Hey there, how are you?
My name is Erik Harbison.
I'll be your lead instructor
through this journey of University of Vermont's
Digital Marketing Fundamentals program.
So excited that you're here.
We've got a lot of good stuff to cover
with you over the next couple weeks and beyond
but I'll cover that in a couple of videos.
So what you're watching here is the first module.
What I wanna do over the next couple of videos
is just give you a quick overview of the course,
make some introductions, just give you a real feel
for what you can expect for the next couple of weeks
starting with this first video.
So here's a quick overview of the videos you can expect
for this introduction and overview module.
This video is just gonna focus
in on a quick course overview, couple of introductions
and set the tone for the next two videos.
Next one, we'll talk about the capstone project
that you'll be doing the value that's gonna provide
for you and what you can expect for that.
The final video of this module is gonna focus
on giving you a quick snapshot
of what's happening in the digital marketing landscape.
I think we're all here for the same reason
and that's to learn more
about digital marketing, develop our skills,
but this final video is gonna give you really
a nice overview of what you can expect
for a career and more importantly,
what you can expect from a digital marketing landscape.
And then I'll wrap up in that final video
with what you can expect to do next
as we kick off this first week of the program.
So let's dive in with some intros.
Who am I?
Like I said, my name is Erik Harbison.
I'll be your lead instructor
for this journey through the program.
At the top, you'll see my email address.
I offer this to every student
and you'll see it consistently throughout these videos
because I wanna make sure that you always know
that you have an option to email me
for any reason you have a question, you get stuck,
you need some advice.
So definitely save this email in your contacts
you'll need it throughout the journey of this course.
But again, background on me real quick.
I've spent about 20 years working for agencies,
small agencies, my own agency, large agencies.
So I picked up a lot of learnings, as a practitioner,
managing the channels that you're about to learn about.
I then spent five years
as a chief marketing officer for a software company.
And that was a great insight
into how to motivate, grow a team,
but also how to focus on generating acquisition, retention,
for a standalone business.
After that stint, I decided to focus on my own consultancy
and give back to the marketing community
by starting my company, themarketinghelp.co,
and all I do is focus on helping marketers
advance their careers
through career coaching, providing resources,
and an active community of marketers.
So I've been advising for a lot of companies
in addition to clients that I have with my own company,
themarketinghelp.co.
So that's me and that's what I'm doing.
But again, I love doing this program
because it gives me a chance to not just introduce you
to some real all stars in the digital marketing landscape
but also share my knowledge
of what I've learned over my 25 year plus career.
So excited to to meet all of you.
Now, another introduction
that you want to have here is Chris Hill.
Now Chris,
we are blessed to have Chris part of this program.
He will be your academic coach.
Consider Chris the person you're going to contact
if you know you're gonna be late for a deliverable,
you're gonna miss a live session,
you're stuck navigating the learning management system.
Whatever those questions are,
Chris is another outlet to help you get unstuck.
And definitely we will be providing feedback
on your weekly discussions
that you do as part of this program.
So meet Chris, save his email address as well,
add him to your contacts.
Now I wanna do a couple a quick housekeeping things
as it relates to this course.
So the one thing you can expect, this is an online course.
So what you can expect, sometimes outages may occur.
Now I share this to let you know that it's okay.
Now, the outages may occur on our end.
They may occur on your end.
You may have a loose connection internet wise.
You may have issues with your laptop, but they will happen.
And I'm here to tell you that that's okay.
We've done this program for, gosh,
almost 10 years and we've seen a lot happen
during these online live sessions.
So just know that if the outage is on our side,
we've got plans in place to make sure
that we can recoup the connection
and make sure you don't lose anything in our live sessions.
So, just want you to know that.
Now let's focus on your learning tools.
What do you need to be focusing on so that you get the most
from this journey that you're about to go through?
So what I can tell you is that the live sessions
if you're able to attend those Wednesday nights
8:00 PM Eastern Time is there's a chat function
in this live session that is extremely useful
for you to share your thoughts, share answers,
communicate not just with the instructors,
but also with each other.
So for that live session, please consider using that chat
as a way to communicate if you're not able
to come off of mute and share your thoughts.
