Here’s how I UpGrad(ed) my career in digital marketing!

Over the past few months my weekends seemed to keep me busier than weekdays! Also, I realized my weekend spends have come down considerably. All thanks to the intensive UpGrad Digital Marketing Course I took up; my assignments & case studies got more priority than movie dates & shopping sprees!

I stumbled upon UpGrad in the most coincidental manner. A job consultant got me to interview with the Marketing Head at UpGrad & my conversation with him got me interested in the course more than the job! On doing an extended research about the course & going through the ‘customer journey’ as we call it, I signed up for the 8 month intensive program. Due credit to the sales rep who gave me enough info & all the targeted content marketing strategies used on Facebook convinced me on my decision. Even the pre-course video calls cleared my doubts about a Content Marketer like me wanting to expand my foothold in the Digital Marketing field and play with metrics, leads, analytics and more…

Owing to my keen interest in academics, I was excited about the course from day 1. Managing time for tightly scheduled modules was not a cake walk. However, I enjoyed the bite sized and well curated videos that made even my rickshaw rides back home informative & interesting.

Probably the best part of the course which I enjoyed thoroughly were Case Studies from so many well-known growing brands such as Grofers, Zivame, Nearby, Bajaj Auto etc…The fact that these were across different industries (B2B & B2C) made them much more interesting. Even simple examples during the course were picked up from apps, products & services that we use on a day-to-day basis making learning simple & applicable to our daily lives.

Another interesting part of the course was the Live Project that all of us were part of. We were asked to apply our learning in the real world by helping GentClub with their marketing efforts. It was fun to put on our thinking caps & work on different facets of the business, starting from the website itself! It was doubly interesting that many of our efforts was well appreciated & even incorporated into the business strategy such as changes in design structure, call to action buttons, SEO integration, display ad ideas, creative themes for social media ads & more! It definitely is a matter of pride to be counted among the top students for this Live project.

It was indeed a great experience to use my work experience to solve assignments as well as apply learning from the course into my regular work! For instance, the Momoe case study was so similar to the challenges we face at the fintech startup I work at (Udio) made it easier for me to solve. It so happened that I scored 100% on this case study which got me an opportunity to have a chat with the CEO of the company & exchange notes!

Talking about incorporating learning at work, I have picked up many small hacks & ideas to integrate into daily practices. I now use a much more organized Social Media Calendar, axis clubbing techniques to form Keywords, tools like Unmetric to benchmark against competition & more. I consider that I have got my ROI on this course when my CEO himself acknowledged the ideas I brought to the table!

The course also enabled fellow classmates to interact with each other. The discussion forum, was a good source of information across course topics & other trends. Gamifying engagement on the discussion group with creative badges was a good idea too! Proudly presenting my collection here —

Even the WhatsApp group discussions between classmates got more intensive during deadlines of assignments & modules (there were times when these discussions even bought us extensions for our submissions). It was also a good platform to get leads for jobs & exchange ideas. While most of us were doing this course to help us in our career progression, it was still fun to feature among the top students & get congratulated! Reminded me of the good old school/college days!

When I talk about UpGrad, it is worth mentioning about the support that the course provides to students. They are constantly in touch with us on various platforms — App Notifications, Emails, WhatsApp & provide timely updates & reminders to enable us keep pace with the course. The buddy support was a great idea to have & my classmates will agree when I say there were many times we reached out to Ishani for various reasons ranging from course timelines to job vacancies to teaching associate sessions & more! I hope we will continue to benefit from our association with mentors & fellow students even post the course completion.

This course has benefited me at many different levels. I see myself as a much more confident Digital Marketer. My social media campaigns are no longer ranked on the creativity I bring in but also on how I optimize the campaigns and benchmark against competition & previous campaigns based on CPCs & CPMs. The quality of my marketing leads have seen considerable improvement post applying the lead nurturing techniques that I have learnt. I have found more logical & scientific methods to hunt down influencers in my space of work to follow on social channels. My email campaigns are measured on click through rates rather than just open rates & my content for the retention & engagement campaigns ensure high relevance thanks to the re-targeting techniques I have learnt during this course.

I have grown professionally over the years, by incorporating new techniques & methods in my field of work. After this course my professional growth has seen a greater jump & even helped me grab an opportunity at a growing start-up (CleverTap) that focuses on marketing analytics & user engagement; which is exactly the field I wanted to be in!