In many marketing departments, your team is your most important resource. From creative design to copywriting, presentations and proofreading, SEO to social media – your marketing team handle it all, and everything in between.
One of the most effective ways of boosting your marketing activities is expanding your team. This increases your bandwidth and injects some fresh ideas into your brand. Digital Marketing apprenticeships are a high-impact and cost-effective way to grow and develop your team.
In this blog, we’ll take you through what a Digital Marketing apprenticeship is, and what benefits apprentices can bring to your marketing team.
What is a Digital Marketing Apprenticeship?
An apprenticeship programme is a structured qualification which blends expert technical training with work-based learning. Apprenticeships can be used to recruit and train new members of your team, or to upskill existing staff.
For Marketers, the most widely used apprenticeship programmes are the Level 3 Multi-Channel Marketer and Level 3 Content Creator qualifications.
Both Level 3 programmes offer a complete training plan for anyone working within marketing; teaching people how to create, build and analyse successful campaigns through digital platforms.
Why Train a Digital Marketing Apprentice?
Taking on a Digital Marketing apprentice is a great way to invest in the future of your marketing team. Apprentices bring lots of advantages, including increased capacity, fresh ideas, and the latest best practices. Below, we’ll take you through the top 5 benefits of hiring a Marketing apprentice.
1. Increase Your Marketing Capacity for Less
For many Marketing Managers, there is a delicate balance to be struck between handling day-to-day activities and developing future strategies.
While your to-do list may say you’re working on content plans, crunching the data from last month’s social ads, and auditing how your competitors are using video, the list of incoming marketing requests may tell a different story.
Adding an apprentice into the mix can be a gamechanger. With a little support, a marketing apprentice can take on many day-to-day tasks and turn around those time-consuming marketing requests: branding documents, drafting social content, responding to web queries, setting up ads, and pulling campaign data to free up your time for more strategic activity.
Apprenticeships are also great value. As an earn and learn opportunity, employment costs can be lower than that of a general marketing assistant, and there is plenty of government support available towards training costs.
2. Add Fresh Perspectives and New Ideas to Your Team
Digital Marketing is an exciting, ever-evolving field which blends creativity with technical skills. There’s always something new to explore, from emerging platforms to algorithm updates and the shifting sands of customer preferences. It’s all too easy to find your marketing team stuck in a rut, relying on tired creative concepts until they no longer have an impact.
An apprenticeship transforms pure creative energy into powerful digital campaigns. An apprentice’s questions, ideas, and experiences of the world can reinvigorate your team and help you tap into new audiences.
For marketers who cut their teeth when Instagram was the home of cutting-edge social media trends, the sudden dominance of TikTok can take some adjustment. However, for a recent school-leaver starting an apprenticeship, TikTok is second nature.
There’s a lot that can be said for a diverse and multi-generational marketing team, and apprenticeships are a tried and tested way to achieve this.
3. Embed Industry Best Practices Within Your Marketing Strategy
Marketing never stands still, and neither do industry best practices. Apprenticeship training can help keep your team up to speed with all the latest industry developments, legislation, marketing tools, and analysis techniques.
With an apprenticeship, training isn’t a case of sitting through a PowerPoint, getting a certificate, and promptly forgetting everything – the knowledge, skills and behaviours explored through technical training sessions are directly applied to real work projects and woven throughout the fabric of each learner’s approach to work.
Your digital marketing apprentice will be encouraged to implement their training right away and share their knowledge with the wider team.
4. Build a Culture of Continuous Learning and Development
Starting your newest team member’s marketing career through an apprenticeship is an incredible way to build up a culture of constant learning, development, and improvement. A Level 3 apprenticeship is up to 15-months, and will set up any new marketer for success in your organisation.
Part of an apprenticeship programme includes setting goals, reflecting on progress, and finding ways to improve performance. An apprenticeship encourages both learners and their managers to take a big picture view of what they want to achieve in their role and play a part in helping their team grow and evolve.
Afterwards, there is the option to deepen understanding and to keep up the habit of professional development through other methods, such as CIM certifications, online courses, or mentoring a new apprentice.
5. Hire for Attitude and Train for Skills
In marketing, most in-demand skills can be broken down into two key categories: things that can be taught, and things that come naturally.
The latter category includes curiosity, creativity, empathy, a way with words, a team spirit, and a can-do attitude. Everything else – from marketing theory to SEO, photo editing to keyword research – evolves as the industry does and can always be taught.
Apprenticeships are an amazing way to capture potential. With an apprenticeship, you can hire someone with the attitude you want, and complete the package with the technical skills you need.
Develop Fresh Marketing Talent with Baltic Apprenticeships
Digital Marketing apprenticeships are an effective way to recruit, train, and retain the talent you need in your team.
To find out more about our programmes, or to discuss how apprenticeship training could work for you, please get in touch with our friendly team.