When I returned to RED after maternity leave in 2022, I knew I wanted something new to get my teeth into. I’d been considering the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s Level 6 Diploma in Professional Digital Marketing for years.
With a lively toddler running circles around me, while navigating my return to an ever-changing digital marketing industry after a year of baby classes and soft play – it seemed like the perfect time to go for it. What could possibly go wrong?
Now that I am one-year in and two-thirds of the way through – here is what I have learned.
Finding time to study
I initially returned to RED on a four-day week, which meant I had a solid two hours every Friday during naptime to complete lectures and get started on the first of three assignments.
Aside from that I can steal 20-30 minutes at nighttime where possible to ‘chip away’ at assignments bit by bit. In hindsight, this isn’t the best way to study – answers often end up disjointed and it’s personally not my most productive time of the day. However, it does help take away the overwhelm from assignments.
Because I had this additional time, I started with the harder of the three modules – Marketing and Digital Strategy.
Marketing and Digital Strategy – what did I learn?
One thing that has previously stopped me from formal digital marketing courses was how fast the industry moves. Would it all be outdated by the time I finished?
Something I learnt in this module, is that the core principles of marketing never change.
The first assignment was based on situational analysis – taking a step back and analysing my chosen business, its strengths and weaknesses, external threats and how the environment was changing for our clients too.
The next task was to look at objectives and overall strategy, and to build a strategic marketing plan around those goals. Following on, what resources were required for this plan, how would we monitor and measure successes?
This first module took me around four months to complete, and after a further three month wait for results – I thankfully passed!
Onto the next – The Digital Customer Experience
The second module looks at the customer journey and effectively managing digital channels and tools to enhance this.
Also comprised of three sections, I delved into channel selection, personas and legal compliance. This was followed by a detailed outline of my chosen business’ customer journey and plans to improve the customer experience.
Of all the modules, this was my favourite. It’s much more focused on digital tools and the customer. It is the closest to my day-to-day job and the parts of marketing that I find most interesting.
While I had no idea whether I would pass the first module, it came as less of a surprise when I received the email with Merit on it for this module.
One more to go!
With one final module to complete in Digital Optimisation, my key learnings are:
- never underestimate the work involved in a Level 6 qualification
- never underestimate your own ability to ‘dig deep’ when you need to
- it’s never too late for post-graduate study!