You have finished college, updated your CV, and started looking at courses. Every option seems to promise a better future, but choosing one is difficult when you have never tried the work it teaches.
If you are considering digital marketing after graduation, begin with five small tasks: understand a customer, review a website, plan social posts, draft an advertisement, and interpret results. These exercises can help you discover what interests you before committing to a course.
Set aside a week and use a fictional home bakery as your practice business. A notebook, a document editor, and a spreadsheet are enough. Keep everything as a practice draft; you do not need to publish content or pay for advertising.
1. Understand who would buy from the bakery
Start by choosing one product, such as birthday cakes. Then describe one potential customer: a working parent ordering a cake for a child’s birthday.
Write down the questions that person might ask. Can the bakery deliver on time? Are eggless options available? How early should an order be placed? What will the final price include?
Now write a short description of what matters most to this customer. This is an audience profile: a simple outline of the person a business wants to reach.
Treat your answers as assumptions. Ask someone who has ordered a birthday cake which details influenced their choice, and revise your notes.
Save a half-page customer profile. Notice whether you enjoyed asking questions and understanding the reasons behind a purchase.
2. Review a website through a customer’s eyes
Choose a real bakery website and browse it on your phone. Imagine you need a cake for Saturday and have only a few minutes to decide.
Can you find the product range, delivery area, ordering process, and contact details? Does the website explain when orders close? Is the text easy to read?
Record three observations and suggest a practical improvement for each. For example: “The delivery area is unclear. Add the neighbourhoods served beside the ordering information.”
This is a basic website audit, which means reviewing a site to identify problems and opportunities. Focus on what you can observe; you do not need specialist software.
Save your suggestions in one page. You are testing whether you enjoy spotting friction and explaining how to make an experience easier.
3. Plan three social media posts with different purposes
Return to your fictional bakery. Create a three-post plan that helps your chosen customer make a decision.
The first post could answer a question about choosing cake sizes. The second could explain the steps involved in placing an order. The third could introduce a fictional weekend menu, clearly labelled as a practice example.
For each post, write a headline, a short caption, and a visual idea. Decide what the reader should understand or do afterwards.
You can sketch the layout on paper. The aim is to connect the message to a customer need, so polished design is optional.
Ask a friend to read the drafts. What is clear? What needs explaining? Revise one post using their feedback. Notice whether you enjoyed the writing, planning, or revision most.
4. Draft a search ad without spending money
Imagine someone searches for “eggless birthday cake delivery near me”. That phrase is a keyword: the words someone uses to look for information, products, or services.
Draft an advertisement for your practice bakery that responds to that request. For example:
“Eggless Birthday Cakes. Explore cake sizes and flavours. Check delivery availability for your area.”
Then describe the page someone should reach after clicking. It should provide relevant cake options, delivery information, ordering deadlines, and a clear way to enquire.
Only include details the fictional business is assumed to offer, and label the draft as a sample. Avoid promises such as guaranteed same-day delivery unless a real business can support them.
Save the ad and a rough page outline together. Consider whether you enjoyed matching a customer’s search with a relevant message.
5. Use sample numbers to recommend a next step
Create a spreadsheet with two fictional campaigns. Campaign A received 100 clicks and five enquiries. Campaign B received 80 clicks and eight enquiries.
Calculate the enquiry rate by dividing enquiries by clicks and multiplying by 100. Campaign A’s rate is 5%; Campaign B’s is 10%.
Campaign B generated more enquiries from fewer clicks, but that alone does not establish profitability. You still need information about advertising costs, enquiry quality, and completed orders.
Write a short recommendation: “Check which enquiries became orders and compare campaign costs before increasing the budget.”
These numbers are invented for practice. The task is to see whether you enjoy checking calculations, questioning incomplete information, and explaining what a business should investigate next.
Use your experience to choose the next course
Review your five saved exercises. Which task made you curious enough to keep working? Which became more interesting after feedback? Which would you like someone to explain in greater depth?
Use those answers when comparing courses. Ask to see practical assignments, how feedback is provided, and how the syllabus connects different skills. Bring one exercise to a course discussion and ask how you would develop it during training.
Digital Trainee’s digital marketing course syllabus and practical learning approach provide one starting point for that comparison. Readers can review the listed topics and assignment-based learning approach alongside the tasks they tried.
Keep your practice folder. It gives you specific questions to ask and a clearer reason for choosing your next course.
Author: Prashant Kadukar, Founder & CEO, Digital Trainee
Bio: The founder and director of Digital Trainee, Mr. Prashant Kadukar has been an inspiration owing to his laurels all along. An MIT alumni, he happens to be a Google Ads & Bing Certified Professional. His decade long mastery in strategizing, designing, and implementing Digital Marketing plans and campaigns is well known. Mr. Prashant’s portfolio consists of serving 100+ Domestic and International clients, and consulting numerous startups on aspects such as strategy and growth. The workshops conducted by him have been insightful to an extent where the majority of the attendees have chosen a career in this field. Such has been the impact!
