This paper aims to provide an introduction to concepts behind digital marketing, as well as some practical experience of a few of the tools currently being used – and awareness of a lot more of them. Your understanding of marketing and strategy from other courses will be applied to digital platforms and technologies.

There are several important caveats to studying digital marketing:

1. There is a lot of confusion and misunderstanding about what Digital Marketing actually is. In this course, it is treated as, “Any aspect of marketing that uses digital platforms either wholly or partially as part of a marketing strategy.” That means that almost all modern marketing comes under this heading. Concepts learnt in earlier courses such as Marketing 101, Consumer Behaviour, Marketing Strategy, and Advertising & Promotions, all come into play in implementing a digital strategy.
2. Almost everyone has had direct experience with digital marketing, just as everyone has used a shop or seen an advert. In actuality, traditional methods for developing ad campaigns, designing questionnaires or running a retail store are today all superseded by digital alternatives, and even as customers, you are probably more aware of those alternatives. Some of you will have used digital marketing in your jobs already. The range of knowledge within the class is usually quite diverse. Unlike most courses, there is no single, baseline starting point for the majority of students enrolled.
3. Marketing is core to any business so today and into the future, that means digital marketing. As an extreme example, even for a business with no web presence, no Facebook Page, or even no e-mail address, it’s likely that customers will find your location by searching for you through their phones. You cannot avoid it. Digital tools allow marketing strategy to be implemented more efficiently, more effectively, and often more creatively than ever before. New options and techniques appear all the time. While the majority of courses teach ‘textbook’ marketing concepts that have evolved over the past 20-50 years, digital marketing is, by necessity, a very practical, career requirement. Even where marketing is outsourced, you still need to be able to evaluate strategy proposals and interpret outcomes.

In summary, digital marketing today is so pervasive that, in the real world at least, ‘marketing’ and ‘digital marketing’ are one and the same thing.

This course will adopt a so-called 'blended' learning approach. There will be three hours of contact time each week, with some weeks requiring four hours.

It will adopt a so-called 'blended' learning approach. Please note:

• Two hours of lectures: lectures will feature in-class discussion, in-class group work and so on, as well as standard, explanatory lecture content.
• In some weeks, an additional hour will be used when there is a lot of content or when we have a guest speaker.
• Regardless of attendance, you should supplement your understanding and the breadth of knowledge by reading. Recommended readings are provided on most topics.
• You should consider attendance at guest lectures as compulsory. People give up their time to provide case examples and to act as 'clients' for assessments, so please attend these classes. I will provide assessed quizzes for all guest lectures.
  
• There will be eight computer labs, beginning in Week 3. These labs will allow you to practice using the webpage building tool we use on the course and to ask for help and advice. Each Lab provides guidance on one aspect of the final assignment, so attendance is highly recommended.

NOTEON ASSIGNMENT DETAILS

Due to the detail required on some assignments, up to date instructions are supplied through links on Moodle.

IMPORTANT NOTE ON REPORT PRESENTATION & WRITING STYLE

When preparing ANY written work for this course, please note:

• Cover pages are NEVER required. Please add your name and ID in the document's header.
• Clear, concise, business style writing is expected for everything. Imagine you're writing for a very busy boss. Keep it simple and get to the point.
• Always split your documents into a clear structure using sub-headers – and make the sub-headers descriptive (e.g. "Section 1" is NOT a good sub-header, "Reasons why I chose this business model" is better).
• Use bullet points wherever possible. Bullets should be a maximum 1-2 lines long.
• Always spell check and grammar check.

All grading will include a presentation component and you will lose marks if:

• There are spelling or grammatical errors
• Bullets and sub-headers are not used or used poorly
• The writing style is long-winded and unnecessarily padded

This course will make extensive use of online content for out-of-class study, exercises, feedback, peer review, and assignment submissions. Visit the Moodle page and get used to the content as soon as you can.

Please feel free to email the instructor at any time or arrange an appointment to meet. My email is: Roy Larke.

Student workload should be distributed roughly as follows:

• In-class time: up to 3-hours per week
• Self-study online: 6-8 hours a week
• Assignment preparation time: 3-4 hours a week
• Content reflection and peer content review: 1-2 hours a week