Digital transformation has been one of the most sought-after objectives in the last decade. Almost every business had to get involved the digital world. Whether you’re shifting to online buying through building an ecommerce website, digitising your inventory, running marketing campaigns online, or shifting to automated sales quotes and reporting – small and medium sized businesses realised that ‘digital’ is a smarter way of doing things.

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Best Digital Training Belfast

Although that digital transformation is empowering to employees and companies, it comes with challenges. Upskilling teams to keep up with those changes is now a priority. As a local company ourselves, we’ve gained our expertise in the digital field through years of practice. We love to empower our close business community with knowledge that enables them to adopt and adapt to digital transformation. In this article, we tackle how to approach digital training and the different digital areas that businesses in Belfast can benefit from.

Are You Looking for ‘Digital Training Belfast’?

Opting for digital training with us in Belfast isn’t just about learning new skills; it’s about forming a partnership grounded in tested and successful methodologies. Our team, a diverse group of multi-skilled experts, is equipped to offer comprehensive digital training covering everything from blogging, social media marketing, and video production, to SEO and web development. With us, your business is not just getting trained; it’s being transformed.

Opting for digital training with us in Belfast isn’t just about learning new skills; it’s about forming a partnership grounded in tested and successful methodologies. Our team, a diverse group of multi-skilled experts, is equipped to offer comprehensive digital training that encompasses a wide array of essential modern skills for your business’ success.

Why Is Digital Training Important for Belfast?

The Department for the Economy’s “Digital Strategy 2022-2030” acknowledge the significant need for digital skills across various sectors, including digital marketing, cybersecurity, and software development. With the increasing digitalisation of the economy, there is a growing need for a workforce that is adept in digital technologies.

This is particularly true for Belfast, a city that is rapidly emerging as a hub for digital innovation and entrepreneurship. Digital training empowers local businesses, start-ups, and professionals to harness the power of digital tools, ensuring they are well-equipped to meet the challenges of the digital age.

Why Choose ProfileTree for Digital Training in Belfast?

As a family-operated agency thriving in Belfast, we’ve made our mark in the Northern Irish market since 2010. Our journey has seen us expand our team, win content marketing awards, and assist both local and international businesses in crafting exceptional websites. Notably, we’ve also empowered hundreds of small and medium-sized enterprises with complimentary digital training, courtesy of programmes funded by Northern Ireland’s Councils.

We stand out as leaders in specific areas like YouTube marketing, SEO, and website design. Our expertise in these domains is unparalleled, allowing us to offer specialised training that keeps you ahead of the curve. Choosing us means you’re not only learning from the best but also applying strategies that dominate in today’s digital world. With our guidance, you’ll master the skills to excel online, making us the ideal choice for your digital training needs in Belfast.

Belfast Digital Training Programmes

At ProfileTree, we pride ourselves on offering a comprehensive suite of digital training courses, meticulously crafted to cater to a variety of needs and proficiency levels. Our training portfolio is perfect for anyone embarking on their digital marketing journey or seasoned professionals aiming to polish their existing skills. Here’s a glimpse of what we offer:

  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Dive deep into the world of SEO, learning strategies to enhance online visibility.
  • AI Tools for Marketing: Uncover the cutting-edge AI tools that are transforming the marketing landscape.
  • Videography: Explore the art and science of creating compelling video content.
  • Content Creation: Master the skill of crafting engaging and relevant content.
  • Copywriting: Learn the nuances of persuasive writing that resonates with audiences.
  • Social Media Management: Navigate the dynamic realm of social media with expertise.
  • Digital Performance Training: Sharpen your skills in analyzing and enhancing digital performance metrics.
  • Website Design: Delve into the principles of aesthetic and functional website design.
  • Website Development: Gain technical proficiency in developing robust and user-friendly websites.

Each course is structured to be highly interactive and practical, aligning with the latest trends and practices in the digital world. Our expert trainers are committed to providing an immersive learning experience, guiding you at every step to ensure you build both confidence and competence in the digital domain. Join us at ProfileTree and transform your digital aspirations into tangible skills.

