Mediaboss Marketing

By Paul Briand business@seacoastonline.com

PORTSMOUTH A cooperative nonprofit venture among local business entrepreneurs and Great Bay Community College will offer training in digital marketing.

Behind the creation of the Digital Marketing Center are the New England Innovation Center (NE-IC) and the two founders of Sharper Selling, an online marketing company, along with the continuing education department at Great Bay.

Jonathan Day and Robert Rustici, principals of Sharper Selling, are the technical expertise behind DMC. Day is executive director of the new nonprofit venture, while Rustici is the curriculum director.

The innovation center is the entrepreneurial arm of the venture, while Great Bay Community College is offering the training site.

Day and Rustici run Sharper Selling, an Internet marketing company, out of the Cooperative Venture Workspaces co-working facilities at 36 Maplewood Ave. in downtown Portsmouth. NE-IC is in the Martingale Wharf building on Bow Street in Portsmouth, while GBCC has its campus at Pease International Tradeport in Portsmouth.

The digital center, firing up now on the Seacoast, will be known locally as DMC-Seacoast. Its principals have plans to expand into other areas including Nashua and Boston.DMC-Seacoast will offer three non-credit courses at the community college in February, April and the summer.

The February program 10 weeks part-time beginning Feb. 27 covers inbound (pull) marketing. The April program 10 weeks part-time beginning April 4 covers outbound (push) marketing. The cost of each of those programs is $4,000.

The summer program is a two-week, full-time boot camp on user interface design for websites across all electronic devices. Cost for the boot camp is $2,000.

The training will be held at the community college and Google certification will be given upon the completion of each session.

The first is injecting the market with digital marketing experts who will have command of the rapidly changing channels at their disposal, the second is helping local businesses grow by providing free advertising services, Day said.

Mark Galvin, the innovation centers managing director, said companies that arent mastering AdWords, YouTube, Google Merchant Center, content networks and other online tools are missing opportunities.

The DMC-Seacoast will train your marketing resource or other employee how to make these tools sing, Galvin said. If you don't have an employee to participate, the DMC-Seacoast is training local residents to become your employee or to consult to get these systems working for you.

A series of breakfast sessions introduced local business people to the concept of digital marketing as a way to help launch DMC. Such a session was held earlier this month at the Workspace on Maplewood Avenue for about 20 people.

Digital marketing has become a redundant term; its just marketing now, Day told participants, noting 70 percent of marketing budgets these days are spent on digital channels.

Day and Rustici will keep running Sharper Selling, which offers client support in paid search advertising, search engine optimization (SEO) and social media.

Its part of the business model, Day said. Its important that we keep our skills sharp for our students.

He pointed out that the No. 1 search engine is Google and No. 2 is YouTube, which is owned by Google.

They have realized they are a marketing firm, he said, noting studies have shown 80 percent of people can recall a video 30 days after watching it.

Day also predicted the ultimate demise of Facebook because of its appeal to an older demographic. Facebook will eventually die a show death, he said. No kid wants to be on the same thing their parents are on.

Day went through various aspects of inbound and outbound marketing both to speak about their power as online tools and to promote the kind of learning experience available through the DMC-Seacoast. The training will serve as a way of solving the complexities of navigating sometimes confusing digital marketing channels.

DMC-Seacoast invites not only companies to send someone for training, but to send along vexing online marketing issues and needs they might be having. Those issues will serve as case studies for students to work through.

Day said the training is a perfect fit for Great Bay because of the community college mission of real-world training. Its skills training; its experiential learning, he said.

Kathleen Totten, director of community education at GBCC, told the Workspace participants that DMC-Seacoast was a good partnership for the college. We have the space and we will co-market this, she said.

Students interested in applying can visit dmcseacoast.org/apply and businesses seeking free advertising services can request them at dmcseacoast.org/request. Requests for additional information can be emailed to Day at Day@dmcseacoast.org.

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Digital marketing goes to school - Seacoastonline.com