Today’s business owners know digital marketing is vital for acquiring and retaining new customers. With so many digital marketing course choices, choosing which one to take can be confusing.

This article will compare digital marketing courses and help you find the right one for your business needs.

1. Identify Your Business Needs

Digital marketing course will benefit you and your business

Before choosing a course, you must define what you want from your digital marketing efforts. Most companies break down their digital marketing goals into three simple objectives:

a) More Revenue or Leads
Increase profits by selling more products and generating more qualified leads.

b) More Engagement
Improve customer engagement on platforms with content that gets more likes, shares, reactions and comments.

c) Better Business Strategy
Understand how your web traffic comes about, and improve the quality and Amount of your web traffic.

2. Choosing the Right Course for Your Business

Revenue/Leads

Choosing the Right Training Course for Your Business

If your goal is to get more revenue/leads, Facebook advertising is the fastest and most effective way to achieve this. Firstly, Facebook is the third most-used social media platform in Singapore, with a potential advertising audience of around 3 million people, making it the ideal platform to advertise to reach large audiences quickly. A Facebook Advertising course would help you learn the best practices for using a Facebook business account. It would be best to learn about the various Facebook ad formats, how to set up a campaign, and how to optimise your campaign results through A/B split testing and remarketing techniques.

Course recommended: Run Successful Facebook Ads to increase your revenue.

If you want to grow on Google search results quickly, consider a Search Engine Marketing (SEM) course. This is also recommended if you have a large marketing budget to spare. However, running SEM ads is not a walk in the park, and we recommend you be fully adept and comfortable with tasks such as keyword research, keyword bidding, audience targeting and writing ad copies.

Usually, SEM campaigns are best if done as a team of a few members, where one is in charge of optimising campaigns, and another focuses on writing marketing copies for the search ads.

With the average search lasting just 1 minute, knowing how to appear on the top of SERPs (Search Engine Marketing Results) in front of ready shoppers is an effective way to increase revenue.

Course recommended: Search Engine Marketing Course.

Engagement

Learn social media engagement with Social Media Marketing course

Use fun and engaging content for your viewers to watch, interact, and share to create more engagement. This will help to create brand awareness and user-generated content. Examples include SGAG and Mothership, where news snippets are presented as humorous, short videos curated from news forums and community groups.

While one might expect professional levels of video editing to be present, the reality is that only basic editing is usually present, focusing on a great story angle. According to advertising studies, video is the second most-used content on social media to increase audience engagement due to its low cost and higher effective rate. So, if you can master social media and video creation, you are on an excellent start marketing your brand.

Hence, consider not just a social media marketing course but also a video marketing component where you learn basic filming techniques such as panning, transition, and how to use different angles creatively.

Course recommended: Social Media Marketing with Video Creation

Another way to create engagement is via content marketing. For some, content marketing brings to mind viral marketing, such as outdoor display advertisements or marketing stunts. However, the approach we wish to focus on here is blog content, in either short-form or long-form content.

How do we know content marketing works? Based on research, 70% of audiences reported they would rather get information or learn from a blog post than information from an advertisement. Content marketing is a long-term approach that helps improve your brand’s visibility and nurture stronger customer relationships.

Content marketing also comes from wishing to educate consumers, bringing value to their daily needs, rather than complex selling products upfront. This technique is great if you want to nurture cold audiences to become warm audiences for your business as part of the buyer’s journey or marketing funnel.

Excellent content marketing also comes in lead magnets, such as accessible PDF guidebooks, downloadable assets, and templates that consumers can use. Some examples include travel itinerary checklists, market trend reports, and industry forecasts.

Course recommended: Content Marketing Course


Business Strategy

Learn Business Strategy with Google Analytics course

Lastly, business owners who wish to dive deep into their business analytics, optimise their campaigns and make better business decisions can opt for a Google Analytics course.

Google Analytics is a free tracking tool that tracks your analytics on your website, e.g. kids’ bed e-commerce website, from how consumers use your site to how they reach it. Using Google Analytics, you can decipher consumer trends and tell how customers interact with your brand, such as where your traffic comes from and which campaigns they respond well to. With this data, you can make better critical business decisions, such as the structure of your website, and gain insight on how to angle your next marketing campaign.

Knowing how to read your business data and gain insight is one of the most underrated aspects of business strategy, and business owners who can do so will be able to identify potential obstacles and better adapt their business to uncertain times. In this pandemic era, such a skill will be integral in helping your business survive.

The recommended course is Making Business Decisions with Google Analytics.

3. Funding Available for Local Businesses

Course Funding Available for Local Businesses in Singapore

Let’s face it: taking upskilling courses will incur significant costs to small businesses. Also, issues to consider include the opportunity cost (additional work in the office done) while your employee is away on a course and whether the course is helpful in the long run.

Luckily, there are various subsidies in place for skills upgrading in Singapore, whether you’re an employer looking to send your employees for training or an individual looking to upskill.

Here are the subsidies you can expect:

Company-Sponsored Subsidies

  • Up to 90% subsidy by SkillsFuture
  • Additional Support via Absentee Payroll
Sample Course Fee Breakdown
Course Fees (Sample) Up to 90% Subsidy by SkillsFuture Singapore Amount Payable by Company (SME) Additional Support via Absentee Payroll
$1,100 $990 $110 $150

 

Self-Sponsored Subsidies

Sample Course Fee Breakdown
Age Group Course Fees Up to 90% Subsidy by SkillsFuture Singapore Amount Payable by Individual SkillsFuture Credits
Singapore Citizens & PR aged 21 – 39 years old $1,100 $300 $800 Up to 100% of Amount Payable (Subject to SkillsFuture Credits Availability)
Singapore Citizens & PR aged 40 years and above $1,100 $990 $110 Up to 100% of Amount Payable (Subject to SkillsFuture Credits Availability)

Taken from FirstCom Academy’s Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Course

As you can see, the most significant cost defrayment comes from either being an employee of a local SME or over 40 years of age. So please take advantage of these benefits while it lasts!

Parting Words

Choosing the right digital marketing course does not need to be a headache if you have your business goals clearly defined. Next up is to select the training provider with whom to sign up. If you are starting, look for a training school that provides many digital marketing courses. With suitable classes taught by experienced industry professionals, you can be adept at the skill of your choice and deliver growth to your business. FirstCom Academy is one of Singapore’s top 5 schools for Digital Marketing Courses.

Smart Singapore logo training courses

With FirstCom Academy, we have a broad range of courses, from Facebook Marketing to Content Marketing and Google Analytics. These courses, taught by industry veterans and current practitioners, will immediately equip you with real-world skills you can use in your digital marketing plans.

Visit any of the links above to learn more about your business’s digital marketing courses — or check out other SkillsFuture courses at FirstCom Academy today!

Frequently Asked Questions:

Identify your specific business goals first, whether it's more revenue, better engagement, or optimizing strategy. Then choose the course that aligns, like Facebook Ads for revenue or Content Marketing for engagement.

Facebook Advertising and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) courses are most effective for driving more revenue and leads quickly through paid ads and search optimization.

Social Media Marketing and Video Creation courses teach you how to create compelling, shareable content that sparks engagement on social platforms.

A Google Analytics course teaches you how to interpret important website traffic data so you can optimize your marketing strategy.

Look for industry expert instructors with real-world experience. Also ensure they offer a wide breadth of specialized courses to choose from.