'Cause we like to make those live sessions very,
very interactive so that you're getting as much value
from the instructor as possible.
Also, get familiar with your HQ,
your headquarters of content,
in I believe Brightspace
will be our learning management system.
And you'll be using Microsoft Teams
as part of the live sessions.
So you wanna spend some time getting familiar
with these tools.
Again, I say this all the time
the best way to learn is to do, right?
So just jump in there and if you get stuck,
you raise your hand, you email Chris or myself.
The other learning tool is just to ask questions.
Again, we are here to help.
There is no bad question.
We just wanna make sure
that you know that no matter what challenge you're facing,
you're able to get that question answered.
Now, when I say ask questions
I mean not just in the live session,
but throughout the week as you're learning a specific topic.
And there's tons of help here, not just myself and Chris,
but also the instructors that can help you navigate
and solve for any challenge.
Discussion board will be part of your weekly routine
and we encourage you to be active in discussion boards,
connect with other students that are part of this program
because it can be extremely helpful
in your learning development.
Now, I talk about Microsoft Teams
and I share this tip with you.
You may want to check to make sure
that in your settings you can turn off notifications.
'cause when someone puts a chat
during the live session it can make a noise.
So I just encourage you to first,
when you join, make sure you mute your audio
just to not distract others.
Secondly, when you join the live session,
make sure you can, in your settings,
you can turn off notifications
so you don't hear a chime every time somebody makes a chat.
That's been a theme we've been hearing from students.
We wanna make sure you're ahead of it and you can address
that when you have your Microsoft Teams open.
Here's another tool for you to use.
And fairly simple, I think we're all pretty good at this.
We are all professional Googlers,
just as native users of the internet, but for this program,
there's gonna be a lot of information coming your way.
And maybe sometimes you don't have,
or you don't feel like raising your hand,
asking a question, that's okay.
I'm just encouraging you to be resourceful
and maybe sometimes a quick Google search will solve
and answer your question or will fill in some more gaps
to the point where you feel comfortable asking a question.
So don't look past the simple Google search
to understand, what does that acronym mean?
What does that term mean that you heard?
So again, if you're unable to ask that question,
don't be afraid to use that research tool.
And then here's your best support tools
and that's emailing Chris and myself.
So again, add these to your contacts, we're happy to help.
Let's talk about the course.
So the passing grade, if you will,
for this program is going to be
achieving a weighted total grade of 70% or higher.
And you can see the pie chart here.
A large percentage of your success
is gonna be in your capstone project.
And then there's percentage here tied to your activity
and participation on a weekly basis.
So clearly there's gonna be value
in you being able to put everything together
in creating your capstone project,
which I'll go over in the next video
in a little bit more detail.
But this gives you insight
on understanding how things are graded.
Now I interject this to let you know
that from time to time, and again,
this happens every course something will happen,
life will happen,
you'll be distracted with the life event,
something unexpected.
And that's okay,
we expect that just knowing that everyone is busy with work
and travel and vacations and families and things like that.
If something causes you to miss a live session,
I just encourage you email myself and Chris.
Eric, Chris,
won't be able to make the live session this week.
And that's noted.
So Chris, more importantly, Chris can identify
that you weren't able to make that live session
for a reason.
Just helps with the communication,
especially if you're gonna be late
on an assignment being turned in.
So we'd like to consider ourselves pretty flexible
and we're happy to be flexible if you're able to communicate
with us that you're going to miss a specific deadline.
And what you do is you just simply email Chris and myself.
So again, we're understanding, we're flexible.
Life is going to happen.
Just communicate with us and we would appreciate that.
On a given week
what can you expect to invest time-wise
to get the most out of this program?
And I like to say eight to 10 hours
is probably a good average
on where you should be finding time
throughout the week to put towards some of these tests.
Now I just break down here, which would be an average cycle
of a week, what you can expect to happen.
So right at about Sunday morning,
definitely by Monday morning,
the next week's module will be unlocked.
So if you think about next Sunday morning,
access to the next week will be unlocked
in our learning management system.
So we encourage you as soon as that information is unlocked,
is to consume it, watch the videos,
read some of the required readings given by the instructor
so that you're prepared for a discussion on Wednesday night.
