Digital Marketing

Right person, right message, right time. You will explain how customer, offer, channel and funnel stages fit together, giving you a simple framework for deciding where small marketing efforts are best spent.

• Goal, audience, offer, channel, measure.
• Funnel: aware, interested, decide, buy, return.
• Owned (your own page), earned (others share you) and paid (ads) media.
• Plan before posting.
• Write down your customer, your offer and your one main channel in three short sentences before spending anything, and revisit them after each month of results.
• Learn the basic funnel of awareness, interest, action and loyalty, and note one measurable number for each stage so you can see where people drop away.
• Write one sentence that says what you sell, to whom, and why they should care.
• Set the three measures you will watch before spending anything.

Activity. Write a one-page plan outline.

Standard to meet. Include the five elements.

Common mistake. Starting with a channel instead of a goal.

Check yourself. What is your goal?

Talk to real people. You will gather real customer words through short interviews and turn them into an audience profile, so your messages answer what people actually ask for.

• Interview five people.
• Write needs, worries, words.
• Create a simple persona.
• Check where they spend time.
• Interview five real or likely customers for ten minutes each and record the exact words they use, then reuse those phrases in your headlines and posts.
• Create one short audience profile with age range, main problem, preferred platform and buying trigger, and keep it visible while you plan content.
• Create a simple sheet with columns for date, channel, spend, leads and sales.
• Pick words from buyers' own comments for your headings.

Activity. Create a persona.

Standard to meet. Base the persona on real quotes.

Common mistake. Imagining the customer.

Check yourself. What did you hear?

Clear beats clever. You will write benefit-led offers with a single call to action and test two versions, learning quickly which wording earns more responses.

• Headline: benefit in plain words.
• Proof: reviews, numbers, photos.
• Call to action.
• Truthful claims.
• Write each offer as a benefit plus a deadline or limit, for example 'free setup guide when you order before Friday', and compare two versions of the headline.
• Keep one clear call to action per message; a post asking people to buy, follow and share all at once usually gets fewer actions than a single request.
• Check your page on a phone before sharing it anywhere.
• Add a map and opening hours so local people can act at once.

Activity. Write three messages.

Standard to meet. Give each a benefit, proof and action.

Common mistake. Clever slogans.

Check yourself. Is your message clear?

Be found and be clear. You will place a chosen search phrase in key page spots and check speed and contact visibility on a phone, making your site easier to find and use.

• Words people search.
• Page title, headings, speed, mobile.
• Local listing.
• One goal per page.
• Choose a main phrase people would type, put it in the page title, the first heading and the opening paragraph, and keep the title under about 60 characters.
• Check that your site loads in under three seconds on a phone and that the contact details are visible without scrolling, as slow or hidden pages lose visitors.
• Use one photo of a real person or product, not generic stock.
• Ask three customers to review your message and say what is unclear.

Activity. Improve one page.

Standard to meet. List changes with reasons.

Common mistake. Slow pages.

Check yourself. How fast is yours?

Share useful things regularly. You will build a four-week content calendar and reuse ideas across formats, so you post steadily without starting from a blank page each time.

• Choose one or two platforms.
• Calendar: 3 posts a week.
• Mix: teach, show, ask, offer.
• Reply to comments.
• Plan a simple content calendar of three posts a week for four weeks, mixing teaching, proof and offers, so you never face a blank page on a busy day.
• Reuse one idea in several forms, such as a short video, a quote image and a caption thread, and track which form earns the most replies.
• Schedule posts in advance but check them each morning.
• Include a clear way to unsubscribe in every email.

Activity. Create a 4-week calendar.

Standard to meet. Maintain the calendar.

Common mistake. Posting without a calendar.

Check yourself. What is on it?

Email is owned and cheap. You will gather email addresses with clear consent and send messages that include an honest unsubscribe route, building a list you own and can respect.

• Consent and easy unsubscribe.
• Welcome and follow-up mails.
• One idea per mail.
• Test subject lines.
• Collect email addresses only with a clear tick-box and a plain explanation of what you will send, and keep a record of when and how each person agreed.
• Include a working unsubscribe link and your business details in every email, and remove anyone who opts out within a few days rather than weeks.
• Do not collect more data than you need on forms.
• Test one change at a time and write it down.

Activity. Send two mails to consenting people.

Standard to meet. Show consent records.

Common mistake. Emailing without consent.

Check yourself. Where is consent?

Track with simple tools. You will keep a simple weekly tracking sheet and compare cost per sale across channels, which shows where money should go and where to stop spending.

• Tracking links; analytics.
• Impressions, clicks, visits, leads, sales.
• Cost per result.
• Weekly review.
• Set up a simple tracking sheet with date, channel, spend, visits and sales, and review it every Friday for fifteen minutes to spot what to repeat or stop.
• Compare each channel's cost per sale rather than total visits, because a channel with fewer visitors can still bring the cheapest customers.
• Pause any ad that gets 20 clicks with no result.
• Summarise the month in five lines for the owner.

Activity. Fill a weekly table.

Standard to meet. Check that the numbers are correct.

Common mistake. Ignoring cost.

Check yourself. What is yours?

Do more of what works. You will run a monthly keep, fix and stop review and present results in three numbers, leaving you with a realistic plan for the next month.

• Winners, losers, lessons.
• Move budget.
• Plan next month.
• Report to the owner.
• At the end of each month, keep one thing that worked, fix one thing that nearly worked, and stop one thing that did not, then write the plan for next month.
• Present your results to a friend in five minutes using three numbers and one lesson, which checks whether you truly understand your own marketing.
• Move one lesson into your checklist for the next campaign.
• Share a short before and after with your peer circle.

Activity. Write the report and plan.

Standard to meet. Base decisions on data.

Common mistake. Not moving budget.

Check yourself. Where did you move?

An ad gets clicks but no bookings.

Question: What to check?

Model answer: Landing page, message mismatch, price, and form length.

A user complains publicly.

Question: How do you respond?

Model answer: Reply politely, move to private help and fix the cause.

On the slide: L1 Basic · Basics of promotion

Notes: Describe the main digital channels (search, social, email, video) in your own words. Notes: find one example of each. Standard: each example named and described in a line.

On the slide: L2 Awareness · Awareness

Notes: Describe an audience, a message and a measure, and say why a campaign needs all three. Notes: study one public campaign. Standard: the three parts identified with evidence.

On the slide: L3 Foundation · Foundation

Notes: Write a one-page campaign plan with audience, message, channel, budget and a measure. Notes: practice organisation. Standard: every channel has a budget and a target.

On the slide: L4 Practitioner · Practitioner

Notes: Run a seven-day test on one channel and record cost and results. Notes: practice budget. Standard: cost per result calculated and a decision to continue or stop.

On the slide: L5 Specialist · Specialist

Notes: Plan, launch and report a 30-day digital campaign for one real or practice organisation. Notes: weekly numbers and one change. Standard: report links spend to results and states the next step.

On the slide: L6 Advanced · Advanced

Notes: Lead several campaigns with a shared dashboard, a testing calendar and a privacy review. Notes: add a consent check for every list. Standard: budgets move to channels that work and consent records are complete.

On the slide: L7 Super expert · Super expert

Notes: Set the plan, measure and report method for digital campaigns and teach the marketers who use it. Notes: hold an ethics review of targeting, claims and data use each year.