With the Footprint Academy 2023 swiftly approaching, we wanted to look back on last year, and how better to do that than to ask one of the student’s from the Academy to tell us all about it?! Abdul Rohmanue joined our 100% online Footprint Academy in 2022, and we were so impressed with his enthusiasm and attitude that we offered him a role in our Paid Media department – we were very pleased that he accepted! Here’s what Abdul has to say about the Footprint Academy… 

I first heard about the Footprint Academy whilst I was studying at Essex University, and it intrigued me – I wondered what it would entail and whether it would help me start up my career.

For me, the experience actually started well before the one week course. It started with the Shoot The HiPPO marketing book written by the team at Footprint Digital. The book allowed me to get stuck in and make it my own, highlighting, scribbling ideas and adding my own notes.

I’d say that the Academy was a great introduction to multiple aspects of Digital Marketing: learning about auditing websites, strategy, optimising for search engines, setting up paid ads, making websites convert better, and managing projects.

Again, following from my knowledge from the Shoot the HiPPO book plus the online videos and quizzes, each day the knowledge was applied and  actualized – through the guidance of the team members who were teaching us. 

At the beginning of the week we all were split into small teams and assigned to live clients, my client was Footprint Digital. No pressure haha! Each day we learnt about the fundamentals of a different marketing discipline and applied it to our client – by the end of the week we reported our ideas and findings directly to the client. 

One of the things I really enjoyed was that they gave me the freedom to try and test different things throughout the week, for example I created a customer journey flowchart.

The whole experience helped me to think bigger about marketing and what it encompasses and I started to be able to make connections between the different aspects and see how they all compliment each other and make the marketing campaign stronger as a whole. Each one has an important factor to play! 

If I could pick one thing that I took away from the Footprint Academy, it would be that you need to carve out a way to have freedom to try new things and test new ideas, find ways to effectively communicate your thoughts, and always back them up with data/forecasts (that might be more than one thing!)

Since completing the Footprint Academy, I have started work in the paid department alongside Michael, Tanya and Brent. I think the Academy really set me up to succeed here for a few reasons.

For example, as a paid media manager, I strategise and plan at different stages of the marketing funnel, using my experience and knowledge to find the best approach for each client and campaign. A key fundamental process we learnt on the course was using Google’s Keyword planner and Google Trends, then creating targeted ad copy on Google Ads.

I’m grateful to have that experience led by Michael Scanlon, who I now work under and have built on from my academy experience. 

I really like how the Footprint Academy aligned with my growth mindset, giving me the opportunity to learn and try new things has in fact been amplified now that I am in my Paid Media role – I really like that. The course and my role have given me space to grow.