Wednesday night, it's a live session.
It's one hour, 8:00 PM Eastern.
If you can't make it, that's okay,
let Chris know, let myself know.
And then it's recorded and that'll be shared
with you through our learning management system as well.
After that live session is completed
you'll have some questions answered.
You'll have clarity around the specific channel topic
and then it's time to tackle your assignment for that week.
And that's gonna include a discussion board post
as well as completing a quiz.
So you can spend the time doing that Thursday or Friday.
Again, you have some room, wiggle room there to get it done
before Sunday night is when the due date would be
for your discussion board post.
So then you think about Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
What do I do then?
Well, a lot of students, what they tell me
is when they're done with the assignment,
sometimes they do it on the weekends, which is fine,
but they spend time reflecting on the content
from that week's module
just to make sure that it's really sunk in
or they spend that time starting to work
on their capstone project.
So you can think about your weekend as chipping away
at your capstone project and I'm gonna give you more details
on that in the next video.
But this is how you want to think about planning your week.
So start thinking about where am I gonna find an hour here,
half hour there, two hours here for the next eight weeks,
so that you can maximize the value from the program.
Now I talk about outcomes all the time.
And when I think about your investment
in yourself for this program
here are some outcomes you can expect, right?
So it's not just knowing what the key channels are
in digital marketing, but it's understanding the context
around how to use them, not just individually,
but collectively integrated as an integrated marketing plan
which is tied to your capstone project.
And then with that
being able to construct a digital marketing plan
using a framework that I've used for 20 years that works.
And no matter where you go
any marketer would know the language of the plan
that you're going to be creating.
So that gives you an advantage to know
as soon as this program is completed,
you'll have a stronger understanding
of how to create a marketing plan,
integrated digital marketing plan,
for any brand, anywhere, anytime.
So the experience with each marketing channel
comes with those weekly assignments.
And at the end of the day,
I want everyone to walk away
being a more marketable version of themselves
for whatever is the goal
that you decided to join this program.
Whether it was to get a promotion, find a new job,
brush up on the latest in digital marketing,
again at the end of this program, my promise to you,
your expectation is to walk away
as a more marketable individual.
Now, four things just to remember as we go
through the course, and again, bears repeating, right?
Ask questions, we're here to help.
Get familiar with your learning management system
and the tools we use for our live sessions.
All the content that you see accessible
in the learning management system
is going to be yours to keep.
So if it's downloadable, download it, save it,
maybe open up a Google Drive folder to stash
anything that we share,
'cause there will be a ton of resources we share
throughout each of the weeks.
And then the last thing is really just
be prepared to leverage your instructors.
They're not individuals that are not addressed,
able to be addressed after or before program.
Our instructors have been hand selected
and they're ready to help you,
not just during their designated week,
but throughout the lifetime of your career.
So you now have a new network connection
in the digital marketing space
through the instructors that you will be meeting
week over week over week.
Now when you complete the course
and you have a grade that exceeds or is above 70%,
you can gain access to our private LinkedIn group.
Over 500 alums from this specific program
are in there helping each other find jobs,
answer questions, network.
So it's really a helpful place
for those that want to stay connected
with other marketers that have been through this experience.
Now, you can't access this now,
this is only something you access
after the program is completed
if you've exceeded the 70% passing grade.
Now again, we have lists of all the students
and their grades.
So if you try to in be invited or join,
we'll know if you've passed or not.
But again, it's, think of it as something that's accessible
to you when, not if but when,
you're successful in getting through the course.
Now I leave with this a quote from
very famous football coach, Vince Lombardi,
talking about excellence being achieved
by mastery of the fundamentals.
And that's the name of this program.
You can be a great marketer by becoming masterful
in understanding these digital marketing channels.
Now for some of you, this might be the start.
Learning about SEO for the first time,
learning about social media for the first time.
But that's a start.
And you're starting your mastery of the fundamentals.
So this quote should be inspirational
for all of you as you're looking to become masters
of the fundamentals of digital marketing.
So I thank you for your participation in this course
and thank you for joining us in this course.
And again, here's my email again if you have any questions.
But let's head on over to video number two.