Capstone Project: Digital Marketing and Growth Hacking

IBM via Coursera

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Overview

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Get ready to demonstrate your digital marketing and growth hacking skills in this hands-on, real-world style capstone project. In this capstone, you’ll apply your skills to design and execute a complete digital marketing campaign for a hypothetical brand—combining strategy, creativity, and analytics. You’ll start by crafting a campaign strategy and defining your target audience, then create an SEO-driven content plan, paid advertising assets, and a social media calendar. You’ll also build a conversion-optimized product page and personalized email sequence. To boost performance, you’ll analyze data from SEO, social media, and digital advertising to drive growth and ROI. Throughout the project, you’ll work with platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn and tools such as Shopify, Canva, and Zoho Campaigns. In parallel, you’ll use generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini to enhance assets and improve efficiency. To wrap up, you’ll design a final presentation that demonstrates your analytical and presentation skills. The course also provides career guidance, from building your digital portfolio to resume, LinkedIn, and interview tips, plus insights on freelancing success. If you’re an aspiring marketing professional looking to build a standout portfolio that demonstrates your job-ready skills, enroll today!

Syllabus

Campaign Strategy and Audience Targeting

Campaign strategy and audience targeting set the foundation for your digital marketing campaign. In this module, you will kickstart your capstone project by selecting a hypothetical product or service and clearly defining its business goals. You will then craft SMART marketing objectives aligned with those goals, identify the most effective digital channels to reach your audience, and build detailed customer personas using both demographic and psychographic insights. By the end of this module, you will have a strategic campaign brief that guides the development of all other components. This foundational work ensures your entire campaign is goal-driven, audience-centered, and aligned with real-world marketing practices.

SEO and Content Marketing Plan

In this module, you will learn to design an SEO-driven content marketing plan that supports your overall campaign strategy. Building on foundational SEO principles, you will conduct targeted keyword research aligned with the hypothetical brand’s goals, develop optimized page titles and meta descriptions, and outline a blog post to drive organic traffic. Additionally, you will create a seven-day content calendar to plan and structure high-impact posts across relevant platforms. This module emphasizes strategic thinking, audience alignment, and measurable outcomes, preparing learners to implement SEO best practices that enhance visibility, engagement, and long-term content value. By the end of the module, you will have a complete, ready-to-deploy content plan.

Digital Advertising

This module focuses on planning a paid ad campaign. You will plan and design a targeted paid advertising campaign aligned with your capstone project’s overall strategy. Using insights from the campaign brief, you will write compelling ad copy for platforms like Google and Meta, define audience segments, and outline creative concepts for visual assets. Additionally, you will estimate advertising budgets, select appropriate bidding strategies, and forecast key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure success. This module emphasizes real-world marketing decision-making, helping you bridge the gap between strategy and execution. By the end of it, you will be able to articulate and present a complete paid media plan confidently.

Social Media Content Plan

In this module. you will learn to design a strategic, seven-day organic social media content plan tailored to their hypothetical brand. You will also learn about platform selection, content alignment with campaign goals, and practical application of growth hacking techniques to boost engagement. This module also explores best practices for visual storytelling, hashtag usage, and writing compelling post captions. Through hands-on labs, you will develop and refine social media posts using tools like Canva. The final deliverable is a complete social media calendar featuring platform-specific content designed to resonate with target audiences and drive brand awareness and engagement.

E-Commerce and Email Marketing

This module focuses on developing an optimized product page and an email marketing sequence. You will apply key principles of conversion-focused design and personalized communication to drive customer engagement and sales. Additionally, this module guides you through the process of creating a visually appealing and search-optimized product page and designing an effective email marketing campaign tailored to segmented audiences. Through hands-on labs, you will build a mock product listing with compelling copy, visuals, and pricing, and develop a two-part email series that nurtures customer relationships. By the end of the module, you will be equipped to drive traffic and engagement through integrated e-commerce and email strategies.

Data Analysis for Growth

In this module, you will learn how to optimize data for higher growth and ROI. The module discusses the role that data plays in building transformative growth through better analysis and insights. In this module, you will analyze data pertaining to SEO, social media, and digital advertising. Through hands-on activities, you will practice analyzing data across various digital functions. This module empowers you to evaluate data and generate insights and optimization techniques that will drive growth.

Final Project, Course Wrap-Up and Job Tips

In this final module, you will work on combining and presenting your project work into a compelling presentation that demonstrates your analytical and presentation skills. You’ll learn to structure and design effective presentations, applying best practices for clarity, engagement, and professionalism. Along with the presentation, you’ll submit the deliverables created across previous modules for evaluation. The module also sums up the course learning and highlights key takeaways and next steps.