---
title: Digital Marketing for Practitioners
url: https://thestudyguild.com/programmes/digital-marketing-for-practitioners
type: programme
published: 2026-08-13
last_reviewed: 2026-08-13
reviewed_by: nicolas-reeves
publisher: The Study Guild
---

# Digital Marketing for Practitioners

An 8-week live digital-marketing programme with an assessed campaign, taught by a CIM-qualified marketer of thirteen years.

## Programme facts

- Price: £399 (payment plans available, never discounted)
- Format: Live online + self-paced
- Live contact hours: 16
- Expected self-study hours: 32
- Duration: 8 weeks
- Level: All levels
- Tutor: nicolas-reeves

## Learning outcomes

- Write a campaign brief with an audience, an offer and a budget you can defend
- Choose channels from the job, not from a list of logos
- Run a small paid or organic campaign with measurement attached to a decision
- Stop a campaign that is wasting money
- Report without vanity metrics
- Price marketing work for a specialist practice from a costed day rate

## Curriculum

1. **The job is a decision** — Marketing that cannot change a spend is a hobby.
   Topics: Unprotected titles; What clients actually buy; Budget as a design constraint; The assessed campaign
2. **Audience and offer** — Who it is for, in a sentence a stranger could use.
   Topics: Specialist versus everyone; Proof you already have; What you will not claim; Positioning
3. **Channels from the job** — Search, email, content, ads — picked, not collected.
   Topics: Where your buyer already looks; Content that can be cited; When ads are the wrong first spend; Privacy and consent
4. **Measurement** — A number attached to a decision, including the decision to stop.
   Topics: Leading indicators; Platform metrics that flatter; UK GDPR and tracking; The post-mortem format
5. **Paid media without folklore** — Small budgets, honest auctions, no guru settings.
   Topics: Briefing an ad; Landing pages that match; When to pause; Vendor certificates versus judgement
6. **Organic and email** — The work that still compounds when the auction gets expensive.
   Topics: Search intent for a practice; Email that is not a newsletter for its own sake; Cadence you will keep; Campaign draft due
7. **Reporting to a sceptical owner** — Including when you are the owner.
   Topics: One-page reports; What you still do not know; Next test; Pricing the work
8. **Assessment clinic** — Live review of campaigns and post-mortems.
   Topics: Common fails; Resubmission; Retainer versus project; First paying marketing client

## Assessment

A planned-and-run campaign with a brief, a measurement plan and a post-mortem, marked by Nicolas Reeves. Written feedback with one free resubmission. Vanity metrics without a decision attached do not pass.


## Upcoming cohorts

- 2026-11-18 to 2027-01-13 — Wednesdays 19:00–21:00 UK, 8 weeks (no session 23 or 30 December) (open, cap 20)
- 2027-02-24 to 2027-04-14 — Wednesdays 19:00–21:00 UK, 8 weeks (open, cap 20)

## What is digital marketing training for practitioners?

It is training to brief, run and stop a campaign for a specialist practice — coaching, design, professional services — with measurement attached to a decision. It is not a licence, not a get-rich scheme, and not a quiz on platform logos. Clients buy a campaign they can see working, not a diploma title.


## Do you need a licence to practise digital marketing in the UK?

No. Marketing is unregulated. Anyone may charge for it. Platform certificates from Google or Meta prove you passed a vendor test. They do not prove you can brief, budget or kill a campaign that is wasting money. Assessed live work is the filter clients actually use, whether they know the word or not.


Sources:
- [Regulated professions and their regulators](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/regulated-professions-and-their-regulators) — GOV.UK

## Who is this programme for, and who should skip it?

It is for people with a real offer who need clients, and for in-house staff given a digital brief. Skip it if you wanted a social-media-manager identity with no campaign to run. Skip it if you needed a protected professional title. Skip it if you will not put modest budget or equivalent organic effort into the assessment.


## How is this different from a self-paced marketing diploma?

You run a campaign and write a post-mortem a tutor can fail. The tutor still buys media. A self-paced diploma can teach you the names of channels. It cannot tell a client whether you would have stopped an ad set that was burning money on the wrong audience.


## Common questions

**How much budget do I need?**

Enough to learn a decision — often a few hundred pounds, or a serious organic equivalent if paid is not possible. A fictional campaign with invented numbers does not pass.

**Will I be a Google Partner or Meta certified after this?**

Those are vendor programmes you can sit separately. We may require current ads certification as homework. We do not award Google or Meta status.

**Is this growth-hacking or guaranteed leads?**

No. Anyone guaranteeing leads from an eight-week course is selling a different, worse product.

**Can I pay in instalments?**

Yes. Interest-free plans total exactly £399.

---

Source: https://thestudyguild.com/programmes/digital-marketing-for-practitioners · The Study Guild