Quirk has always endeavoured to educate the public on eMarketing, what the future holds for marketing online and the various uses of the Internet. Now our focus is turned on the 3rd year and post-graduate marketing students at the University of Cape Town. Quirk has come onboard the eMarketing course, offered by the School of Management Studies, and will be providing a series of guest lectures in order to generate more interest in eMarketing and to increase the practical applications of this course.

With a dynamic team of QuirkStars lecturing I'm very optimistic and confident that we'll be able to make the course (and the discipline of eMarketing) more engaging to a group of students that will play a large part in South Africa's online future.

The lectures begin next week and will cover the following aspects of eMarketing: PPC, Online Advertising, Affiliate Marketing, Conversion Optimisation, SEO, WebPR, ORM, Social Media and Viral and Email Marketing.

I've always been amazed at the massive gap between South Africans' awareness of the Internet as a marketing medium and the usage of this channel. The aim from Quirk’s side is to increase awareness of the Internet as a form of marketing and more importantly highlight what can be achieved through this largely underutilised avenue.

The UCT students will also be completing various projects to ensure greater understanding and inevitably their greater appreciation for online marketing. A site audit and student run blogs are some examples of how they're going to get stuck in.

I was asked to give a short introduction to the eMarketing class last week in order to inspire students to attend lectures (an impossible task sometimes, but I gave it a bash). Firstly I arrived at UCT to discover that the venue did not have wi-fi – that meant no amusing YouTube clips to keep them entertained… bugger. So I had to rely on my wit and prowess to inspire them. But the more and more I spoke, the more I rediscovered that there are quite a few reasons as to why eMarketing is inspiring…

Besides being paid to surf the net and keep up to date on the latest exciting trends around the world, there is the fact that this is THE industry to be in. I had a look at the stats, and although only 7.4% of people in our little corner of the Earth are online, this rate is growing at 120% per year. That's pretty damn fast, and for those of us wanting to get some dividends, this is where to invest your time – hint hint.

Aside from the industry itself the other exciting factor is that the people in this industry are also pretty vibrant. The first thing people bring up when I talk of a career in eMarketing is to say, “I know nothing about computers”. When I originally joined Quirk, one of the first things they asked me was, “Are you passionate about the Internet?” If you are, then you can be taught the rest. Speaking to the class I realised that this was a critical point that needs to be emphasised.

I furthermore tried to accentuate the fact that eMarketing is one of the few means of marketing that is truly measurable – in this wonderful world you can see exactly where your budget goes. As a marketer, you cannot gauge how many people saw that billboard, however we can measure exactly how many people saw or clicked on your banner, giving you your business' conversion rate and ROI. Pretty damn cool if you ask me.

So lastly, on a more personal level, being a graduate of this course not so long ago I am quite excited to see the changes that are moving this course forward. I feel strongly that creating awareness in eMarketing is an important area that the world needs to be educated on – and one of the most important steps is engaging the stars of the future.

Give us a shout if there’s anything in particular that you think we should be teaching these eager young minds.