Digital marketing foundations: strategy before tactics

Decide who you are marketing to, what you are offering them and which channels to use, then put it on one page with a budget.

Most small businesses start marketing with a tactic. Someone opens an Instagram account, boosts a few posts and tries a Google ad. Three months later they cannot say what worked or who it was for. The effort was there, but nobody had decided who the customer is, why they should choose you over the alternatives, or what each channel is meant to do. In this course you make those decisions first, in order, using Singapore examples from hawker brands, tuition centres, online sellers and advisers. You finish with a one-page plan, a goal and a budget, so each tactic you learn later has a clear purpose.

What you'll be able to do

• Explain which tasks marketing is responsible for and which belong to sales, operations or product
• Map the steps your customer takes, from first noticing a problem to buying again and recommending you
• Write a description of your target customer and a positioning statement against the real alternatives they have
• Write a value proposition and test it with five people from your target group
• Compare search, social, email, ads and partnerships, and choose two channels to start with
• Set a marketing goal linked to a business number, and a budget you can explain to someone else
• Produce a one-page marketing plan that you review every 90 days

Syllabus

Module 1: Know what marketing is for

What marketing is responsible for, what people often mix it up with, and how to check whether what you do now is marketing or just keeping busy online.

• 1.1 Marketing starts with who, not with posting
• 1.2 What marketing is not: sales, a logo, or an ad
• 1.3 The four Ps still describe the whole job
• 1.4 Audit what your business calls marketing today

Module 2: Follow your customer from stranger to repeat buyer

How customers move from first hearing of you to buying and coming back, what they need from you at each stage, and where your business loses them now.

• 2.1 The journey from noticing a problem to telling a friend
• 2.2 Why the funnel is a useful lie
• 2.3 What each stage needs from you
• 2.4 Map the journey for one real customer type

Module 3: Choose who you are for and why they should pick you

You will learn to describe a target customer narrowly enough to market to them, and to position your business against the alternatives that customer already has.

• 3.1 Pick a customer narrow enough to picture
• 3.2 Customers hire products to get a job done
• 3.3 Position against the alternatives, not against everyone
• 3.4 Write a positioning statement you can test

Module 4: Write a value proposition a stranger understands

You turn your positioning into a value proposition that says who it is for, what it does and why to believe it. Then you test it on real people before you spend money on it.

• 4.1 The parts of a value proposition
• 4.2 Match what you offer to jobs, pains and gains
• 4.3 Test it with five real people before you spend
• 4.4 Run the five-person value proposition test

Module 5: Compare the channels and pick two to start

Covers how owned, earned and paid media differ, what search, social, email, ads and partnerships each do well, and how to pick two channels a small team can keep running.

• 5.1 Owned, earned and paid media
• 5.2 Search catches demand, social creates it
• 5.3 Email, ads and partnerships compared
• 5.4 Score your channels and choose two

Module 6: Set goals and a budget you can defend

You will tie each marketing goal to a business number, choose the few metrics that matter for each channel, and set a budget using methods you can explain to a partner or boss.

• 6.1 From business goal to channel number
• 6.2 Leading and lagging numbers
• 6.3 What a customer is worth and what you can pay for one
• 6.4 Set a starting budget and a test budget

Module 7: Put the plan on one page and run it

You will put all your earlier decisions into a one-page marketing plan, set a 90-day routine for running and reviewing it, and decide at each review what to change.

• 7.1 What goes on a one-page marketing plan
• 7.2 Run it in 90-day cycles
• 7.3 When to keep going, change or stop a channel
• 7.4 Finish and present your one-page plan

Module 8: Find your place in a marketing team

Covers the main marketing roles, how small businesses, agencies and in-house teams split the work, and how to pick a role and build skills toward it.

• 8.1 The roles in a marketing team and what each produces
• 8.2 In-house, agency or freelance
• 8.3 Build a portfolio from this course

Frequently asked questions

How long does the course take?

About eight and a half hours across eight modules, including the exercises. The final project adds 30 days of running your plan, at whatever pace your business allows.

Do I need a business to take it?

No. You can use your employer, a family business, a friend's shop or a side project. The exercises work best when there is a real business with real customers you can talk to.

How is this different from the other digital marketing courses?

Take this one first, because it produces the plan the other courses build on. Each of the others covers one channel in depth: Content and copywriting that people read, SEO and AI search, Social media and short-form video, Paid ads: Meta, Google and TikTok, and Email marketing and automation.

Will this tell me which platform to use?

It does not pick one for you. It shows you how to choose based on your customer, your budget and the time you have, and two businesses in the same industry can sensibly end up with different channels.

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