Is it really new ?
We recently noticed during our lectures and presentations a regular increase in the number of requests for Digital Training in Dubai and the GCC countries. I do think it’s an interesting fact as web is changing daily. But from what Google Trends can tell us, there is a relatively new need around those web training.
Big companies specificity ?
Speaking with big companies it looks like many of them are now looking to get Inhouse Digital specialists. So far we’ve noticed two categories:
- The Marketing Guy: Trained in MBA or university he is the one who knows about general marketing but is fighting to properly understand the web
- The Geek: A new profile we meet more and more is the young people – 20 to 25 y/o – who knows a lot of web and blogging but can ‘t really setup a Digital Marketing Strategy
What’s interesting is that they definitely need both profiles. But most probably will invest more into sales than “similar jobs”.
SME issue ?
Well, whenever you have less money you try to save as much as you can. There is nothing new in this, but we notice that now people are trying to know more about they do and rationalize their spending. When it comes to web they tend to do as much as they can.
Most valuable reason will be that time is money. So whatever you gonna do online will cost you either real time or real money. However I do consider training as important in complement of the Digital Suppliers. A good combination is usually Inhouse Marketing Guy + Digital Suppliers + Training.
There is no way that your team will become 100% efficient online. However they definitely gonna need to understand how the web is working in order to:
- Adjust their objectives
- Better select their suppliers
- Monitor their online KPI
So if I can say don’t hesitate to send your team to training, meetings, lectures, dedicate them 5% of their time to follow online courses. The worst that will happen is that they’ll ask you to increase your Web Marketing budget !