The goal: To foster an entrepreneurial spirit and literacy among students by giving them basic digital marketing training.

The problem: Digital marketing is a crucial part of running most businesses in the modern world. If a business can’t consistently attract new customers and encourage old customers to return, it becomes almost impossible to keep making a profit. And digital marketing can be used to achieve both in a manner that is often both more effective and affordable than traditional marketing tools.

Despite all of this, it’s common for beginners in the business world to underestimate the importance of having a proper digital marketing strategy. Or to find themselves at a loss over where to get started, even if they do realize online marketing is important. And it’s easy to see why that happens. Unless you own a business or work in the field, chances are, you’ve never had a reason to learn the first thing about any kind of digital marketing. And you may view the practice as much easier or harder than it actually is.

This creates two problems. First, it contributes to the massive number of businesses that fail within two years of being started. It doesn’t matter how good your business idea is, if you can’t market it or get new clients, your business is going to fail eventually.

The second problem is one of vulnerability, as there are many “miracle workers” who promise quick results for little money in the digital marketing space. You don’t need to know how long it takes for a backlink to be indexed in order to start a business, but it is helpful to know enough about digital marketing that you can spot when a deal is too good to be true.

The solution: All of these issues can be avoided by teaching some digital marketing basics at school. The topic needs only to be discussed in a class or two, which is plenty of time to cover basic concepts and make the topic more approachable for the students. It also makes sure students know they need to make digital marketing a focus if they plan on becoming entrepreneurs after school or college.