Digital Marketing

KEY TAKEAWAYS 

You know how to build a digital marketing strategy.

 You understand how backlinks and keywords deliver the best results on search queries.   

You know why people search online, so you create pages that

align with search behaviours.

You select keywords and create content with SEO in mind. 

  You optimize your web pages, increase site traffic, 

and convert visitors into customers. 

 

 

 This is a six-week online course with free multi-media learning resources.
Learn at your own pace but avoid rushing. Stress can block learning.*

Invest in a study routine of 10 hours per week.
Two hours every other weeknight and four hours on the weekend is ideal. 

- MWFSS -

*Source: NPJ -: Science of Learning

 

Get ready to transform your marketing mindset 

Traditional online marketing methods just don’t cut it anymore. Today’s constantly evolving digital landscape demands agile thinking, data-driven strategy, and a deep understanding of consumer behavior. This course explains each step and shows you how to design a digital marketing strategy that can work well for you and your customers. 

Validation

Research shows that 64% of Gen Z and 59% of Millennials discovered products via social media. This data was gathered during HubSpot’s 2024 Consumer Trends Survey and reported in their 2025 State of Marketing & Trends Report. This survey highlights how social media has become the preferred product discovery channel for younger generations, reflecting a major shift in consumer behavior and marketing strategy today. 

Strategic shifts include: 

  1. From funnel to flywheel: Campaigns now focus on continuous engagement rather than linear conversion. 
  • Agile marketing: Brands like ZARA adapt campaigns in real-time based on social trends. 
  • Community-first strategies: Airbnb leveraged user-generated content to build trust and scale. 
  • Data-centric frameworks: Campaigns are now built around behavioral insights and predictive analytics. 

These shifts are popular among marketers because they work. We all need to rethink how we build campaigns from platform choice, social trends, copywriting style, engagement strategies -- all must be designed to build trust. Analytics and new research shows us the way. 

Skills development

  • How to build a plan and coordinate, rollout as well as analyze marketing online to create a strategic framework that fits your needs. 
  • How to think in new ways and effectively communicate with consumers and sell products. 
  • Understand the shift in how firms communicate with consumers instead of talking about themselves. 
  • The consumer experience has been radically altered; discover the implications for strategic planning. 
  • Access in-depth studies on digital marketing framework centered on conversion-based marketing. 
  • Learn the four stages to attract visitors, create leads, transform leads into customers, and foster customer loyalty. 
  • How to develop a content strategy, create content, and build content calendars. 
  • How to analyze and measure customer engagement, assess customer lifetime value, and create value with customers.  
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What you will learn

  • Understanding the main goal of marketing: to create value and how the ecosystem is transforming the ways we can achieve this goal. 
  • Understand the concepts of personas, customer journey maps to track, and how to calculate customer lifetime value. 
  • Understand SEO and keywords, why they matter for your firm, for consumers, and for competitor analysis. 
  • Understand key terms of online strategy, the objectives of the four stages of the RACE framework, how it links to personas and journeys, and how to use it to support competitive analysis. 
  • Understand the Reach stage, landing pages, different paid media activities and key terms associated with payment models and targeting approaches. 
  • Understand the basics of content creation, how it ties in with the RACE framework, gated and ungated content, pillar pages and content creation calendars. 
  • Understand what conversion rate optimization is and some approaches to optimizing webpages and websites. 
  • Understand the concepts of engagement and loyalty, how to calculate customer lifetime value and how it can shape your marketing strategy and create value with consumers. 

Free and open resources

This course is based on the teachings of Digital Marketing Strategy, written by Pierre-Yann Dolbec and published in 2023 by Concordia University Open Textbooks, Montreal, Quebec. Dolbec is an assistant professor of marketing and is the Concordia University Research Chair in Complexity and Markets at Concordia’s John Molson School of Business.  

This text explains how the Internet has transformed businesses, their activities, and how consumers go about buying products. This textbook provides a way of conceptualizing how to organize, manage and analyze marketing online.  

Included within this text is the RACE framework, created by Dr. Dave Chaffey, cofounder of Smart Insights. The RACE framework is a practical tool for building a firm, data-driven foundation to support a digital marketing strategy. Other strategies will be discussed and learners can choose their preferred tools.

The Digital Marketing Strategy textbook and the RACE framework are yours to download and keep.

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