Membership Update Summer 2021

Welcome everyone!

I hope this update finds all our 155,701 (and counting) members around the globe in good spirits!

Our Membership offering has just turned 3 years old and we would like to thank you all for your engagement, participation and dedication to continued learning over this time.

The platform has grown from strength to strength each year as we have developed new content formats such as Podcasts and DMI Roundtables, built new sections such as the Career Centre and led a thriving Continuous Professional Development program with 9323 hours of learning awarded CPD credits in 2021 alone!

We are delighted to be recognised again this year for the annual Memcom awards. We have been shortlisted for Membership Organisation of the Year (which we won last year) and for Best Podcast (so do check them out!).

The World Opens Up

Since our last membership update in Spring, the world seems a more positive place with many countries reopening and returning to some kind of normality, even if it is on a limited basis.

The return of events such as Euro 2020 and the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 have brought back a buzz on Social Media that has been absent for some time. Football phenom and Instagram heavyweight Cristiano Ronaldo crashed the price of Coca Cola stocks, while the fastest growing social media platform in the world Tiktok, sponsored Euro 2020 and also launched its #teamgbgames campaign for the Olympics.

Data privacy has dominated digital marketing news over the last months also with growing tensions between Facebook and Apple over the recent iOS 14.5 update. Shortly afterwards Google made waves by postponing their policy change on third party tracking to 2023 to give business and marketers alike a chance to prepare for a cookieless world.

Community Engagement

The DMI forum continues to be a great place to learn, share, and connect with your community, but it is also a powerful learning tool offering you a wealth of knowledge and experience.

Many members engage in threads about exam experiences and tips, practical tips and career advice in the Jobs section. We also use this space to provide some extra resources like handy lists of tools and encourage you to give us your feedback.

All our members have something to offer another. Get in, get engaged and be part of the community!

Content Round-Up

This year we have provided members with more learning on the platform than ever! To keep you abreast of what you may have missed in the library recently, here is a breakdown of just some of the great content:

Webinars

We have had 9 expert-led webinars already this year with over 15,000 of you registering to take a seat and join us live. Our most highly attended webinar in the last few months was Level-Up Your Email Marketing with Proven Optimization Strategies with Karen Talavera, founder of Synchronicity Marketing. This is essential viewing for those of you looking to understand how to leverage the best platform for ROI, for both B2B and B2C marketers!

For those of you interested in a potential career move, you should check out our CV and Resume Clinic with Paul Farrer. Other must-watch webinars include a follow up from (our very own) podcasting guru Will Francis, Your Podcast Growth Toolbox, and a session on how to Activate your Leadership Superpowers with inspirational speaker Karolina Gwinner.

DMI TeamTalks and our brand new DMI Game Day!

After launching our new “mini-webinars”, in February, we have already brought you 10 editions of our DMI TeamTalks . Each of these 20 - 30 minute sessions is streamed live on our social channels and explores a specific topic in a practical way, allowing you to implement the learning right away. To date we have had almost 30,000 views so make sure you follow us to catch the next session on Linkedin, Facebook or Youtube.

On the back of this success we have decided to bring you another live and interactive format with a monthly Q&A session with resident DMI expert Cathal Melinn on any and all digital marketing questions viewers can ask on the day. The DMI Game Day launched across our social channels just this week but if you missed it, you can catch it right here:

DMI Game Day: Monthly Q&A with Cathal Melinn

Ebooks

Almost half of businesses surveyed by DMI last year reported they increased their digital marketing spend for the year and moved away from more traditional channels. Our recently updated ebook, What are the Most Digital Industries and Why? explores trends across the industry  and provides you with insight into what to expect of the industry moving forward.

Have a look at these other insightful eBooks:

Getting Your Search Marketing Campaign Up and Running

The DMI Guide to Social Media Crises

Toolkits

Thank you for all the great feedback to date on our Toolkit section of the library. We now boast over 50 different practical toolkits designed to give you ready-made solutions for freelancers, executives, marketing teams and businesses of all sizes. Please find our most recent additions designed to help you plan campaigns into the future:

• Paid Media Scenario Forecasting Tool
• Paid Media Budget Forecasting Tool

Podcasts

Did we mention these have been award shortlisted? (Ahem.)

Launched in March 2020, the DMI podcast series “Ahead of the Game” has now amassed over 25,000 plays across Soundcloud, Anchor and Spotify and is readily available to you in the Podcast section of your library. Listen back to over 30 episodes for high quality and in-depth learning with industry leaders and experts, each hosted by Will Francis.

With new Podcasts released every fortnight, here are just a few from the last few months:

• Behavioral Science and Digital Marketing - with Mischa McInerney
• Inside B2B Marketing - with Linda Mullen
• Get Started with Social Commerce - with Cathal Melinn

Members Speak - DMI Roundtables and Member Showcases

With well over 150,000 members from over 130 countries, we love to leverage your career skills and knowledge from different backgrounds and facilitate peer to peer learning, increasingly so in 2021.

Following on from our successful first DMI roundtable in March, we recorded another session with a select group of power members in July, which centered around Career Development and Personal skills hosted by Kevin Reid. It will be available on the library on August 4th.

Thanks to everyone who has applied to join the Roundtables so far,  we have been inundated with responses from members with excellent experience. If you haven’t been selected, do please consider applying for a future session that appeals to you.

Power Members also have the opportunity to participate in the DMI Member Showcase.

These provide you with an excellent opportunity to share insights and tell your story to our fellow members.

We have had 11 Member Showcases since starting this series in September 2020, including the two most recent ones below. Don’t hesitate to email us at membership@digitalmarketinginstitute.com if you would like to feature in the future.

• The Member Showcase with Vahida Maric
• The Member Showcase with Lindi van Heerden

And don’t forget, we love to receive any articles or toolkits you have written for publishing in the library, like this recent piece on clever Instagram marketing in Iran by Barmak Bahrehmand and DeAndre Harriott’s thoughts on the Privacy Paradox. Submit your own pieces through the form in your Profile.

Watch this space…

Some key knowledge pieces to watch out for in the next few months include:

• Articles on WhatsApps, Twitch, YouTube SEO
• Toolkits especially to help with your Social Media Strategy
• eBooks: SEO for Small Business, Guide to B2B Marketing, Guide to Inbound Marketing
• Case Studies: Dove Beauty Campaigns, Airbnb
• More DMI TeamTalks and Games Days live on our social channels

Keep an eye out for those and our series of upcoming webinars, the next of which will be “Creating Content that's Guaranteed to Engage Your Audience” with Kelsey Jones on September 8th.

Onwards and upwards!

As we move forward into the later half of what has been another challenging year, we’d like to wish you all the very best of luck with your endeavors and invite you to make best use of the platform to drive your skills and career forward.

Please engage with us in the Community Forum for further discussion and advice and keep your feedback coming, it is vital in helping us provide you with the best learning experience possible. 

If you want to reach out to your membership team, please contact us at membership@digitalmarketinginstitute.com