Tom Screnci: Excellent, all right. So thank you for joining us today for this chat with the chair of digital marketing and design again, this is being recorded. So for those watching it on the recording. Thank you for watching this recording. We're gonna jump right into our session here with our introductions. Once I get my mouse to move. Excellent.
The slide title changes to "Moderators." Below, headshots of Steve Dupree, Program Chair of Digital Marketing and Design, and Tom Screnci, Associate Director of Admissions and Enrollment. Steve's email is sdupree@brandeis.edu, and Tom's is tscrenci@brandeis.edu.
Tom speaks: So first things first: introductions. My name is Tom Screnci. I'm the Associate director of Admissions and Enrollment for Brandeis online, I am what you would you basically call your main contact for any admissions questions, program questions? So if anything I can do for you, please feel free to email me directly you can use the online at Brandeis email address, I check that regularly as well. So either one's coming to me, that's totally fine, and of course you can call us and very grateful to have Steve Dupree our program chair with us. I'll let him introduce himself as well. Steve.
Slide switches to say "Program Chair." Below, bullet points say: "Brandeis alumnus, BA in Math and Economics; Past roles include: Head of Marketing at Amava, VP of Online Marketing at LogMeIn, VP of Marketing at SoFi."
Steven Dupree speaks: Thanks, Thomas, really excited to be here. I'm a Brandeis alumnus myself. I was Jbs scholar studied math and economics. Gosh! Over 20 years ago. Now I've had a number of roles in digital marketing that are very relevant to sort of help to chair this program, including at log me, in which was a Boston-based software as a service company, where we were kind of coming up with growth, hacking the origins of it. And more recently, SoFi, which created student loan refinancing where I was the head of marketing got an MBA. At Stanford, have started a company that was helping older adults stay active and engaged. That's called the Mava. And I'm currently consulting for a number of clients, including a company that's helping older adults navigate their healthcare options. And that's called CoverRight.
Yeah, I've seen a lot of change in the last 2 decades in the digital marketing industry. I've had annual budgets anywhere from a few $1,000 to. I had 160 million dollars in 2016 at Sofi. You know, I've worked with founding and pre-seed and seed stage companies through IPO companies. And I've definitely been witnessing a big shift towards AI recently. So all these trends and stuff are relevant in terms of building the program. My role as the chair is primarily responsible for the subject matter as opposed to Thomas and the staff which is dealing with things like admissions and stuff. So I'd be focused on, for example, prioritizing the courses that get built and redevelop how the curriculum is mapped, reviewing the different syllabuses for the different classes, interviewing instructors, and of course, the Admissions Committee.
Thomas Screnci speaks: Thank you, Steven. Thank you for the background. It's very impressive to hear, so thank you for sharing it.
Slide title switches to say "Agenda." Below, bullet points say: "Program overview, full-time option, digital marketing and design strategy, and admissions info."
Tom Screnci: So first things first, I'm going to cover the agenda, and I'm going to hand it back to Steve to talk about the the program itself in a little more detail.
So of course, that is our first step after this agenda, the program overview. We do have a full time option as well, which we'll briefly touch on today. Then off to digital marketing and design insights, rather, excuse me, and then finally wrapping it up with the admissions information as well. So I'm gonna hand it over back to Stephen to jump into the digital marketing and design program breakdown. Steven.
Slide switches to say "Program Defining Features." Below, a navy blue chart lists four features: 1. Data analytics, 2. Principles of Digital Marketing, 3. Creation and implementation of campaigns, 4. Frameworks of Digital Marketing."
Steven Dupree speaks: Thanks, Tom. It's just some program defining features here. You know, digital marketing is critical to organizations figuring out how to scale in today's day and age, and whether helping a small nonprofit or a fortune, 500 behemoth, whether you're managing a small $1,000 budget or a 9 figure budget, the underlying principles are largely the same. This program gives you tools. You need to understand how to build and execute a digital marketing strategy, budget and campaign. You'll learn tactics, tools, and other essential elements of the customer journey.
Perhaps most important, you'll cover broad aspects of the function, including design principles, writing styles, analytics, technical aspects, impact of AI and communicating marketing objectives within your organization.
Across the industry there's been a massive shift concerning the needs and wants of organizations looking to grow their marketing programs. Many of the old school marketers had focused on harder to measure aspects of marketing, such as brand advertising. And while brand is still important, it stands that nearly everything in today's marketing world is able to be tracked, measured, and analyzed. Even billboards can be measured. Digital marketing, of course, lends itself to testing iteration and improvement, and even more recently, AI generation and support, unfortunately, for the industry. But, fortunately for you, many of the undergraduate degrees in business or communications, they focus on the high level principles, but not the substance. They're not as tactical, even at a graduate level. There's a shift from from the MBA to more of a specialized master's degree where digital marketing is underrepresented.
