Success Story: Shelley Tantan

CDMP Batch 6

What was your work background before enrolling in DMI?

I was the Head of Communications, Brand and Stakeholder Relations for a multinational technology consulting company when I enrolled in DMI.

What influenced your decision to study and get certified in digital marketing?

First, my educational background is not business or marketing . I am a Computer Engineering graduate, and I started out as a programmer, and I eventually managed projects. In 2011, I was assigned to manage the Corporate Marketing unit (which I eventually renamed to Communications, Brand and Stakeholder Relations to highlight our main functions as a team). So, enrolling in the digital marketing course of DMI was my first full-fledged formal education in Marketing!

Second, my team handles internal communications in the company, which is basically internal marketing for our employees! With the recent launch of an enterprise social media platform for our employees, coupled with emails, I wanted to learn the best way to merge the use of both channels, and at the same time, take advantage of each channel’s benefits.

Third, our headquarters in Europe manages the company’s digital marketing strategies. I wanted to be ready for their plans to cascade initiatives to the subsidiaries.

Lastly, and personally, I was already “immersed” in the channels being used in digital marketing, but outside of work – I have a once-active blog, so I did a bit of SEO and I tracked visits. I used to be an early adopter of social media (Multiply, Twitter, Plurk, etc.), and of course I use Facebook and Instagram. I really want to do something big in the digital space for my personal brand, but I think I will only be able to do that if it was my main focus. So for now, I am just dabbling here and there, and I took the class for my retirement plan 😉

Why did you choose to study with DMI?

I chose DMI because all the digital marketing areas I wanted to learn about was in the curriculum!

How has it helped you in your business or work?

Our HQ is still solely managing our digital marketing strategies, so there has been no localization yet. As such, I haven’t been able to practice what I’ve learned in DMI in that space.

However, I have more appreciation as to what is involved in marketing, and how all activities in all channels (digital or traditional) should work together, and how different these channels are from each other. I have used this understanding in our unit’s internal communications function – from strategy to planning a campaign, to tracking its success through analytics. So even though I’m not practicing digital marketing in the truest sense of the term, I’m still using a LOT of what I’ve learned in the course for my work.

Also, it may not yet come soon, but the course knowledge will definitely come in handy for marketing my personal brand when I retire 😉

Since completing the program, how has your career progressed?

I am still the head of my unit, but my role got promoted (from Senior Officer to Manager) the year after I took the course! There were a lot of factors in that promotion, of course, but I believe the extra knowledge and discipline I gained from the course helped a lot in showing management that I was ready for a higher role.

What’s your advice for new students?

Give the course the focus it deserves to make it work for you, or else you’ll just be wasting your time (weekends going to class) and money (enrollment fee and other operational expenses to go to class)!

Also, get to know your classmates to make the course fun! It’s also a great way to extend your network outside of your industry or domain!

How would you describe your learning experience with DMI?

I love the subject matter experts they invited to teach the different modules of the course! They were obviously not just the experts in their domain, but they also know how to teach! And I love the real-life experiences they used as examples to explain or clarify concepts in their modules. They really facilitated learning and they were the best part of the course!

Also, It was fun to be in a classroom setting once again, taking the course for 10 Saturdays, having homework, and just having new people to talk to outside of work!