Digital Deepak Internship Program on Digital Marketing

People have been asking recently about Digital Marketing Internship with Digital Deepak – What is it? How do I join? And so on.

A lot has been written recently about my Digital Deepak Internship Program.

Hundreds of people who joined the first batch of my internship program have published reviews about the program. They have learned a lot more in the last few weeks than they have learned in a year. People have created their landing pages, promoting the webinar, generating leads for it as part of their assignment training.

And they are excited about the results they are seeing. But their interaction in the groups has made the others curious about the program. As I am gearing up for accepting the next set of interns for training, it’s time to tell you why I created the internship program? Why I created a personal coaching program when I have tens of digital marketing courses already and a lot more in the pipeline?

But before I do that, I want to tell you about the problems that forced me to come up with this digital marketing internship idea.

The People Problem

Well, the digital marketing niche is huge – both in terms of demand and potential. There are thousands and thousands of people who want to become digital marketers because of its glamorous benefits like freelancing, digital nomad aka laptop lifestyle, and the possibility of earning passive income, replacing your salary, and achieving true freedom. And there are digital marketing professionals who want to become better in their craft and grow their careers.

Finally, we got business owners who want to leverage digital marketing to get more leads and customers and grow their business. Everyone knows the power of digital marketing and how it can change their life. But when it comes to learning digital marketing, almost everyone struggles to choose the right path.

They either take the random path or need-based approach.

Random Learners

“Random learners” usually are content consumers.

They read hundreds of blog posts, watch thousands of videos, sign up to free courses, and even join a few paid programs. They don’t have a direction. They learn a bit about this and that and jump from one topic to another topic, hoping to find the one they can relate to more or feel comfortable with. They keep consuming content after content, rarely putting their learnings into work because of their lack of direction and confidence.

The “When-I-Need-It” Learners

These people are entirely opposite to “random learners.” They don’t learn anything unless they need it. They usually start somewhere, and whenever they need to execute something, they will hustle to learn it.

These people will be continually looking for “tips and tricks” that are working and can get quick results for them. They usually lack processes and approaches, might find it difficult to build a strategy or plan. They keep searching for solutions to their current problems and learning what can help them immediately and fail to look at the big picture or think about the long term.

But the problem is, both these approaches produce poor results. It doesn’t help them in getting a job as digital marketing fresher or grow their career where they can earn more or land a freelance career or earn a passive income as they dreamed.

Then they start wondering whether they have made the right choice or not. When one thing is not working, they decide to pivot and choose a different skill.

SEO people turned to become paid ads specialists and paid ads people go to the SEO side, hoping for better results. But switching from one skill to another doesn’t produce different results because they do the same thing. They either learn randomly, or they learn need-based.

When none of their approaches and attempts yield the results they were hoping for, some even call digital marketing isn’t working and has lost all its shine.

Well, digital marketing is very much alive and working well for thousands and thousands of others. Businesses are constantly increasing their digital marketing budgets, looking for rightly skilled digital marketers who can produce the results.

But, it’s not working for people who don’t have a process or direction and jumping from one technique to another, and it leads us to the next problem.

The Course Problem

There is a big problem with the courses, especially paid ones. People aren’t taking action and sometimes not even completing the courses.

Thousands have purchased my digital marketing mastery program, but only a fraction of them have implemented what they learned. A lot of them have watched the videos but didn’t execute, and I have people who didn’t even complete the program

Few people probably watched something from everything a bit, and some are still deciding where to begin and what to watch first.

I’m using the word “watching” instead of “learning” because watching isn’t learning because learning happens only when you implement what you watched. That’s when you learn whatever you learned works or not.

And the worst thing that happens to a trainer or a course creator. Seeing your course sitting idle, not being consumed, and put into use is worse than those dreaded zero sales.

The sad truth is, it is not just happening to my courses. It’s the same across the globe. The course completion rate is around 4 to 10% of total buyers of the course, and implementation rates are about 50% of it.

That’s what I couldn’t understand.

Why on earth people spend their hard-earned money on a course and yet decide not to put it into action?

It was perplexing. It became a puzzle for me.

Getting Them To Learn

How to get that 90 % of people to learn and put it into use?

It became the #1 question for me in the last few months. I started chasing learning methodologies, teaching methodologies, and everything related to learning and teaching. I stopped creating new courses because I didn’t have the motivation to create one or update the existing one.

Why should I spend all my time and energy if it’s not going to be used? But I kept wondering, what if I could create a program where at least 50% of the students learn and implement what they have learned? It could be a real achievement.

But how to do it? I studied various training programs out there – how they are designed, delivered, and the kind of impact they are making on the students. That’s when I noticed that the assignment-based training programs are more effective than the training without a task.

When there is an assignment, people are more focused, attentive, and took notes while they learn because if they miss a thing or two, they might struggle to complete their assignments, and they have to come back, spending more time.

The need for completing the assignments made them better learners.

Also, the presence of assignments made more people start the course or program because it gives a direction and closure to them.

It reminded me of our school and college days. In schools and colleges, the assignments aka exams were the main reason behind our “course completion,” weren’t they?

If there were no assignments or exams, we wouldn’t have even touched our books just like it’s happening with the courses right now.

I felt, “eureka.” I thought I’ve finally cracked the code.

But it presented another problem.

Having an assignment doesn’t mean people have to do it or complete it. It doesn’t matter whether they complete it or not. Because there is no reward to motivative them to complete the assignment and without motivation, we usually don’t do anything. What if I add a grading system based on the quality of the assignment work? It might motivate the students to do better, become a topper, and get recognized.