It's not just data, analytics or design or coding or AI, but it's putting it all together that matters. This program will bring across the principles and frameworks of digital marketing to help you ask the right questions and make informed decisions when interpreting data, you won't need to be an engineer or designer or writer, or an analyst. But you'll come out of this program understanding how to work with all of these tools in your own professional career.
Slide title switches to "Program Curriculum." Required courses include Digital Marketing Strategy; Search Engine Marketing and Optimization; Writing for Digital Environments; Multichannel Marketing Campaigns; Conversion Rate Optimization; Marketing and Customer Analytics; and Innovation and User-Centered Design.
Steve Dupree speaks: All right. So the digital marketing design program differentiates itself from traditional marketing degrees, and how it's blending together the principles of the digital marketing design with overall strategy and the hands-on tactics and analysis. It concentrates on the technical application of marketing theory and digital environments. It gives you a rich toolkit for delivering sound customized digital campaigns for whatever type of audience you're working with. We have students from healthcare, nonprofit academia consumer, enterprise, software, and many other fields.
To give you a quick curriculum overview. The 30 credit program comprises 7 required courses which are on the left here, and 3 electives. The 7 required courses span several aspects of digital marketing, including analytics, writing channel strategy, the most recent course on here conversion rate, optimization or lifecycle marketing, where you would learn appropriate ways to continue marketing to customers or members after you've brought them on. And for the design part, there's also an overlap with the user centered design program, which is where you see RUCD 101. There's a healthy balance of analytical, creative, technical, and strategic dimensions across the curriculum.
Newer topics, such as the impact of generative AI on the digital marketing field, are touched upon across courses as appropriate. And of course you have several electives, on the right of which you would pick 3.
Thomas Screnci: Still muted, almost fully got me there. Thank you, Stephen. So right about here is where we typically have a slide breaking down the full time option. I did not share it because I was unable to confirm the academic schedule, and I did not want to share incorrect information, but we do offer a full time schedule for a majority of our programs.
Part-time could be as little as one course per session. There are currently 4 sessions throughout the year. And, as a matter of fact, later this year, and starting in August of 2025 this year, we're going to have starting 5 sessions per year. So our academic sessions are going to be 8 weeks long instead of 10, really allowing you to graduate even quicker. Finish your certificate, your master's program whatever, even faster, so part time can be as little as one course per session. Students on occasion take a session off for life, events for vacation, because they need a break, whatever full time is typically 2 to 3 courses per session most times it's 2 courses per session. But typically there's 1 or 2 sessions. You're going to need to take 3 courses a full time arrangement. You can complete your program in one year. So that's with the 7 required courses.
We showed you and 3 electives from the list now the previous slide, I highlighted a sampling. There are quite a variety of elective that are going to cross, cross that company each other across different disciplines as Stephen highlighted. There's one for User Center design which you could take through this program, and there are many others. So as you consider how fast your program is, what electives you want to go into the program, it's important to know there are a lot. Quite a few options and part time and full time are both part of those options.
Steven Dupree: Thanks. Tom.
Thomas Screnci: Perfect.
Steven Dupree: Yeah. And that's a great point about the electives. We're pretty fluid with the digital marketing. There's a lot of options, including beyond that list. If there's something that really fits you, you can always petition for it in terms of the required courses.
Slide title changes to say "Required Course Breakdown." Information for RDMD 110: Search Engine Marketing and Optimization is listed below. Assignments include the use and optimization of Google My Business and Google Ads Fundamentals.
Steve Dupree speaks: This is a classic course, one of the earlier courses that you would take in the sequence. It's RDMD 110, which is search engine marketing, optimization. This is this is all things paid search and organic and natural search, you get an overview of search engine marketing, which would be the paid search portion. How to run paid ads on Google as well as Bing and other places. The organic or natural search would be how to drive visibility and discoverability of your website or property through various marketing tactics through content, generation, etc. It includes coverage of features, various Google features like Google local. How AI is impacting search engine optimization algorithms, etc.
The course content investigates applications for both business to consumer and business to business. Because we have a mix of those students in the program. There's also focus on technical considerations for achieving high search results and effective return on investment. There are special topics covered. They would include things like keyword development landing page optimization updates to the algorithms. And in how search is being worked. AI and machine learning impact, etc. Definitely a critical class for every digital marketing professional, whether you work with search engines on a day-to-day basis, or you simply need a working knowledge of how to leverage them.
Thomas Screnci: All right, Steve. Thank you for the introduction to that introductory level course. Like to switch now to your insights on the digital marketing industry. Please.
Slide switches to say "Marketplace Information." Under fields that employ graduates with this degree, lists: "Digital, channel, or online marketing; acquisition or growth marketing; marketing operations or analytics." Under job titles of anticipated graduates, lists: "Digital marketing manager/director, Social media manager, Marketing analyst, Communications manager, Growth marketing lead and more."
