Indian Institute of Digital Education

Meherzad Karanjia is the Chief Learning Officer at IIDE, the Indian Institute of Digital Education. He has 17 years of experience in the Digital Marketing and Design space - having worked on all digital functions ranging from User Experience, Graphics Design, SEO, SEM, Analytics, Media Planning, Social Media Marketing and Ecommerce. In his long and diversified career, he has had the opportunity of being an integral part of leading startups such as Quikr and Pepperfry and a core member of leading Digital Marketing agencies such as FoxyMoron and Schbang. Here’s what he has to say about his role at IIDE and shaping careers in the field.

As the Chief Learning Officer at IIDE, how do you design your courses? 

“IIDE helps students attain the ability of being a decision-maker from day one”

During my entire career as a marketer, an aspect that became a driving principle for me as a professional was to keep reskilling and upskilling. Digital marketing is a growing industry with innovation and strategies coming to life every day. My digital marketing experts and I design the course curriculum keeping in mind these changing trends and regularly update our courses to incorporate even more industry innovations.

As we are situated in the hub of marketing and ad agencies - Mumbai - we have some of India’s most talented marketers on our team. With their years of experience and constant link in the industry, our courses are designed to empower each student. 

All our courses are created with the aim of providing the in-demand skills in all domains of digital marketing. Each course is designed to provide a 360 degree view of the entire digital marketing process. This helps our students showcase integrated marketing strategies to their clients once they join the industry. 

What kind of teaching strategies and methodologies do you employ?

“Teaching should solely be focused on the student”

Every student is different and learns differently, so our role as educators and mentors is to keep the content taught relatable and easy to absorb. No matter what the training medium, our trainings are always interactive and fun. We provide our curriculum to students in multiple forms - offline and traditional classrooms, online instructor led Zoom classes and even pre-recorded lectures.Furthermore, we believe in challenging our students with practical and real-life assignments and projects. While they learn all the concepts through the medium of their choice, assignments and projects provide double reinforcement to the learning.

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How has going online to teach students due to Covid-19 been like?

“We ensured that the transition towards online education was seamless for our students”

In the last four years, IIDE has gained a reputation in Mumbai for some of the most fever-pitched and exciting classes that go as long as 4 hours on a stretch. 

Surprisingly, the transition was not so complicated, and our classes are equally interactive and full of energy when online. The classes are Live with trainers, and there is a lot of two-way communication that happens. Most importantly, our students remained as interested and attentive during the online classes as they used to be in offline classes. That, to us, is the most crucial factor.

As time progressed, we have shifted many of our programs, free webinars, workshops, bootcamps to the online format and enjoyed great success. People genuinely love learning, and as long as we can reach them and provide them good quality education, they shall never stop learning.

What are the things you feel are essential for a digital marketing student to know and learn?

“Our prime focus is on holistic development of the students”

Education should be holistic and empowering. To be an industry ready digital marketer, I firmly believe one needs to learn all domains of digital marketing - from Search Engine Optimization, Social media marketing, Paid marketing, Content marketing, etc. Since all the domains are interlinked to each other, a student has to learn them and build makesense strategies that solve real business problems.

Also, a digital marketer is incomplete without the right managerial and soft skills. If you are good at your job, you are a good employee. But if you can also strategize tasks, coordinate and lead team efforts - you are a great manager. Our courses focus on imparting such management skills to students, coupled with interview training and client pitching practice.

Lastly, digital marketing is a highly experience-based field. Whether you are a student, graduate, or a PhD student, it is always recommended to experience an internship to practise what you've learnt. IIDE puts great emphasis on undergoing internships while you study for this very reason. We provide mandatory internships of two months with our courses, so our students learn every aspect practically. 

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Having worked in the industry for many years, what do you think a student needs to know the most to be prepared for entering it?

“It is essential for students to attain practical knowledge”

All agencies and marketing departments for brands, work as small and highly integrated teams. So it is essential to know all the domains of digital marketing to be a successful contributor to a group. With holistic knowledge, one can better understand each brief and be better able to coordinate amongst their team members. 

One needs to work with multiple people to learn how to be a good team player. We have designed our courses thinking of these aspects, and that is why, after every module, there is an assignment coupled with group projects. We try to simulate an environment where students learn how to coordinate personal work commitments and teamwork commitments. Also, we provide mandatory internships for two months, which helps them attain real-life experiences.