were the skills I needed to cultivate to effectively market. Not only building the skills to perform the necessary marketing but also develop the analytical skills needed to plan and optimize for better results.
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