Steven Dupree speaks: Sure. Yeah, digital marketing professionals. I mean, this is a job that's on the rise. It's changing rapidly, and the need is greater than ever. This is just a list based on sampling of people that have left the program in the past, graduated some fields that employ graduates with this degree. Obviously digital channel and online marketing. Some folks go work for an operating company or in an agency setting acquisition or growth, marketing, marketing, operation, marketing analytics for those who are making a career transition. We get a lot of that in this program through digital marketing design, you know, here's a sampling of job titles you might explore upon creating the program you could become a digital marketing manager or director, social media manager, marketing analyst. I have some that aren't on this slide, too, like digital marketing, copywriter or editor, a search paid search SEO, specialist, generative AI digital marketer growth or growth marketing manager, web analytics, guru, an email, marketing manager, product marketing and product manager as well.
Thomas Screnci: Excellent. Thank you. So in a similar vein, Steven, love to love you, to give us some insight on the faculty of the digital marketing and design program. Please.
Slide switches to say "Industry Expertise." Below, job titles of Brandeis Online instructors are listed: Co-founder and Principal of 215 Marketing, Director of Digital Content Strategy for Boston Medical Center, Chief Communications Officer for Central Park Conservancy, VP of User Experience for New York Life Insurance Company, and more.
Steven Dupree speaks: Yeah, I mean, one thing we really want to do is keep our courses in our curriculum relevant and topical to what's happening in the real world of work. So we do this by bringing in a sizable network of marketers from the industry. So all the instructors in the GPS program who teach courses and serve on the Advisory Board. They're all working marketers in the field.
We're proud of the program's industry connections. All of the instructors are experienced professionals outside of Brand Nice. They engage with us part time and we instruct them how to teach online. Following our own standards, we have a whole development program for that. On this side, you'll see just a sampling some professional experience from our digital marketing faculty. It includes B, 2 B+B 2 c, operating and consulting work in digital marketing, several industries, including software and healthcare education, nonprofit and more.
Slide switches to say "Advisory Board and Industry Mentors." Below, bullet points list: Marketing Specialist at 451 Alliance, Director of Digital Marketing at BitSights, Talent Programs Partner at Pegasystems and more.
Thomas Screnci speaks: Thank you, Stephen, so shifting to my focus there here. So each program has advisory boards, industry mentors who are there to support students provide industry, connection as well as be, as you would assume, advisors to the program as well, usually consisting of executives from leading companies who offer strategic guidance and expertise on the latest advances and demands of the industry. The excuse me, advisory boards continue to annually contribute to our to our programs through board meetings through student contact, through the meetings, one on one and other methods as well.
Members evaluate program goals and coursework to assess if graduates have the skills required of leading professionals in their respective industries. I can actually speak from experience. Having sat through a program review for bioinformatics. And we're starting with software. Engineering. This is a in a very good way, a lot of opinions in one meeting in one room which is great to have a lot of feedback. So this is something that's always happening for all of our programs consistently, just on a rotating basis. Members help to identify, trend, to align the educational courses with emerging areas and new challenges within this industry, as you'd imagine. Maybe 5 years ago, Steven might not be talking about AI as much. But that's a huge emerging technology. So something we've been discussing more and more in this program as well as others as well.
As a Brandeis Online student, you will have many opportunities to network with others in your field. This could be, of course, the Advisory Board, your fellow classmates. 90% of Brandeis online students are full time working full time. So you have quite a variety of professionals, who are, you know, oftentimes midway in their career, which could be 1015 years or more in their career. But there are definitely plenty of people who are fresh out of college a year or 2 in who are looking to get their masters and keep moving forward in their in their career pursuits. So you're bringing that opportunity to network and that opportunity to gain experience, perspective of experiences rather as well.
The Brandeis community extends beyond our online classroom, offering students opportunities to expand their professional circle through programming, networking through networking events. Webinars shared job postings, LinkedIn, of course, and by building meaningful connections with our faculty, the chairs, and of course the Advisory board. Our student teacher ratio is about 12 to one, we typically cap classes at about 20 students. We want to have smaller cohorts, smaller classrooms to let people work with each other more closely, have great conversations.
Plenty of classes are going to have projects, whether it be a week long, a session, long project, or just maybe for a briefer period of time. So you're going to have opportunities to work with with classmates to gain their perspective, have a collaborative experience and a network in a smaller setting to have that opportunity, as it has not been mentioned on this slideshow which I want to fix for the future. We are a hundred percent, asynchronous program. I want to make sure I mentioned that, meaning that everything is self-paced course. Material materials are posted weekly, so every Wednesday morning materials are posted, and you would just log into our learning platform to look at the work. It might be videos. It could be lectures could be readings for you to do. Of course Group Project, you'd have instructions for that as well. But you do it on your time. You could do it 1st thing Wednesday morning. You could wait till Saturday at midnight, or you could do it last minute at Tuesday, at 11 PM, if that suited your needs. But everything is a circular geared towards the working professionals geared towards those who have, you know, plenty of life commitments outside the classroom. So I think it's important to note that right before I jump into the admissions checklist, which is our next thing here.
