Training Roundup for 2024

Training Roundup – Key Insights From Our Clients In 2024

SocialB Digital Marketing Blog Last modified: 22 Jan 2025 by Amy Hobson
Other | Training

We’ve had a busy training year with new and returning clients seeing the benefits of our training. At SocialB, one of our core philosophies is that we are always learning and improving.  For our training team, this means listening to our training clients, understanding their challenges and then feeding what we learn back into our courses and packages.  What were the key insights that we took from our clients in 2024?

Strategy is still key to success, but it is frequently ignored

Our courses often start with strategy….and there’s a good reason.  Strategy should be at the very core of your digital marketing.  A good strategy outlines what you are trying to achieve, why you want to achieve it and how you will do it.  Many businesses, however, still don’t have a strategy; if they do, it is often outdated and doesn’t consider newer digital marketing methods.  Your strategy should be a document that changes and grows with your digital marketing.  It shouldn’t be written and then allowed to gather dust on a shelf somewhere.  As your business grows and changes, your strategy may also need to shift, either focus, methodology or both.  Creating a strategy and then revisiting it regularly is an integral part of your digital marketing success.

X isn’t working for many businesses

In January 2024, we decided to no longer be active on X. Having been on X since January 2012, it wasn’t an easy decision.  X was a part of our social media strategy for many years, but we didn’t feel it was a right fit for us or our audience anymore.  Throughout the year, we have continued to hear the same thing from our training and digital clients.   Drops in engagement, an increase in negativity, and a massive drop in activity from their followers and audience have all been cited as reasons why.

For some businesses, it could still be the right place to be and should be part of their strategy, but feedback from the majority of our training clients is that, for now at least, it isn’t.  Who knows where the future lies with X? It might become the all-singing, all-dancing platform that Elon Musk has promised us but until then we won’t be X-ing.

Digital Marketing is increasingly for other teams including customer service and recruiters

Digital marketing is still a key focus for marketing teams, but over the last 12 months, we have seen another increase in courses for both recruiters and customer service teams.  In particular, social media is increasingly a part of managing customer service and building a community within your audience.  Community is important to attract new customers and to retain and build customer loyalty, and social media allows direct access to your customers.  From a customer service perspective, digital marketing isn’t just about dealing with a crisis but taking a holistic approach to educate and empower customers to potentially avoid a crisis.

The potential downfall is that recruiters and customer service teams are not trained marketers and can be reluctant to use digital marketing and social media.  Which is where training comes in.  Training can empower those teams to develop a strategy and implement it effectively.

Online training is popular but face-to-face is making a comeback

Pre-Covid, our training schedule was predominantly offline with some online training.  Covid changed the way that we train.  Online training inevitably became more popular but even after Covid our schedule is still dominated by online.  Online training still has its advantages.  Team members in different locations can be together online in a virtual space, and it can help to reduce costs.  It can also mean less time away from work as there is no need for travel time and sessions can be recorded for future reference.

Face-to-face training has been making a comeback, however.  Whilst online training can be convenient, in-person training increases both engagement and the level of interaction.  Workshop or creative training is particularly suited to face-to-face training, but it works as well for other types of training and courses. The feedback we have from our in-person courses is how refreshing and useful it is to be back in a real room together.  Whilst it can take people away from their day-to-day work sometimes stepping away is what they need to share ideas and refocus their efforts.

Many businesses don’t measure success properly

Measurement should be built into any digital marketing strategy.  Just measuring isn’t enough. Our delegates tell us that they are measuring, but it’s primarily recording numbers rather than analysing them.  Measurement gives us the information that we need to help us make better decisions about what we do next.  It can only do that, however, if we analyse the numbers.  Which type of marketing drives the most visitors to your website?  Which campaign has given you the highest return on investment?  Which paid advertising has given you the highest conversions?  Does Facebook or Instagram have more click-throughs to your website?   All of these questions, and many more, can be answered by your analytics.  They can help you to understand your audience better, understand what connects with them and fundamentally what to do to achieve a better result.

It has also been surprising how many businesses still haven’t fully adopted or embraced GA4.  Universal Analytics was fully switched to GA4 in July 2023, by which time we had already had access to GA4 for a full year.

 If these sound familiar, check out our available courses or contact our training team. We’d love to help you find the right course for you or your team.

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