Top 7 Digital Marketing Online Courses and Trainings for Beginners in 2020

Are you looking for a career in Digital Marketing? Then this article is for you. Marketing is incomplete without digital channels. Digital Marketing is the tool to leverage the power of digital channels.

As of July 2020, there are more than 4 billion active internet users and the number of users keeps on increasing.

source: wearesocial.com

Why is Digital Marketing Important?

When a person has an interest in your business or is curious to know about a brand, the first thing they are going to do is research online and find out more about that brand. If there is no online presence, they conclude business does not appear to be legitimate.

As of 2019, companies are spending more than 50% of their budget on digital marketing to create their online presence. As a result, the demand and jobs for digital marketers and people choosing digital marketing as a career path has been increasing steadily over the years.

By the end of 2024, it is expected that the Indian digital industry will produce more than 20 lakh jobs in Digital Marketing. People of this generation check their smart devices every 9.6 minutes. So, businesses are becoming more active on various digital platforms.

Why is an online certification for Digital Marketing important?

Getting a certificate for digital marketing helps you get shortlisted for jobs. A certificate will get you the proper set of keywords on your resume/CV.

A recruiter searches for potential job candidates on LinkedIn based on keywords matching the job description. So in case, the recruiter searches for digital marketing related keywords, there is a high probability that your resume gets shortlisted.

The benefit of taking a certification course is that you can get hands-on experience by working on projects. By doing this you can solve problems that include real-life issues. The advantage of digital marketing online courses is that you can learn new things indefinitely and simultaneously learn from your mistakes.

You can build your research skills and deepen your knowledge by applying the concepts to solve practical problems.

Some of the courses offer live mentor-chat and peer to peer chats so that you look at the problem with a critical thinking lens, asking questions, and coming up with a solution for the project.

You can crack any digital marketing job without any certificate but having a certificate along with knowledge lands you an exceedingly good-paying job.

What’s stopping you from becoming a digital marketer?

All of us live a hands-on life, and we continue to do so. This article gives you consolidated information about the various digital marketing certification courses that are available online.By taking these courses, you would:

1. Learn basic and advanced tactics to drive the business forward.
2. Gain exposure on how marketers execute online marketing campaigns.
3. Get in-demand and enhance your chances of landing a job or starting your business in this area.

Best Marketing courses and training programs that will enrich your career:

1) The complete Digital Marketing-12 courses in 1 (paid) :

Where: Udemy

Duration: 23.5 hours

source: www.udemy.com/course/learn-digital-marketing-course

This digital marketing course which is offered by udemy is one of the simplest digital marketing courses for beginners who want to start their digital marketing career. The course content is created by two very well known and reputed instructors, Rob Percival and Daragh Walsh.

The digital marketing masterclass has 12 modules that cover all the topics from choosing the niche, building a website to social media marketing. After completion of this course you will end up having a transparent and rich understanding of the foundations of the new digital marketing landscape and also acquire a new set of ideas and concepts.

This masterclass covers a lot of ground including branding, website development, copywriting, online marketing, advertising (online)and many more.

The course costs Rs 462 and you can have lifetime access to the course.

2) Digital Marketing(paid):

Where: Edx

Duration: 5-6 weeks per course

source: www.edx.org/learn/digital-marketing

The Digital Marketing course from Edx walks you through the key marketing skills that are in most demand today. This course is designed by the professors from Wharton school of the University of Pennsylvania which is one of the top schools in the world for marketing and other related subjects.

The course curriculum includes basic marketing theories as well as modern digital marketing skills such as how to leverage the power of social media to get your product ideas. The professors of this course will guide you through this incredibly important stage of performing market research, business models to increase the profitability and choosing metrics to guide ongoing customer-centric efforts.

A professional degree certificate from Wharton school helps you develop the digital marketing skills you need to take advantage of the explosive growth in the marketing industry and also close the “digital skills gap” that most of the recruiters complain about.

Upon successful completion of this course, one can start their career as a Marketing Manager, Digital Marketing Analyst with an average salary of $76000 per year.

The Digital Marketing course can be yours for a one-time payment of $585.

3) Become a Digital Marketer(Paid):

Where: Udacity

Duration: 3 months(10 hours per week)

source: www.udacity.com/course/digital-marketing-nanodegree--nd018

Udacity has come up with the “Become a Digital Marketer” nanodegree program to inculcate the skills of digital marketing among students. This nanodegree gives you a 360 degree understanding of digital marketing.

