The goal of this course is to give students the technical experience required to develop digital content that helps a brand meet business objectives. Then, they apply these skills and concepts to create a Shopify website for a product of their choosing. This course is hands-on and students will be working in some of today’s most popular marketing platforms, including AI tools that facilitate content creation.

At the completion of the course, students will be able to:

• Build a website that’s optimized for search (SEO) and communicates a product’s value proposition and brand attributes
• Conduct keyword research and write meta tags that help a website rank in organic search results
• Develop content that aligns with marketing objectives and promotes a product in an on-brand way
• Interpret brand guidelines in order to apply visual and written elements of a brand to a website and marketing content
• Develop photography and video assets that highlight the key features of a product
• Leverage AI tools to increase efficiency in the content creation process

Students need to attend at least 80% of sessions in order to pass the course.

This course includes both asynchronous and in-person sessions.

Asynchronous (In Canvas):

• Lecture: Students learn the theory and key strategies behind the work we’ll conduct in-class.
• Pre-Work: Assignment done in preparation for the week’s in-person workshop.

In-person (at WU):

• Walkthrough: Professor will walk students through the tool we’ll be using that day.
• Workshop: Students work on an in-class activity. The work from this activity is submitted and graded in Canva.

Access to tools
This course is hands-on. We’ll use a variety of tools to mimic the work content marketers do in the “real world.” Students will be required to access the following tools (subject to change):

• Shopify
• Semrush
• Canva
• ChatGPT
• Semrush

Weekly assignments are due by 9:00 on Sunday before class and are submitted on Canvas. All students have a grace period (until Sunday 17:00) to submit without penalty. After this period, students will get no credit. This same policy applies for the final project.

• Final Project (40%): Students build a website for a product of their choice. (Graded as a team.)
• Pre-work (30%): Assignment done in preparation for the week’s in-person workshop.
• Workshop Assignment (20%) : Students submit the work they performed in-class.

These assignments build up to the final project. (Graded as a team.)

• In-class Critiques (10%): 1x Presentation of your work + ongoing positive contributions to in-person feedback sessions.

Note that 4 ECTS corresponds to 100 hours of student workload. This includes everything (contact hours, self-study / readings, project work that takes place outside class, exam prep, etc.).

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