Digital Training in Belfast FAQs

1. What types of digital training programs do you offer in Belfast?

We offer a diverse range of programs covering various in-demand skills, from basic computer literacy to advanced web development and data analysis. We also tailor programs to meet the specific needs of your business or industry within Belfast.

2. How much does digital training cost in Belfast?

Our pricing varies depending on the program length, format, and customization level. However, we strive to offer competitive rates and financing options. We also highlight available government grants and funding opportunities to help make training more affordable.

3. Do you offer flexible learning options in Belfast?

Absolutely! We understand busy professionals and individuals have different learning preferences and schedules. We offer online courses, blended learning options combining online and in-person sessions, and intensive workshops catered to your needs.

4. Why is digital training important for businesses in Belfast?

Investing in your employees’ digital skills enhances productivity, innovation, and competitiveness in the ever-evolving digital landscape. It also boosts employee morale and opens doors to new opportunities within your organization.

5. How can I measure the impact of digital training in Belfast?

We provide pre- and post-training assessments to track skill development. We also help businesses measure increased efficiency, improved project outcomes, and employee satisfaction after training.

Types of Digital Training for Small and Medium Sized Businesses (SMEs)

Digital skills are broadly defined as the skills needed to use digital devices, communication applications, and networks to access and manage information from basic online searching and emailing to specialist programming and web development.

At their core, these skills help people communicate and collaborate, develop, and share digital content, and problem solve in a work-anywhere world. For the sake of making things easier, one can label those digital skills as digital marketing, web management, navigating software tools and applications, creating design and visuals, data analysis and reports, etc. It is rare to find one person who has all those skills, for sure. But a productive, highly skilled employee will have a basic background about those skills.

Beneath those main categories, there’re many sub-skills. We’ve tackled ecommerce training and WordPress training before. Today, let’s tackle two sub-skills of digital marketing and content marketing – which are social media marketing training and video marketing training.

Social Media Marketing Training

Social media marketing plays a huge role in creating brand awareness for any business. It is the way to connect with your audience and keep your brand relevant and always on top of mind. Social media has also evolved from being a place to share company updates to a place where you can engage, entertain, inspire, deliver customer service, and influence buying decisions through trends. SMEs usually get derailed off social media.

How SMEs Approach Social Media

What usually happens is that the business owner would create business across multiple social media platforms, start posting every day, and then a couple of months later, they’re overwhelmed by the day-to-day tasks, so they drop publishing, and the page becomes inactive. Because social media is an ongoing process, someone in your company needs to be dedicated to that. It doesn’t have to be a social media expert, but they do need some social media training and consistency.

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Audience Segmentation

The first we always like to start with our trainees, regardless of their background, is that social media marketing is a two way conversation. It’s so much easier to run a conversation with someone you know well. You’d never run out of things to say if you know exactly who you’re talking to. As a business, you can’t be targeting everyone, even if your product or service is suitable for a wide range of people. You need to segment this wide audience into smaller groups and tailor messages for each.

Say, you sell facial shaving kits, your audience is naturally wide – but you need to divide that audience into smaller groups. You can’t possibly speak to sixty-year-old men the same way you speak to teenagers. There’re so many ways to segment your audience. Some are demographic like age, gender, income, education level, etc. Psychographic segmentation divides customers into sub-groups based on shared psychological characteristics, including subconscious or conscious beliefs, motivations, personality, lifestyle, social status, activities, interests, opinions, and attitudes. Behavioural segmentation is targeting customers based on how they interact with your business or how much they know about it. Finally, geographic segmentation is based on the location, country, or even language.

Most importantly, be as specific as possible about the needs and pain points of your audience. That’s how you can create content that they can relate to.

Content Creation

If we can only give one tip to all businesses handling the content creation of their own business accounts, it would be: don’t create content to sell. The hard sell is long dead, especially on social media. You need to create content that nurtures. To create interest for new, untapped audiences. To inspire people to adopt the lifestyle that comes with your service or product. To entertain aspirers and encourage them to engage with you. The second most important tip is consistency. One thing that helps you achieve consistency is creating a content calendar. Having a content calendar with a defined publishing frequency, objectives, content pillars, and even a visual direction allows you to publish according to a plan.

