scaling digital marketers: how to scale digital marketing education

Scaling Digital Marketingers

iAcquire Meetup 2013@Rhea | @outspokenmedia

What is scaling digital about?

I own a small agency.

“But Rhea,you

scaled a human!”

What I enjoy most about my job is building people

up.

Don’t take my word for it…

“Rhea has been one of the most influential people in my professional career. I've learned more from Rhea than I have from any other supervisor/colleague in all the fields I've worked in and all in a short period of time.”

“She's a great teacher, and I will owe much of any success I acheive to the time I got to spend

with Rhea as my supervisor.”

“I learned more from her in one month than I did in an entire year at (redacted).”

So, let’s talk about how you scale digital

marketers!

First, how did we get here?

Most of us didn’t get a DIGITAL MARKETINGdegree at…

We didn’t have a badass mentor.

We didn’t inherit

the family

business.

Educational Backgrounds of SEOs & Digital

Marketers

Survey conducted on 9/24/2013285 responses as of the following

screenshots

No minimum educational requirements for

industry employment

91%Did not take any online marketing, search marketing, digital marketing, or related courses in school.

Until recent years there was no degree in digital

marketing

Internet Marketing MS

eCommerce MS

e-Business MS

New Media Institute Certification

Why are there so few programs dedicated to

digital marketing?

Marketing courses are like history class where we never made it past WWII

Traditional academia cannot develop

curriculum fast enough to include the rapidly

changing environment of digital technology

First use of “SEO” circa 1997

Google founded Sept 4, 1998

The Internet literally moves at the speed of light

Less diversity, but greater complexity in

search

http://www.google.com/intl/en/insidesearch/howsearchworks/algorithms.html

Even then, Google itself is outdated and missing

in-depth articles

Search is more complex than the…

We cannot rely on traditional education to

train our future workforce

But we’re already struggling to find the talent that industry growth demands!

Fortunately, we’re positioned better than

ever

Internet

Smart phones

Cloud

Which gives us self-directed learning opportunities like:

But, most of us won’t thrive under self-directed learning

Because we need…

…a teacher.

• Most of your students learn differently than you do.

• Each of your students learns differently from your other students.

• No one teaching method will effectively reach all of your students.

• You cannot address all of your students' learning styles all of the time.

Teachers know that…

• Most of your employees learn differently than you do.

• Each of your employees learns differently from your other employees.

• No one teaching method will effectively reach all of your employees.

• You cannot address all of your employees' learning styles all of the time.

And in business…

Corporate education is vital for employee

retention and business growth

Gen Y expects continual learning, but promotion doesn’t mean education.

40% of Gen Y believes they should be

promoted every two years, regardless of

performance.

Without education and promotion, you will

lose your team.

How do we train *everyone*?

This depends on your business model

TEACH ALL THE THINGS!

Want my $1 Billion secret?

Stone soup

You will need…

Students

Educators

Parallel goals

Flexible curriculum

Performance measurement

Review Process

Seriously, that’s it!

Fortunately, most of us do this to some extent

already

Create a Culture for Learning

Hold Traffic / Status / Standing Mtngs

Hold Budget Meetings

“Don’t use a bandaid!”

Develop SOPs

“We need quick guides.”

Foster Team-Led Training

Encourage feedback

This brainstorm

isn’t working!

Learn How to Brainstormhttp://www.mindtools.com/brainstm.html

• Find a comfortable meeting environment, and set it up ready for the session.• Appoint one person to record the ideas that come from the session. These should

be noted in a format than everyone can see and refer to. Depending on the approach you want to use, you may want to record ideas on flip charts, whiteboards, or computers with data projectors.

• Define the problem you want solved clearly, and lay out any criteria to be met. Make it clear that that the objective of the meeting is to generate as many ideas as possible.

• Give people plenty of time on their own at the start of the session to generate as many ideas as possible.

• Ask people to give their ideas, making sure that you give everyone a fair opportunity to contribute.

• Encourage people to develop other people's ideas, or to use other ideas to create new ones.

• Encourage an enthusiastic, uncritical attitude among members of the group. Try to get everyone to contribute and develop ideas, including the quietest members of the group.

• Ensure that no one criticizes or evaluates ideas during the session. Criticism introduces an element of risk for group members when putting forward an idea. This stifles creativity and cripples the free running nature of a good brainstorming session.

• Let people have fun brainstorming. Encourage them to come up with as many ideas as possible, from solidly practical ones to wildly impractical ones. Welcome creativity!

• Ensure that no train of thought is followed for too long. Make sure that you generate a sufficient number of different ideas, as well as exploring individual ideas in detail.

• In a long session, take plenty of breaks so that people can continue to concentrate.

Store Lessons & Revisions

Hold After-Action Reviews

Schedule Work Reviews

Make Time for Mentorship

Share the Responsibility w/Clients

Appoint a Chief Learning Officer

COMING SOON!

Say hello!rhea@outspokenmedia.comt: @Rhea | @outspokenmedia