Rachel Kagan, Digital Marketing

Rachel is a Digital Marketing alumnus with over 15 years of experience working in policy for industry trade associations including the Ontario Chamber of Commerce. We first spoke to Rachel in the Spring before she began her Digital Marketing course. At that point, what interested Rachel most was “marketing analysis, research, data analytics, and how it’s all tied together when it comes to crafting a comprehensive digital strategy.” Now that she has completed her 10 week, part-time Digital Marketing course, we asked Rachel to reflect on her experience and explain how she plans on utilizing her newly acquired skills to transition into a digitally focused career.

BrainStation: What were your goals going into the Digital Marketing course?

Rachel: My goal was to enhance my current skills by learning new digital skills and to become a more attractive candidate to prospective employers.

Can you highlight some key topics or skills you learned during the course?

Technology is impacting and transforming all industries and has changed how companies interact with their customers. The user is at the centre of digital marketing – you need to understand how they behave, purchase and search – and l learned how to develop a marketing strategy and content tailored to the target audience.

I also learned that you need to know how to use data in the right way (including understanding what data is being collected and why) to make more informed decisions. Digital (i.e. SEO/PPC) can be harder to grasp than traditional marketing (i.e. billboard ads) so it’s important to educate colleagues to help build buy-in and an understanding of the benefits and purpose of digital marketing.

What did you enjoy most about your BrainStation experience?

I really enjoyed working on our final project, which was creating a full digital marketing strategy for an existing brand. We applied everything we learned and saw it all come together. It was valuable to be able to demonstrate the core skills we developed, present it to our peers, and receive immediate feedback from our instructors (the digital world is truly immediate!).

The people were great, instructors and students alike. It was motivating to learn from such knowledgeable and experienced instructors (shoutout to Sarah Bugeja!), hear about their own experiences in their jobs, and to be surrounded by students who were driven and curious to learn.

What are your next career steps, and how do you plan to leverage your newly acquired skills?

I am in the midst of transitioning my career and believe the digital skills I developed at BrainStation can be leveraged for a variety of industries and roles. As digital marketing is constantly evolving, I want to make sure I continue to apply my new skills and build on what I learned. I’m planning to do a deeper dive on Google AdWords, learn how to do a Pivot Table in Microsoft Excel, and plan to go to more to stay connected and current.

If you’re interested in developing skills in Digital Marketing like Rachel, check out BrainStation’s part-time Digital Marketing course.

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