An Eye for Aesthetics

Visuals are essential on social media platforms. They build your brand image. Through your visuals, you can communicate who you are and tell your story. Visuals are powerful in attracting specific segments of your target audience. Hiring a freelance designer is a good option if you’d like a professional looking after your visuals, without the commitment of hiring someone full time. On the other hand, upskilling in-house members to create design is a great investment that can empower you to evolve with your social communication.

Using professional tools like Photoshop is not the only way to create engaging design. There’re easier tools that you can utilise to create high quality visuals – given the right training and understanding of how to create visuals. For example, Canva is a great tool that you can use to create high quality design. It has a user friendly, drag-and-drop interface. So, since it’s not only about the tools, it’s also beneficial to have an eye for aesthetics, stay informed about trendy design concept, and know how to create a unique visual identity for a brand through your designs.

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a central part of social media marketing promotion. Since most social platforms have nearly killed organic content for brands. Sponsored posts are great for creating a bigger reach for your brand as well as driving traffic and eventually conversions to your website. Writing ad copies and creating visuals that prompt actions are vital to running PPC campaigns. However, managing the ad campaign through various platforms, for example Facebook Ad Manager, is what your team needs to be trained on. Defining the target audience, identifying ad objectives, managing and optimising ad spending, as well as assigning KPIs are part of the digital training your team can get.

Video Marketing Training

Video marketing has been the engagement bomb in the last few years. Almost every social platform is fighting to get a bigger share of the video creation market which is growing every day. With that growth, so many tools were built to create videos and the process is now much easier and more affordable than before.

Video Aesthetics

Once again, an eye for aesthetics is something that will serve you well here. Understanding how to create shapes and alignment with shooting and creating videos will help you produce presentable, professional videos. Preparing a mood board, having the right props that match the brand identity and the faces of those that appear on your videos are all ingredients of creating videos for your brand.

Shooting and Editing

Additionally, knowing how to manage the shooting process and how to utilise the tools you have even if you’re just shooting with your mobile will make a big difference to your creative work. Editing is also another game changer. If you team learns how to edit videos and add elements that would elevate the quality of your videos. Examples of these elements are soundtracks, subtitles, creating collages, etc.

You’d be surprised that it’s not hard to create stories and reels on a daily basis for social media channels using simple tools. A camera, a tripod, and good lighting are nearly enough to shoot good material. Then, using the proper editing tools, there’s so much potential to make something out of that material. Learning how to edit your videos will also ensure that your material can be re-purposed and used for different video formats whether it’s stories, reels, Tiktoks, YouTube shorts, or even as gifs.

Creating a Storyboard and Writing a Script

The messages you craft for your videos and the stories you narrate are the only way to differentiate your brand from competition. People follow what feels relevant to them.

Creating a storyboard ahead of time will help you make a video clear, concise, and interesting to your audience. Once you have a topic and know your audience, create a storyboard to outline and visualise what you plan to show. That makes the shooting process much easier because you’d already know what you want your video to look like. Some people get creative and draw detailed pictures, but you don’t have to be an artist. Your storyboard can be as simple as some screenshots or basic sketching or doodling.

After the storyboard comes a script, you can learn how to write a script through proper digital training. You might find it challenging at first, especially if you’re not a naturally born writer, however, once you get the click, it will be so easy. Through the help of trainers, you can build a script template that will help you create script methodically.

Digital Training Belfast: How to Approach Digital Training?

Why have we developed an ‘expect more’ approach to digital training in Belfast? ProfileTree started – and still is – a successful, growing digital agency focusing on advanced content and SEO expertise. We discovered, through feedback, that many training solutions weren’t backed by time-honoured, working expertise and insights. That’s how ProfileTree’s digital training became an important part of how we help our clients to grow online. By sharing the results-led knowledge we develop in our daily work, our experienced and qualified trainers deliver know-how shaped around your business with a unique commercially savvy focus.

Strategic Digital Training

Every time a new customer joins the ProfileTree client list, they bring a wealth of knowledge about what has – and hasn’t – worked for them in the past when they’ve invested in their digital world. A common theme? Most companies will, at some point, have been side-tracked by ‘vanity’ activity. For example, ‘we need to post more on Facebook’ or ‘we need to produce videos about our business’. These things may well be true! But without asking ‘why’ and taking time to consider ROI and business strategies, the right preparation for success hasn’t been carried out.