But will it work? We all came through the same schooling system where grading was the primary method of evaluation of our learnings, and it didn’t help us to learn better.

It helped those who already had the intrinsic motivation to do well. But for the rest, the exams and the gradings never mattered because they were happy with just passing, and some didn’t even bother about it.

That means grading might not be the motivator for completing the assignments.

And unless I can find a powerful motivator, the assignment method will not be as effective as I want it to be.

I have to find either a carrot or stick that is powerful enough to push the people to act. Finding a stick isn’t going to work because we don’t care much about the punishments.

So what if I could mix both carrots and stick?

What if those who professionally complete their assignments within the deadline will get the cash reward and take away the incentive if either of it doesn’t happen?

It might work, right?

But what could be the incentive that would motivate people to overcome their natural resistance and excuses?

Money.

What if I give a cash reward to them for completing their assignments in a professional and timely manner? That should work, shouldn’t it?

I felt the pieces of the puzzle were falling in place.

People have to attend the class, complete the assignment, and submit it within the deadline, which will then graded, and good ones are rewarded with a cash price.

If I could structure the cash rewards in such a way that they could earn their investment back if they managed to complete all the assignments?

That means they are effectively learning for FREE.

That should be a damn good motivator, right?

And if someone doesn’t complete the assignment even with all the carrots dangled before him or her, then they cannot be eligible for the cash reward system until they complete and submit all their pending assignments. And that’s going to be the stick.

That should work perfectly, I felt.

Another “eureka” moment. I found a way to get 90% of people to learn and put what they learned into use.

Making It Practical

I’ve figured out the delivery mechanism and how to make people learn, and that leads me to the next challenge.

I’ve to create a program that is more practical and hands-on because the internship is all about doing things, getting your hands dirty, and learning by doing. So the program should be something more practical, something that doesn’t fit in the courses I already have.

It should focus on things you can learn, implement, get results in a week. The results should motivate you to explore further, help you to choose the right specialization, and become a master at it.

It should be a program that is a perfect combination of concepts and action that delivers the results.

The program should teach you essential basics like creating your customer avatar, doing niche & keyword research. Then it shifts to practical components like creating a sales page, getting leads from your landing page, importing leads using Zapier, building an email list, writing your first ever post, writing a review post, and so on.

In short, I wanted to create a program where you learn the essential and practical digital marketing concepts via weekly live classes and implement what you learned in the form of assignments so that you get the maximum advantage of the teachings and get hands-on experience in doing things.

That’s how Digital Marketing Internship with Digital Deepak program was born.

The idea was exciting and challenging at the same time.

The program could help people to become “digital marketers who can get the results,” because that’s what the market needs.

The assignments and cash rewards can get people to take action and learn by doing.
But I know it comes with challenges.

I realized it involves a lot of manual work – presenting live sessions, checking & grading assignments, processing the cash rewards, and handling your questions. It’s a logistical nightmare.

I know it could go wrong in so many ways, and I could lose all my reputation.

But I didn’t think about them when I announced the program because I wasn’t sure about the response from you.

And wow…

What a response you guys gave to the program? Honestly, it turned out better than I thought.

500+ of you enrolled in the program. It was above and beyond all the numbers I was having in my mind.
I felt truly honored to receive such an overwhelming response from you trusting me to be your mentor.

And the first session was a testing one.

The idea is appealing. But, will the people change their habits and be there was the biggest question.

Almost everyone attended the first session, and around 90% completed the first assignment.

I know it wasn’t easy. Though writing a post about what you learned in the session sounds straightforward, most of them had never written anything before and published it out there for the world to consume.

But that was the idea.

I wanted the assignments to push you out of your comfort zone and make you do things you weren’t planning to do because that’s how life deals with you.

And the incentivizing helped.

People were writing the sales copy for the first time, recording a video for the first time, and generating leads for the first time.

Taking up the challenge and doing a fantastic job at it is the best outcome of the program so far.

And something else happened. Something I wasn’t factoring in when I started the program.

You people created something unique and magical.

You people started collaborating, doing things together and better, through effective utilization of your individual skills.

You were helping each other. When people were stuck with WordPress, the way some of you helped them was truly amazing.

You became friends online and offline. Well, becoming friends online is something that usually happens in such programs, but connecting offline, becoming friends, and meeting in real life is probably the best that occurred out of the program.

We are just half-way through the first batch of the program. I know we still have some niggles, issues, and questions, and we are sorting them out as you read this post.

But we have great news too. We have already placed an intern at a job and have recruited one for our agency.
A lot more is to come.

Interns will be creating Google ad campaigns, Facebook ad campaigns, talking to their customers, and a lot more in the coming weeks. It’s going to be more challenging and rewarding as the assignments getting a bit tougher and the cash rewards getting bigger.

But it’s going to be a fun ride.

I need a favor from you.

I believe we finally got a program that is genuinely beneficial to you, helping you and making you better digital marketers. I’m looking forward to implementing the same approach in my upcoming courses and other programs.

What do you feel about the “Digital Deepak Internship Program“? What do you want to see from the program? What do you want to learn from the program?

I request you to share your thoughts in the comments.

Your responses and feedbacks are helping me to shape the program better for future batches.

What Next?

I’m gearing up for the new batch of the program, which will be a little different from the current version but delivers the same value.

And if you are interested in the program, mail me at deepak@pixeltrack.com to know more.