Membership Update Winter 2021

Welcome Everyone,

First and foremost, I want to wish you all a Happy New Year and I hope you all had a safe, healthy, and restful holiday. I know many of us had and have high hopes for 2021. A hope that we can finally and firmly put 2020 and the pandemic in the rearview mirror. A hope that replaces the usual “new year, new you” mantras that usually full our newsfeeds and states of mind.

As many of us see a continuation of lockdowns - it’s important for us to think of the things each of us has accomplished in 2020.

Congratulations to those amongst our membership community that gained a DMI certification, that chose this time to upskill, to those that pivoted your business model, and business strategies. My compliments to those that tried new things to reach your customers, and tried your best to offer a continuation of best-in-class service. To those that contributed to your DMI member community through submitting content, appearing in member showcases, and bringing your experiences and guidance to the forum - great work and do celebrate these successes.

Whether your accomplishments were big or small, they are all worth celebrating - and I am excited to see what this resilient, professional, and hard-working community accomplishes in 2021.

Your 2020 Membership Highlights Round-Up

In this spirit, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the highlights that we saw within our very own DMI membership community. We remind ourselves of our membership journey during 2020 before we turn an eye to the road ahead.

• Your DMI Member Community grew by an astounding 78,000 members in 2020, reaching 125K+ digital marketing professionals within this global network
• We won the highly coveted “Membership Organization of the Year” award with Memcom
• We also received a high commendation from Memcom for our certification programs
• We were shortlisted by The Education Awards for ​Best Online Learning Experience
• The DMI podcast ‘Ahead of the Game’ launched on the 31st of March 2020. Since launch, we released 21 podcast episodes, which received over 10.5k listens - if you haven’t tuned in to one of them yet, check them out here and don't forget to leave a review.
• We ran 12 live membership webinars in 2020, with 19,687 digital marketing professionals registered and over 7.5K people joined us for the live sessions, asking our experts the tough questions that matter.
• We surveyed and published the Whitepaper - Digital Paves the Way in response to Covid-19 which gave a solid, fascinating, and important insight into the world of digital marketing at an extraordinary point in time.
• In September 2020, we introduced ‘The Member Showcase’ and have released 5 of these interviews to date. They showcase some of your fellow DMI members’ knowledge, skills, and experiences - giving you valuable insights and lessons from their journeys, advice, and guidance.
• We published 160 new and unique DMI pieces of content to our membership library this year - bringing your resource library to a whopping 1,360 items.
• Once a month we bring you a quick roundup of some of the more significant, and sillier, news stories from the world of digital marketing.
• In July 2020, we created the essential skills video series, bringing you a suite of practical skills - such as time management, productivity, collaboration - that address the talent needs we have seen highlighted by leading marketing executives and CMOs globally.
• Our CPD members grew by 258% during 2020. We conducted an independent survey during Q4 2020, and 89% of our CPD members confirmed that CPD had validated the knowledge and skill they maintained post-certification, and 82% told us that CPD improved their confidence - empowering them to speak up and to implement their skills to create practical strategies and solutions into their daily activities.

Another Day Not in the Office

For a large number of us, we’ve started 2021 the way we finished 2020 - working from home! Whilst for some of you the concept of working from home is nothing new, the addition of partners, children, or constant Zoom/Slack/Teams chats and calls may still be proving a challenge. Aside from the pandemic, data presented in a vast array of surveys, all available online, make it clear that professionals prefer a hybrid approach to their work - having a mix of working from home and working from an office. It doesn’t look like we are going back to the office full-time any time soon. With that in mind and carrying on the theme of reflection - it might be time to review the lessons learned or routines that need refreshing and adopt a fresh approach to working from home.

Leaving behind the challenges of dodgy Wi-Fi connections and putting aside the question of ‘why have we embraced the communal wave as we signal a zoom call is ending?’, I want to draw your attention to the range of assets available in your library. There to help you create positive and practical habits and practices to make your working day more productive, healthier and happier. Here’s your timesaver guide:

9 Tips for Working and Studying from Home

Positive Habits for a Work-Life Balance

How to Thrive During a Pandemic

Productivity Tips for Freelancer Marketers

Saving & Creating Time

Communicating effectively during this time is especially important. Being present (that means no phones, multi-tasking and being actively involved) can do more than sustain a respectful and productive meeting - it can deliver a purposeful conversation whilst also delivering a real connection, a watercooler moment, to make a difference to someone’s day and state of mind.

Your Watch List

Our commitment to delivering practical and relevant content continues and we’ve got some brilliant new things happening in membership in the coming weeks. So here are a few current pieces for you to check out: 

• Podcast: 2021 Trends in Digital Marketing
• Podcast: Digital Marketing Career Kickstart
• Upcoming Webinar: 27th January 2021 - Switch On Your 2021 Social Media Game Plan
• Upcoming Webinar: 24th February 2021 - How to Prepare for Google's Page Experience Update and Supercharge Your Website
• The ‘in case you missed it’ Webinar: Social Selling Fundamentals for B2B
• The Member Showcase with Kamran Awan
• The Member Showcase with Rod Strother
• eBook: The DMI Guide to Lead Generation and Nurturing
• Article: An In-Depth Look at Marketing on TikTok

Exciting Times Ahead - Our Membership Promise for 2021

We are going to continue to deliver great original content regularly, monthly webinars, podcasts published fortnightly and, as always, with focus on you, our valued members.

2021 will see platform upgrades to help you ‘get ahead of the game’ and achieve success in your career. We will be upgrading your membership profile to create a professional biography for you to share and add to our new member directory. You’ll be able to build out your professional digital marketing networks and make relevant connections within this thriving community. We will be launching a jobs board and will continue to build and expand on our dedicated career zone.

We are excited to bring you these new additions to our membership benefits package, and we’re buoyed by our recent independent survey, where we saw 81% of respondents agreeing that a jobs board, the ability to explore career opportunities, and network would add enormous positive value.

I look forward to having you join us at our webinars, tune into our podcasts, and check out our regular updates. We have more member showcases, more member insights and more great content - and much more planned for 2021.

Before You Go

Don’t forget to press play on our brand new membership video!