In short: looking good online, being on a new platform for the sake of being on a new platform and dabbling with elements of digital marketing won’t produce the best possible results. Instead, when your company comes to choose from digital marketing courses in Belfast or social media courses in Belfast, tailored training from a local, specialist company is the right approach for multiple reasons.

That’s because…

Well-Prepare for Your Digital Training

‘Nice to do’ isn’t enough: Making the right decisions in the digital world means doing some groundwork on ‘why’ time and money is being invested in individual elements. For example, more social media posts may look good for your business. But are they producing leads? Are they helping your existing customers to promote you to others? Are they helping towards a new segment? ProfileTree can help bring these, and many more, questions into shape before you invest in digital courses for your business.

Training With a Vision

The right digital services provider will want to know about your business strategies. Why? Because help with shaping your digital training, and digital marketing, to meet the needs of your company is the right starting to point to great ROI. To bring your digital world into line with where you want your business to be in the future, simply ask a company with proven experience in growing businesses online. 

Local Digital Partnership

Partnership leads to success: For marketing courses, digital marketing courses or social media courses, any number of companies will be happy to accept your custom as a ‘transaction’. However, building a relationship with a company who’ll be passionate about feeding your business success will mean a better investment. That’s why we’d love to explain how we can help grow your Belfast-based business online.

How to Choose The Right Digital Training Agency in Belfast?

Looking for a digital training agency in Belfast, but unsure how to find the right one for your business? Follow these steps to narrow down your search.

Build the Foundations

Training rushed brings a risk of becoming training wasted. Why? Investing in courses or support for the wrong reasons can only mean the wrong outcomes. Too often we hear about ‘off the shelf’ digital training falling short as it hasn’t been designed around real business goals and hasn’t been tailored for an individual business.

Stay on Track

An old saying ‘keep the main thing, the main thing’ rings very true. Therefore, a company with – say – a primary goal of increasing sales should weave this goal into its digital strategies. This, of course, includes digital training and digital courses. To discover how to make this happen, just ask!

Think Team

Good ideas can come from anywhere in your business, which is why listening to the needs of every department in your company can help shape a high-performance digital strategy (including digital training). ProfileTree courses can be built around outcomes for real business success.

Choose Well

To create a firm footing for your digital training, work with a local company who’ll understand your business, who’ll want to grow with your company and who’ll use the very latest knowledge to grow with you. Digital training works best when your digital training partner is the right fit for your business.

How Much Does Digital Training Cost in Belfast?

Working with so many different businesses over the years taught us to work with different budgets and requirements. We have created multiple packages for each of digital marketing services. Of course, every digital training project has its own requirements but generally, we use your requirements and budget to come up with suitable digital training solutions. And we hardly ever give our clients one solution – we usually give them multiple to choose from. In other words, you set the requirements, we tailor a package within the limits of your spending.

Our digital training hourly rate starts at £65 per hour. Delivering a 90-minute session takes around 6 hours of preparation by our team. Of course, sometimes the preparation would cover two sessions instead of one, depending on the level of complexity of the material delivered. For an accurate pricing, get in touch with us.

Ready to Book a Free Digital Training Audit?

A digital training audit is where one of our expert team members will get on a call with you to understand what you have in mind for digital training. You’ll discuss your goals, your team’s skills, and where you see potential. Our specialist will go through your digital marketing channels and analyse your performance briefly to recommend digital training solutions.

Fill the form and send us your questions, we will be happy to answer all of them. Please let us know if your business is registered in Belfast, County Antrim. Alternatively, you can book a chat with our team for free and find out how we can help you plan your digital training in Belfast, County Antrim, Northern Ireland.

We go beyond theoretical knowledge, focusing on practical skills and strategies relevant to Belfast’s unique digital landscape. With our local expertise, dedicated support, and flexible learning options, you’ll gain the confidence and skills to achieve your digital goals.

Ready to empower your digital future in Belfast? Contact us today for a free consultation and discover how our training solutions can unlock your team’s potential.

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