Northumbria masters the art of digital marketing

Northumbria University, Newcastle, has launched a postgraduate course in digital marketing in collaboration with leading marketing professionals to meet the needs of employers in a rapidly growing industry.

The Digital Marketing MSc is designed to give graduates the knowledge to think strategically, lead teams and stand out in the digital marketplace.

The course has been introduced in line with the requirements of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and the Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing and its content reflects the very latest developments in the field, including location-based marketing, user experience, customer journey mapping and mobile marketing.

It focuses on the knowledge and skills needed to be successful in modern marketing; building a portfolio of materials to present to future employers including created web content, customer infographics, journey maps, campaign proposals and web analytics.

For the students to gain real-world experience they work alongside leading practitioners in the field who deliver guest lectures as well as giving access to their digital marketing software and resources.

Recently the students have been working with Newcastle-based Websand; a company that helps businesses to join the dots between their marketing strategy and customer behaviour by using its own specially designed software. Websand helps businesses increase engagement with their customers by making email marketing more effective and easier to apply.

Saul Gowens, founder of Websand (www.websand.co.uk) has delivered guest IT workshops and had one-to-one meetings with the students at Northumbria. He believes the course will provide postgraduate students with the necessary skills to work in a variety of multi-national marketing roles. As part of the course, students will create their own databases and develop targeted messages for different online segments.

“Data driven marketing is widely regarded the world over,” said Saul. “Many global marketers now spend more on digital than most IT departments do. With digital and data driven marketing everything is pretty much trackable and this is invaluable information to every big business.

“With this in mind, and with the knowledge taken from this course, students will be highly employable upon leaving higher education. They will have an advanced level of digital marketing awareness, they will be able to understand data and why it is so important to businesses, and it will give them an inquisitive nature and a desire to know what the consumer wants.

“I have been really impressed with the students at Northumbria University. Many of them have some really good ideas and they pick up what they are being told so quickly – they just get it.”

David Hart, Principal Lecturer in Marketing and part of the team that developed the Digital Marketing programme, said: “This course was launched in response to an industry need for digital-ready marketing graduates with the technical ability to manage data and use that to inform marketing decision making.

“We are delighted to be working with Websand who are providing the expertise and access to our students to enable them to build sophisticated customer databases. The students are engaged and are thoroughly enjoying the course to date.

“The course has recruited over 40 students from a broad range of subject backgrounds which has led to some fascinating debates in class. We are also delighted to have launched the course at our London campus.”