If you’re an entrepreneur and recently started a business blog to promote your products and or services, the concepts of online marketing (unless formally trained) can be one of the most difficult tasks to grasp. After all, you’ll need to have a strong marketing plan— otherwise you won’t create a loyal fan base and you won’t make enough sales to keep your business afloat. If you would like to learn a few tips and tricks from the professionals (i.e. marketing professors/instructors) you don’t need to necessarily go back to school. You can actually learn a few tricks of the trade by checking out some free online courses in the subject. While the e-marketing courses are completely free, do note that you might have to purchase textbooks or other tools to get the full learning experience. That said, below are a few that can help you perfect both your blog and social media accounts.
The Digital Marketing Guidebook
This nine-part module is used as supplement to several marketing programs in Africa, including those taught at The University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business and Cairo University. Although not American, the English-speaking author does a really good job at creating a set of “flash” cards that can teach anyone from any country the fundamentals of marketing. Some sample module titles include: Social Media 101, Search Marketing and SEO 101, and Online Advertising 101 just to name a few.
Entrepreneurial Marketing
This course, which is offered through the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a bit outdate—it was taught in 2002—however since the course is designed to teach the basics of how to create a marketing plan and how to please the costumer using the tools that surround you, it can still be quite useful. When taking this course, try to think of some modern ways you can adapt the principles being taught.
E-Marketing
This introductory e-marketing course, which is offered through the University of California Irvine, is split into eight different parts. Collectively, these modules will teach you how to create a strong online presence, the importance of SEO, as well as industry trends to be on the lookout for.
There are several other free e-courses available, however the ones we listed above are the best at giving you a more comprehensive look of how you can use several tools the internet has to offer so that you can take your blog, social media site, or whatever other platform you’re using to promote your business to the very top.
Katheryn Rivas is a higher education writer and blogger. When she’s not digging and reporting about the latest online universities news, she can be found playing with her two Saint Bernard’s Chica and Chico. She can be reached at katherynrivas87@gmail.com.
