Our recommended processes and tools to help you grow your marketing career with strategic skills development
As marketers, we understand how challenging it can be to keep all your plates spinning. You’re trying to manage your day-to-day work while staying on top of the latest industry and platform changes, all while making sure you’re fed, hydrated, clean, and getting enough sleep to keep your brain sharp. Not to mention remembering Aunt Wendy’s birthday and making sure the dog has gotten plenty of exercise. With all this going on, spending time learning marketing skills is often pushed to the bottom of your priority list. Over time you drop the board.
There are a few reasons for this. Speaking to marketers over the years, Continuing Professional Development (CPD) feels like something you should do, but is often ‘saved for later’ as we try to keep up with our busy schedules and ordinary tasks. CPD is something we know is important, but not important enough to be consistent with. Some organizations offer allocated work time for CPD (which we encourage!), but many do not. It is up to you, as an individual, to find that moment.
“Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is the purposeful maintenance and development of the knowledge and skills required to perform in a professional context.” (CPD Standards Agency).
By neglecting your personal development, you are doing yourself and your future career prospects a disservice. Not only will you miss out on opportunities to improve your current marketing output, but your short- and long-term career prospects will be seriously compromised if you don’t invest time in improving your skills.
Why do I need to develop and learn marketing skills?
There are so many benefits to developing your marketing skills. By continuously working on your marketing skills, you can:
- Become customizable: The marketing landscape is constantly changing. The ability to adapt to new trends and technologies is crucial to staying relevant and ensuring you can optimize your performance in your role.
- Gain a competitive advantage: As the saying goes, ‘knowledge is power’. A well-rounded skill set gives you a competitive advantage in a popular and saturated job market and helps you stand out in your own organization. According to LinkedInSocial media, management and digital marketing skills are among the most in-demand skills for marketers.
- Learn to innovate: Strong marketing skills allow you to think creatively and come up with fresh, effective strategies that will differentiate your brand. Innovation is especially important for team building and advancing to higher marketing positions.
- Increase your career prospects: Marketing professionals with diverse skills and knowledge are more likely to advance their careers and take on leadership roles. You’re much more likely to get the roles and opportunities you want if you invest in your knowledge.
Become a certified RACE digital strategist
Research shows that employers are looking for marketing professionals who combine practical knowledge of driving results from digital channels that reach and engage today’s audiences, and who need to know how to plan an integrated approach to strategy, campaigns and ongoing marketing. .
A digital marketing strategist is an expert in creating and implementing integrated digital marketing strategies and optimizing the success factors for implementing best practices to support a company’s goals.
The Smart Insights learning approach is designed to support your career development so that you can become a strategic T-Shaped marketer with a broad understanding of modern marketing channels and an in-depth understanding of detailed best practices for effectively using these channels. . But it goes further than that, as employers are looking for a broader skillset than digital media. They need self-starters who know how to create strategy and plans for the company and its individual channels. Unlike most online learning activities, all our toolkits start with goals and strategy, rather than diving straight into tactics.
See our article ‘What is a T-Shaped Marketer?’ to learn more about why becoming a T-shaped marketer is beneficial for your career!
Top Tip: Use our free digital skills assessment to assess your skills gaps and create your own personalized learning plan.
Creating a CPD plan
You may be thinking, this is all well and good. You know CPD is important and you want to be a T-shaped marketer who can consistently learn marketing skills. However, the main obstacle to implementation is our old friend: time. This is a common problem, and it often happens that well-intentioned marketers abandon CPD altogether. Small companies in particular are often very busy and do not have sufficient resources. How do people find the time?
The biggest mistake when building CPD into your schedule is not making a plan. Creating a CPD plan can help you focus on your development goals and personal skills and track progress. Having a structured plan can help you plan when you will learn, and set a realistic frequency for your CPD so that it is manageable for you.
Top Tip: When you want to achieve your goals, this will impact the timescale and amount of CPD in your plan. Determine what your top priorities are and how much time you need to achieve them.
In our free marketing career and skills development workbook, we’ve included a development plan template that you can edit to create your own custom plan.
Once you’ve set your goals, you can start building CPD into your weekly/monthly/quarterly schedule.
Accredited learning paths
Now that you have a plan, how do you find the information you need quickly and clearly? To stay on track, CPD must be manageable. To make it manageable, it needs to be broken down.
We created our learning paths to help marketers improve their skills in short, bite-sized interactive modules. We have 10 accredited learning paths covering all aspects of digital marketing, and come with recommended guides and templates to increase your knowledge and help you apply it to your daily activities.
What is a learning path?
Smart Insights Learning Paths provide a flexible e-learning solution that allows learners to complete individual modules, curated topics or structured courses based on their skill development needs. Learning Paths use an engaging, interactive learning format with text, images, video and questions to explain concepts, provide examples and test understanding. This segmented approach allows you to switch your knowledge on and off, all of which is regularly updated by a team of experts.
Unlike many online learning courses, there is no requirement to complete each learning path in its entirety. You only need to complete all modules if you want a CPD certificate.
Our accreditation
Each Smart Insights learning path has been independently assessed and accredited by the Continuing Professional Development Standards Office (CPDSO). You can rest assured that our teaching has been audited by a trusted authority and is recognized for its quality.
The best part? It means that all our learning paths count towards your CPD points as part of your development.
With Smart Insights Learning Paths you get:
- Extensive coverage: Our learning paths cover all the key marketing fundamentals, from digital strategy and content marketing to email and SEO. You can choose the areas that match your career goals and where you need to learn marketing skills.
- Flexible learning: Our resources fit into your busy schedule. Whether you have a few minutes or hours to spare, you can easily access our content online for ultimate flexibility. Each module takes approximately 15 minutes.
- Expert insights: Industry experts with practical experience and the latest insights write the sources on Smart Insights. You can trust that you are learning from the best.
- Practical application: The tools guide you in applying what you learn to your daily tasks, making it a valuable investment in your career.
- CPD points: And finally, upon completion of each learning path, you will receive the important CPD points and certificates.
How many CPD points should I aim for?
CPD points correspond approximately to: 1 hour of active learning = 1 point. Each module takes approximately 15 minutes, so if you complete one per week for a month you will have 1 CPD point at the end.
As a general rule, there is no set number of points required, although your company may set you a unique quota. Chartered Marketers (with CIM) must complete 35 hours per year as a benchmark.
Unlock your potential
It is increasingly up to you to take responsibility for your career development and personal learning path. To take control of your future, download our free marketing careers and skills workbook to:
- Map out your personal short- and long-term career goals
- Identify current strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that may or may not impact your marketing career
- Identify the key elements that will motivate you to take action
- Understand the different paths you can take to reach your destination
- Analyze yourself against 25 digital marketing skills
Reference By: www.smartinsights.com
