Digital Marketing Course Comparison Boot Camp Digital

Which digital marketing course should you choose?

One of the most common questions asked of OMCP is “Which Digital Marketing Courses are right for me?” For this special series OMCP interviewed the leaders of seven digital marketing course providers to learn the differences. We start with the most recent to earn OMCP approval, Boot Camp Digital.

Allison Chaney, the chief digital training officer at Boot Camp Digital, and Krista Neher, CEO of Boot Camp Digital were kind enough to sit with us and share what the industry can expect from their company and training courses; now and in the future.

Michael:
All right. Welcome back to the OMCP studios, and with us today is Allison Chaney, the chief digital training officer at Boot Camp Digital, and Krista Neher, CEO of Boot Camp Digital. Allison and Krista are at the forefront of digital marketing training, delivering keynotes around the globe.

I’m your host Michael Stebbins, and today we’ll be discussing digital marketing training, specifically that from Boot Camp Digital, to help our audience understand how to choose a digital marketing training course specifically.

Allison and Krista, welcome.

Allison & Krista:
Thank you.
Thanks for having us.

What got you into digital marketing training?

Michael:
As founders, what drove you to get into the business of education and training?

Krista:
Yeah, so that’s a great question, and I would say I came into it a little bit by accident, and then a little bit more on purpose. I started my business about 12 years ago just as social media was really taking off. What I found was that a lot of people, whether they were doing it themselves or hiring an agency, just didn’t understand enough to really get results. And so I became really interested in trying to help them learn how to use the tools themselves to get better results, whether they were a decision maker, an evaluator, or an implementer.

And so, I actually ran my first training class about 10 years ago, and I remember thinking, “Oh no, I wonder if people will show up.” Sure enough, it sold out. Since then, I’ve gotten even more focused on helping businesses and individuals to figure out how do they use these tools smartly to get better results faster? And so that’s really what inspires me is helping, whether it’s an implementer, or a business owner, or a decision maker in a large organization, helping them to make smarter decisions with their budgets. Because you just see so much waste, and so many executions that don’t even meet basic best practices, and it breaks my heart. I want to help people do a better job with this stuff, so they see the results.

Michael:
When people are taking the courses, you’re passionate, you want to see them make the most use of their tools and their decisions, how would you measure the success of people who are going through the Boot Camp Digital courses and programs?

How do you measure training success?

Krista:
I mean for me, the success always comes down to results. Are there actionable things that you can and will do that are going to improve your business? Because I think knowledge… If you think about adult education and adult learners, right? Knowledge is a small part of the ultimate issue, right? You have to know the stuff, but then implementing it consistently is the trick part. And so to me, our true success is always measured by results.

Someone sending me an email saying, “Wow, I took what you said about content, and we’re seeing 10 times the reach on our social media posts.” That’s the stuff that I live for, because knowing is half the battle. Using it to grow a business, that’s the hard part, and that’s what I think the ultimate success measurement is.

Who is the ideal candidate for your courses?

Michael:
You cover social media, you cover SEO, you cover digital analytics, you cover digital advertising, you cover the spectrum of digital marketing in the course, and you mention tools too. Give us an idea of the ideal candidate who would come in and take the courses that you’re offering.

Krista:
When I think about who our ideal candidates for our training, really we think about people who want to drive impact. One big thing about us is we’re not going to give you these little, short-term hacks and tricks that work for three weeks, and then an algorithm update erases them. We focus on sustainable impact, sustainable strategies, kind of like the meat and potatoes that gets you 90% of your results.

Our courses are really design to be good for a pretty large range of audience. One of the things we did when we designed our online training was we wanted to design them for the jobs that people had instead of around a topic. Let me tell you what I mean by that. If you think about Facebook marketing, a lot of Facebook marketing courses may be set up as beginner, intermediate, or advanced. But what we realized after doing training for the first five years or so, was that actually it’s not so much beginner, intermediate, or advanced, it’s there’s different types of jobs that need different sorts of information.

Multiple levels by types of jobs

• Digital foundations level
• Strategy level
• Implementation & mastery levels

We have a digital foundation section, for example in our Facebook course, we have Facebook foundations, which is aimed at somebody who wants to understand basically how Facebook works for a business, where it’s at now, what to look forward to. Then we have the next level, which is our strategy level. This is for, let’s say, a brand manager, someone who’s not going to get their hands dirty, they don’t need to know literally how to set up a Facebook page, but they need to understand how to evaluate a strategy, they need to understand how to look at results, and they need to know some best practices. We see the strategy level as sort of the decision-maker level, but not quite getting your hands dirty.

And then, our 300 and 400 levels are really focused on implementation, so then we get into how do you set this stuff up with best practices, and then our mastery levels, the really advanced tops and tricks, and things that take you to the next level. Because of that, when we look at who our training can help, it’s really people with those different needs for different types of jobs, from implementation to maybe more strategic level, and they can choose the training content that best meets their need across all of our different topics.

B2B, Consumer, or Small Business?

Michael:
Krista, do you have a leaning towards enterprise B2B , mid-size, or small business?

Krista:
Sure, so one of the questions I get all the time in trainings of any sort when it’s a broad audience is people say, “Oh, but what about B2B?” Or, “How does that apply to healthcare?” Or, “What about small businesses?” Really, the tools are all the same in terms of how you apply them. We find we have everyone from small businesses, meaning maybe it’s the business owner where this is 50% of their job, all the way up to we’ve done training programs for some of the best known brands in the world.

We really are able to cover a range, and I think it’s because we focus on digital marketing, and we focus on training. And so the tools and how they work are quite similar. It’s just being used a little differently. I think of it a little bit as okay, you’re making a chair versus a table, but you’re going to use wood, you need to measure the wood, you need a hammer, you need to know how to use a level. I actually chose a terrible analogy, because I don’t know how to build furniture. But you get the idea.

Michael:
I think a lot of the audience is just finding out that your courses were evaluated and approved by OMCP, so congratulations for that. We just really enjoyed the evaluation and seeing some of the innovative things that you’re doing. We noticed, you know just for example, a tremendous amount of content. I think there was almost, or over, eight hours on just Facebook alone. And we saw a tremendous number of downloads and checklists. What else will participants find in your course that they’re unlikely to find somewhere else?

What’s unique about Boot Camp Digital courses?

Besides the lessons:

1. Live weekly Q&A
2. One-on-one coaching
3. Downloads and checklists
4. Private users’ group

Allison:
Yeah, and this is actually one of my favorite things about the course, because to answer your question, it’s the one-on-one coaching with an expert. So many of these courses online are just sort of one sided, you know, you’re watching a video, or you’re downloading things, or whatever it is. But it’s that extra bit that we offer where you can actually get on a phone with Krista or I, or an expert in something specific that you need, usually it’s Krista or myself, and ask us those questions.

That value is just so hard to find anywhere else, and that’s one of the reasons I love these courses so much. Because if you’ve taken any kind of course, if you’ve done any kind of learning in your life, you’ve probably got to a point where you’re like, “Oh, but I just had this question.” Or, “I have this thing.” Or, “I want to talk this out. I want to see if I really get it or I understand it.” Usually the answer is you just have to figure it out yourself.

This extra level of what we offer I think really helps to round out the training, and really helps you to take it to the next level, because learning can only go so far, and then you really do need that expert to say, “Yeah, you’ve got it.” Or, “Let’s think about thi