The purpose of this Digital Design course is to explore and familiarize ourselves with aspects of digital marketing. How to determine the target audience of a company and what factors go into that. What techniques to use to make an impression on a specific audience, and how to encourage them to engage with the business. Everything that goes into marketing on the internet and how that can alter the success of a company.
The digital marketing environment is tricky, but with it being such a big part of the 21st-century business world, learning and understanding it can be a great asset. This course has taught me consumer behavior, email marketing, SEO, and social media marketing of businesses, helping me make better consumer choices when looking to buy stuff, and how to attract more people to what I am trying to sell. I can identify when a marketing message can be specifically curated to grab my attention, or when a message or deal can look better because of a paid partnership or getting certain famous people to associate with it. I am more judgmental of companies and items when I am looking to make a purchase, which allows me to make the best decision for myself instead of making choices based on what is fabricated for my liking.
For my Digital Marketing course, I started by making my personal website. This allowed me to explore what might attract and maintain the attention of someone who came across it. I also learned the importance of convenience and ease of use; a difficult website will not keep people for long and can even deter them from a brand. Next, I got to create customer personas for two businesses using A.I. Understanding a typical customer or target audience of a business is crucial to be able to market to them effectively. I was able to do Search Engine Optimization through A.I., finding out keywords and searches associated with a brand can help them understand what people are looking for and how to get seen by larger audiences. We also used A.I. to do content curation for businesses based on their target market for social media platforms. Lastly, I was able to quickly see how a brand/company can improve or what their shortcomings were based on analyzing their reviews using A.I. This is very important because to stay in business and make profits consistently, looking for ways to improve is key. Throughout this course, using Artificial Intelligence showed how efficient it is to break down large amounts of data quickly to help improve companies in a variety of aspects.
After taking this course, I can now make a website from scratch, link tools such as email automation, Google Analytics, and Google Search Console to a website to track its progress. I can determine the target audience of a business and create content curated towards them. I can also look at reviews and first-hand feedback from customers and understand how to alter or change a marketing approach. I am now experienced in A.I. and can make it work for me either to come up with ideas, look at data, or create images.
The first company analysis I worked on was Applebee’s. Overall, they have great marketing strategies and hit their target audience well, but they can always improve. I suggest they try to market more towards college students and try to emphasize eating there for celebrations. Right now, they market a lot towards families, but they are potentially missing out on a huge younger demographic of their target market that could bring them sales.
The second company I analyzed was Sephora. Overall, Sephora does a great job outside of store marketing; their media and campaigns drive sales online and bring people into the store. However, a proposal I have for them is to lay off the floor marketing staff in stores because that is their biggest complaint, based on company reviews. A lot of people feel overwhelmed in the store; they are bombarded by multiple workers who make them feel pressured to buy something. The workers overall are taking away from the Sephora experience and making customers not want to come back to stores. By decreasing these interactions, more people will enjoy their time spent shopping instead of it feeling like a mission to buy something.
By using social media and LinkedIn to market, I am surprised at how easy and fast it is to connect with an array of people. At the beginning of using LinkedIn, it was hard for me to get connections because I did not know a lot of people on the app, but after a few months of posting content, I made around 20 new connections, and some from people I would not have expected to. This shows how the internet can be such an important part of a business and a person’s success because most people are on it every day and will happen to cross paths with you.
n the future, I plan to work in the marketing department for anything sports or design-related. I specifically want to be involved in an interior design company that uses renewable and sustainable materials. Everything I learned during this course will be useful to my future job. I will be able to come up with marketing strategies based on the target market. I will be able to determine what type of media to use, whether it be through email promotion, influencers, or advertisements, to increase views that will lead to sales. I will also be able to analyze the performance of specific marketing jobs and see what impact they had on sales. I will also be able to look at what customers like and don’t like to see where the company can improve. I also know what it takes to create an interesting and engaging media post that will help influence the younger generations.
I have grown tremendously throughout this course. I am typically not very good with technology, and that was especially apparent in the beginning assignments. I struggled to do everything just because I was not good at using my computer, so the assignments were extra difficult and took me long hours to complete. Towards the end of the year, assignments got significantly easier because I was used to what was expected from the assignments, and I was more versed in using my computer. For my professional and future goals, this class taught me that practice makes perfect, and I can be good and get better at anything I set my mind to. It also shows that I have perseverance and can work through tasks no matter how difficult.
I want to thank my friend Brinlee for helping me fix my website when I couldn’t figure something out. She has a lot of experience building websites, so when I struggled, I went to her. I would also like to thank my professor, Sangbong Lee, for providing adequate instructions for the assignments and for offering me help or extensions on due dates when I needed them. This class was not easy, but the great support group I had during it made it better. And thank you to everyone who kept up with my posts and progress during this semester!