10 Free Online Courses in Marketing for Everyone
Are you a business owner looking for free online marketing courses to up your marketing skills? Or a student looking for a course that explains marketing concepts in very simple terms?
If your answer is yes, then this article is for you.
You see, the success of every business depends greatly on the strength of its marketing department. Powerful marketing can sell literally any product.
But a great product with great marketing is an unstoppable force.
In this article, we will be looking at 10 free online marketing courses that can help you take your business to the next height or pass your marketing exams.
What is Marketing?
Marketing is the process of promoting your products or services to an audience and getting them interested in what you’re offering.
10 Free Online Marketing Courses
1. Introduction to Marketing (Coursera)
Access: Free
Level: Beginners
Duration: Approximately 14 hours.
This course, offered by Wharton Business School of the University of Pennsylvania, is structured to give you a detailed introduction to marketing.
The course is focused on three important aspects of marketing: branding, customer centricity and go-to market strategies.
You will learn the different strategies you can use to present your business before your audience. You will gain deeper insights on how to focus your entire marketing on winning your customers’ trust.
This course is taught by three of Wharton’s best Marketing Professors, and has been taken by 11,000 people already. The value you will get from this course will change or broaden your view about marketing. This is one of the best online marketing courses you can find out there.
Here are the topics in this course:
- Branding: Marketing Strategy and Brand Positioning
- The Limits of Product-Centric Thinking & the Opportunities and Challenges of Customer Centricity
- Communications Strategy & Fundamentals of Pricing
- Effective Brand Communications Strategies and Repositioning Strategies
- Applied Marketing
Click here to take the course.
2. Brand Management: Aligning Business, Brand and Behavior (Coursera)
Access: Free
Level: Beginners
Duration: Approximately 21 hours
The London Business School professor, Nader Tavassoli, in this gives a contrasting view to the traditional view of branding.
He aims to change the general conception of brands as being just an organization’s visual identity. He believes branding goes far beyond that and has taken out time to explain all that and more.
By the time you’re done with the course, you will be able to build brands from a broad organizational perspective.
You will be motivated to lift your own brands using top branding techniques. This you will do by creating superior value for your customers and your business.
Not just that, you will get a clear understanding of how brand management is evolving and how you can leverage it in your own brand building.
Here are the topics in the course:
- Brand Purpose & Experience
- Brand Design & Delivery
- Brand Leadership and Alignment
- Brand Practices & Engagement
- Brand Metrics & Returns
Click here to take the course.
These 10 Free Online Courses For Business can help you understand your business better.
3. An introduction to Consumer Neuroscience & Neuromarketing (Coursera)
Access: Free
Level: Beginners
Duration: Approximately 9 hours.
We humans are emotional beings, and most of the decisions we make are based more on emotions than logic.
As a student of marketing, you need to understand why people make certain buying decisions. Why do people buy expensive products against the cheaper versions, even though the only difference is the brand packaging? Why does an increase in someone’s standard of living lead to a massive increase in his purchases?
This course by the Copenhagen Business School will introduce you to the concept of consumer neuroscience. You will understand the basic brain mechanisms in consumer choice and how to stay informed on related topics.
Here are the topics in the course:
- What is Neuromarketing all about?
- Attention & Consciousness
- Sensory Neuromarketing
- Emotions & Feelings, Wanting & Liking
- Learning & Memory
- Neuroethics and Consumer Aberrations.
Click here to take the course.
4. Foundations of Digital Marketing and E-Commerce (Coursera)
Access: Free
Level: Beginners
Duration: Approximately 12 hours.
Digital marketing has projected most small companies to the limelight. The internet has given every individual and business a level playing ground. Mastering the concept of digital marketing and E-commerce might be the big breakthrough you need to take your brand to the global stage.
This course by Google is structured to teach you the important foundations of digital marketing and e-commerce. By the time you’re done with this course, you will understand better the roles and functions of digital marketing and e-commerce in an organization.
You will also understand the concept of a marketing funnel and how to build one. You will also get to know how to use digital tools to increase brand awareness and visibility, keep your audience engaged and increase sales conversions.
Here are the topics in the course:
- Introduction to foundations of digital marketing and e-commerce
- The customer journey and the marketing funnel
- Digital marketing and e-commerce strategy
- Measure performance success.
Click here to take the course.
5. Email Marketing Made Easy for Beginners (Udemy)
It is a known fact that email marketing is the most effective marketing method available to businesses. From research, an investment of $1 in email marketing brings a ROI of $42. That is a huge, 4200% ROI.
This course is structured to teach you how to leverage email marketing to boost sales conversion in your business.
You will learn how to create appealing lead magnets, generate massive leads for your business and design effective email marketing campaigns.
In addition to that, you will learn how to create auto responders, and email broadcasts. This will enable you to handle other marketing tasks without neglecting your email marketing subscribers.
Here are the course modules:
- Introduction to Email Marketing
- Let’s create an Opt-In Lead Magnet
- Email Marketing Platforms Basics
- Writing a Great Email
- Growing Your Email List.