Slide switches to say "Application Checklist." List includes Online Application, Official transcripts, Resume, Statement of goals, and Letter of recommendation. Below, text says "No application fee! No GMAT or GRE required!" Spring-2 deadline is March 4, Fall-1 deadline is July 29.
Thomas Screnci speaks: So a few of my favorite features of the program. I love the fact that our faculty are working with us part time, and they're working full time and instructing part time. Another key feature I love is that we have no application fee. We have no standardized testing. The application is very straightforward. Having worked in undergraduate admissions for quite some time, I love the fact that we've streamlined it and made it easier for you to kind of submit an application and get a decision.
So on this slide here, you see all the requirements. The application is available on our website is only online. So that might seem obvious. But it's always good to just make sure. I say, that we are looking for official transcripts and all of your previous institutions. So if you transferred for a community college, or from one 4 year institution to another before you got your bachelor's degree, we would require all your previous transcripts. We can make a decision with with copies of transcripts that we will need official transcripts eventually to give you a full admittance, as we call it. So keep that in mind, and you will need to request your official transcripts.
Your resume is a little bit unlike your traditional resume that you might submit for a job application meaning it can be 2, 3 pages long. That's totally fine. We're not critiquing your resume writing skills. The resume is really there. To highlight your related experience. People will give us, you know, lines and lines of the projects they've worked on the growth they've had in fields, the exposure, you know, professional development trainings, Coursera trainings, other academic experiences they've had. So please feel free to dive into great detail in your resume to highlight all your related experience. The projects you've worked on. It's always great context to have is instead of just your your job title and a short summary of an expanded list of what you've done in your previous roles.
The statement of goals is your statement of purpose. Basically, it's 500 words or more. Really, you just answer the question, why are you applying to Brand nice? Why do you want this program? It could be any number of reasons. People will just highlight the content, the goals through the program of more knowledge, a promotion, a career, change any number of reasons. Of course you are free to write what you feel but 500 words or more, and really just giving us as much context as you like to tell us what about what is drawing you to this program, what you hope to get out of this program.
This is also an opportunity. If you've had career changes, maybe rougher undergraduate experience, and your grades aren't ideal. You can always explain. You know what happened or how you've changed, or the growth, or any circumstantial context is always great to have as well. So I've seen statement of goals as long as 3 pages. It does not have to be that long. It can be 502 words, and it'll be perfectly fine. So, however long it takes you to write, that is acceptable.
We only require one letter of recommendation. We are looking for a current or former manager or supervisor, if you don't have one, if you're a new grad which we see sometimes, maybe someone who oversaw a research project, an internship are good alternatives to go off of, but the ideal person is a former or current supervisor, manager, boss are great. You can have 2 or 3. One is not the only one you can send, but one is totally fine and acceptable to just submit one letter of recommendation.
You see at the bottom. Here are deadlines. As I mentioned before, we are currently in a 10 week sessions, which I'll have 4 of them each year, and later this year we're going to 8 week sessions which are going to allow us to have 5 sessions per year. So there's a bit of a change over the summer break for us here. So that's something to keep in mind, as you're considering the Brandeis options. But all of our programs, all of our classes are available throughout the year. So you can start a program at any point in the year.
So please feel free to to jump into Brandeis programming whenever you're ready. So we do offer quite a bit of flexibility for that as well.
And that really ends that covers the entire application checklist. It's a very straightforward process. Once an application is completed, Stephen and I like to have a decision sent out to people in around a week's time. We are commonly faster than that. But that's typically what we look for in terms of our decision giving process. We are rolling admissions. So as applications are completed, we send out decisions. There's no delay, so you can apply now for Fall-1 and complete it, and we'll get a decision, you know, in a week's time. So there's no delays in the decision giving process.
Slide switches to say "Keep in Touch!" Steve's email (sdupree@brandeis.edu) and Tom's email (tscrenci@brandeis.edu) are listed. The general Brandeis Online email (online@brandeis.edu) is below.
Tom speaks: So that covers the the core content of our presentation. Here, Steven, I happen to answer any specific questions about the program, the student experience the application process, whatever you may have. But before I end the recording for for those watching the recording, I wanted to say, thank you for attending the session today. We're glad you could join us and hope it was informative for your for your research purposes, and look forward to hopefully working with you as a student soon.
Steven Dupree: Yes, thank you.