At Digital Glue we believe learning and training is so important we made it one of our values: ‘Always getting better at our jobs’. Each member of the team is encouraged to dedicate ten percent of their time at work on learning, training and putting their newfound skills into practice.
Why should marketing agencies have learning and development of their team at the core of what they do?
The digital marketing industry is always changing, developing and adapting to new technologies. Without learning, developing and remaining up-to-date with trends, agencies wouldn’t be able to give clients the most relevant and accurate advice. By implementing these opportunities for learning it means that individuals can be better at their jobs and can deliver better results for their clients. Be that more reviews for products through PR services or better web performance through SEO or PPC solutions.
It is important to ensure there are enough talented people in the communications, PR and creative sectors for years to come. The skills required for these sectors involve an understanding of lots of different elements in marketing as well as experience. It is only when people seek out and spend time understanding how the various areas of digital marketing work individually and together to compliment each other that individuals can develop skills. Digital Glue is so committed to skills development, that we also offer work experiences and internships so that new talent can enter the profession and are able to get a taste of what digital marketing is really like.
How does learning and development help our clients?
By always getting better, Digital Glue understands what changes are coming.
All industries are seeing changes in their ways of working as a result of digital advancement as well as the repercussions of Covid, like working from home. By having a learning and development system, and time for each team member to actually complete training courses and learn new skills, the Digital Glue team is better positioned to understand and predict what industry changes are coming.
For example, when Google changes the way its algorithms work or Facebook changes the way ads are booked, time is available for the team to pre-empt updates and determine how to change campaigns to ensure client KPIs continue to be met despite these changes. Making Digital Glue better prepared and armed with the knowledge needed to ensure continued delivery of results for SEO and PPC clients.
Take a look at the results we’ve achieved for customers in our case studies.
Having knowledge of new and upcoming trends also helps us understand when they will work for clients. Sometimes new isn’t always best. Understanding a client’s marketing goals is key to knowing which channels to use. Traditional PR work backed up by an influencer campaign might work really well for one client, and yet not hit the target market for another.
For this reason it’s always important to continue to develop and perfect the skills our team already has. Each week we get together to share interesting ideas, articles and good things we have seen that inspire, fuel and improve our understanding and awareness across all digital media. We then debate the benefits, and sometimes the negatives, of using these types of campaigns and consider if they would suit any of our clients.
How do Digital Glue ensure learning is shared with the wider team?
Digital Glue has a variety of ways to share knowledge and embed learning within the team. One of which is through regular “Lunch and Learns”. These are sessions delivered by team members who have completed a course. The team member presents what they have learnt to the wider team and shares ideas on how they can use it within their daily work and what impact that will have on a client’s results.
Lunch and Learns provide the opportunity for the whole team to be knowledgeable and understand how the different areas of digital marketing work together to get clients’ a return on their marketing investment.
How can learning be used to ensure consistent client delivery?
It is widely acknowledged that people learn best when they have the time to absorb the learning and when they have the ability to quickly put that learning into practice in a real working example.
It’s always challenging to share information on how internal systems and processes work at an appropriate time for it to be relevant to the whole team at Digital Glue. In order to resolve this age-old problem, we have been developing our own learning system. It is a series of training courses either delivered in-person, recorded as videos or a written outline that can be accessed by the whole team at a time that suits them.
The training courses are designed to be watched in short sessions so as to create maximum flexibility for the user and to ensure that whenever the team needs help, it is always ready and available for them to use.
Once the team have understood ‘How to …’ in the Digital Glue way they can seek out further training and learning through external sources that can include: literature, online programs or in-person courses on their chosen topic, all paid for by Digital Glue.