Click here to take the course.
6. Digital Marketing Essentials Masterclass (Udemy)
Access: Free
Level: Beginners
Duration: 47 minutes
In this course, you will learn the essential aspects of digital marketing: SEO, SEM, Social Media Marketing etc.
The instructor of this course, Karan Shah, is the founder and CEO of the Indian Institute of Digital Education. He has a huge wealth of experience in the digital marketplace.
There is no wonder as to why the over 16,000 students who have taken this course are giving it positive reviews.
Karan will walk you through the various components of digital marketing, and teach you how to effectively promote any brand or product on the internet.
You will learn the fundamentals of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or paid advertising on Google. You will understand the concept of Search Engine Optimization. Important topics like keywords, and the role they play in pay per click (PPC) advertising will be broken down for you in this course.
In addition to that, you will learn the best tools for doing keyword research and how to leverage social media to promote your business.
Here are the topics in this course:
- Introduction to Digital Marketing
- Search Engine Marketing
- Search Engine Optimization
- Social Media Marketing
- Digital Marketing Components
Click here to take the course.
7. Introduction to Online Marketing Strategies (Alison)
Access: Free
Level: Beginners
Duration: Approximately 6 hours.
Do you have a sure-fire marketing strategy that generates sales for your business? Do you have the intention of learning more strategies that will go on to give you even better results?
If your answer is yes, this course is for you.
The focus of this course is completely on effective online marketing strategies. The instructor will not just teach you the methods and strategies to promote your business, he will also teach you how to generate your own strategies.
This course is structured to also teach you how to avoid certain pitfalls that most new marketers and business owners fall into without knowing.
Here are the course topics:
- Introduction to Marketing
- Basic Marketing Principles
- Building a Team
- Offline Marketing
Click here to take the course.
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8. Customer Relationship Management (edX)
Access: Free
Level: Beginners
Duration: 6 Weeks
Customer relationship management (CRM) is an important aspect of marketing. It is used by businesses to implement strategies, techniques and technologies that help them to win and retain customers.
This course is structured to give you the sound foundation of CRM concepts and best practices you can implement for a profitable business.
You will learn strategies to win new customers and retain the old ones for a long duration. You will also learn how to shift from short-term to long-term customer transaction mode of operation.
Here are the topics discussed in the course:
- Customer retention
- Customer centricity
- Customer lifetime value
- Customer value management
Click here to take the course.
9. Social Impact in Business: How to Build a Brand that Matters (FutureLearn)
Access: Free
Level: Beginners
Duration: 2 weeks
In this course, you will learn how to create a socially-driven business by giving your business a genuine purpose. Both in action, products and the internal processes.
It does this by introducing a wide range of case studies that will show you how a strong brand purpose can be used to deliver amazing results for a business.
From coming up with brilliant ideas to media execution and internal and external processes, you will acquire skills that will help you add genuine purpose into every area of your brand.
Here are the topics covered in the course:
- Understanding the context of social impact
- The evolution from social responsibility to social business
- The three layers of purposeful business
- A step-by-step guide to building purpose into every element of your brand
- Five technologies & tools that can help you to deliver on your purpose at a scale.
Click here to take the course.
10. International Marketing: Challenges and Opportunities (FutureLearn)
Access: Free
Level: Beginners
Duration: 2 Weeks
This course by the University of Coventry is designed to introduce to you the trends and issues that form global marketing.
The content of this course is mind-blowing. You will learn a lot about the global market and how to safely place your brand on the global map.
The instructor will break down for you the concept of bottom of the pyramid (BOP) consumers, and how your brand can exploit the BOP market.
In addition to that, you will learn how trends affect the global market and how you can leverage them to give your business international visibility.
Here are the topics in this course:
- Emerging Markets
- Bottom of the Pyramid
- The future of global marketing
- The myth of globalization
- Contemporary issues in globalization
Click here to take the course.
Conclusion
Only those who know how to play by the rules of marketing will see their brands soar. The two key problems in business are:
Producing what people would want, and
How to market it.
This article has introduced to you 10 free online courses in marketing. Pick out one or two of them and use it to boost your brand’s visibility and sales.
Frequently Asked Questions on Online Courses in Marketing
What is the Average Salary of a Digital Marketer?
According to Glassdoor, the average salary for a digital marketer is $60,176 per year in the United States.
What are the 4 Stages in Marketing?
The 4 stages of marketing are marketing analysis, marketing-mix planning, marketing implementation and marketing control.
Are Marketing Jobs in High Demand?
Good marketers are in high demand. Businesses are always looking for ways to increase sales and visibility. So, they’re always ready to meet the needs of good marketers.
What are the 7 P’s in Marketing?
The 7 P’s of marketing are product, process, price, promotion, place, people and physical evidence.
Can I Get a Job as a Digital Marketer?
Yes, you can get digital marketing jobs. But you have to ensure you’re well-equipped, as digital marketing jobs can be really demanding.