The nanodegree program includes 9 modules:

• Marketing Fundamentals - This section gives you a glimpse of how companies are practicing digital marketing techniques.
• Content Strategy- This shows you how to develop the right content to your target audience and metrics to measure its impact.
• Social Media Marketing- The marketing experts tell you how to use social media for targeted advertising and strategies to execute campaigns to resonate with your audience.
• Search Engine Optimization(SEO)- Here you will learn how to optimize search engine visibility to rank better on google results.
• Display Advertising - Here you are taught how to start a display advertisement using Google Ads.
• Email Marketing- You will learn how to use emails to create an email marketing strategy, create and execute email campaigns, and measure the results.
• Measure and Optimize with Google Analytics- You will discover how to use Google Analytics to evaluate your audience, measure the success of your acquisition and engagement efforts.

Each and every module has a project and the projects are reviewed by the mentors of Udacity.

The most exciting feature from Udacity is, Upon successful completion of nanodegree, Udacity’s team helps you in starting your career as a digital marketer by finding the right job.

You could pay a one-time payment of $1017 for 3 months or 3 monthly installments of $399 which isn’t bad considering what you’re getting out of it.

4) Digital Marketing Specialization(Free + Paid):

Where: Coursera

Duration: 8 months( 5 hours per week)

source: www.coursera.org/specializations/digital-marketing

Digital Marketing Specialization is one of the most popular specializations of Coursera with over 1 lakh learners. This course is designed for beginners and covers a wide range of topics such as digital marketing basics, Search Engine Optimization(SEO) and social media marketing to name a few.This specialization helps you master marketing concepts and tools to address brand communication in the digital world.

This Specialization is part of the University of Illinois Masters of Business Administration degree program. One can earn a certificate after successfully completing the course work along with a hands-on project.

To work on the capstone projects and earn the certificate, you’ll need to purchase the Essential Membership. There is also an option of availing the financial aid for those who cannot afford to pay the cost for the course, however these are given to learners on a limited basis. This specialization can also be completed as an audit which is free of cost.

5) Digital Marketing Specialist(Paid):

Where: Simplilearn

source: www.simplilearn.com/digital-marketing/

The marketing course from Simplilearn will transform you into a digital marketer with expertise in Search Engine Optimization(SEO), Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing and the list goes on.

You’ll be exposed to 40+ digital marketing tools, extensive project experience and simulations to make you job-ready.

Digital Marketing specialization from Simplilearn is recognized by OMCP(Online Marketing Certified Professional).

The only con of this course is the price. A single time payment of 59999 INR gives you lifetime access for this course.

You can go through the free course offered by Simplilearn on youtube, here is the link: Simplilearn Course

6) Fundamentals of digital marketing(Free):

Where: Google Digital Unlocked

Duration: 40 hours

source: learndigital.withgoogle.com/digitalunlocked

Fundamentals of digital marketing by Google help one grow their business digitally. This is a 40-hour online course with 26 modules. Course content covers topics such as SEO, email marketing, content marketing, to name a few.

Google digital marketing certification course covers all the basic topics,apart from there are courses like increasing security of business,organisational design and many more which are not a part of certification and can be done for free.

Each and every module is called a badge and each badge has 4-6 lessons. There are 106 lessons in total and after every lesson, there are 2-4 questions depending upon the length of the module.

You can take the end-of-module test after you successfully complete all the lessons.

The drawback of google’s digital marketing is, there is no final project where you can implement your learning.

source: learndigital.withgoogle.com/digitalunlocked

To complete the course you have to take the final exam that consists of 40 questions. After passing the final exam, you will be awarded the certificate.

7) Marketing Courses(Free):

Where: Hubspot academy

Duration: Varies from course to course

source: academy.hubspot.com/

Another option to learn digital marketing basics for free and get certified is HubSpot Academy.Hubspot not only offers digital marketing courses but also provides a wide range of softwares and tools for digital marketing enthusiasts.

You can get a certificate for the following digital marketing courses :

1. Inbound Marketing
2. Contextual Marketing
3. Email Marketing
4. Content Marketing
5. Inbound sales

Besides these courses, there are a plethora of courses(without certification) such as YouTube marketing, the WordPress training course for building a website, and many more.

*Duration- The time to finish the courses varies from person to person. The durations mentioned in the article are just tentative durations. These durations are normally given keeping in mind the average time a person can spend on online courses apart from his daily activities.

*Affiliate Disclaimer - If you click on one of the links mentioned in the article and purchase via our link, it is likely that we will receive some sort of commission at no extra cost to you. The reviews given are our genuine and commissions have no impact on the review.