Simbound

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CertifiedEducation quality
01/2023
Simbound

Simbound

Simbound/Apollo Edtech
Digital marketing
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Simbound is a simulation tool for learning digital marketing

The online simulation application contains ready-made content to practice the following topics: digital marketing with websites, analysis, and performance of contextual advertising, e-mail promotions, and the management of a medium-sized online brand community.

Students get an interactive, data-rich environment where they create e-marketing content in multiple formats. Competition and collaboration are key to the development of a unique marketing strategy.

Course administration options include participant monitoring, managing simulation traffic, real-time results, collection of feedback from participants, a quiz, extensive reports in the form of spreadsheets.

Age groups 
Tertiary Education
Professional education
Platform 
Browser-based
Registration 
Not required
Offline play 
Playable offline
Pictures
Pedagogy
Educational Quality
Learning Goals

The pedagogical analysis covers how the product supports learning of the identified skills. The student’s role is assessed by four contrary pair parameters, which are selected to cover the most essential aspects on the use of the product.

Passive
Active
Simbound sparks learning through exploration in a very extensive environment. The guidebook and in-app instructions provide good support for students to learn individually. The solution responds or adapts to the user's activities: the environment is interactive and allows many possibilities for the student & teacher to modify the learning activities to meet the needs of learners. The experience is based on learning by doing, where students needs to reflect their own actions and results.
Rehearse
Construct
The learning experience is based on allowing the student to plan, design, and execute online marketing activities and reflect the effect of made decisions in retrospect. The environment offers a very extensive and holistic experience in simulating situations in online marketing. Success is based on the ability to adapt knowledge that the solution delivers: student starts succeeding better in the simulated marketing tasks by reflecting own actions and their effect on achieved outcomes.
Linear
Non-linear/Creative
Users' success can be compared between each other which allows the motivational competitive aspect and also helps the teacher to understand who is learning well and who needs more support. The solution promotes free exploration of tools and/or content: learning through exploration is a pedagogical strong approach and works well in supporting students to achieve the solution's learning goals. The simulation is extensive, and the student can test various scenarios in it.
Individual
Collaborative
Simbound enables both group work and individual work. When playing individually, it allows the learner to make all the decisions individually, and progress and amount of effort depend only on the user's own actions. The comparison of results encourage competition against other users, but this is also a valuable place for learning since different tactics can be easily compared. When playing in teams, the simulation allows very deep collaboration and teamwork.

The following are the high educational quality aspects in this product.

Simbound provides a safe and interactive way to practice digital marketing with realistic scenarios.
The system is very open-ended and non-linear, allowing students to progress at their own pace and create their own strategies.
The simulation can be played in teams or individually, and it can be used flexibly to fit different teaching situations.

The supported learning goals are identified by matching the product with several relevant curricula descriptions on this subject area. The soft skills are definitions of learning goals most relevant for the 21st century. They are formed by taking a reference from different definitions of 21st century skills and Finnish curriculum.

Subject based learning goals

Understand the term search engine optimisation (SEO) , on-page optimization and off-page optimization.
Set prices for products and provide periodical discounts or promotional offers.
Understand what referral marketing is, how this works as well as the benefits and pitfalls of this marketing method.
Understand what a retargeting campaign is and how this works.
Understand contextual advertising. Create a keywords-based ads campaign and make adjustments
Understand the term keyword. Create a list of keywords which can be used when optimizing content for a website, for advertising and on social media platforms.
Distinguish types of content used to drive traffic and enhance engagement like: graphic representations, info graphics, meme, videos, guides, product reviews, testimonials, lists, articles or whitepapers.
Recognize various methods for promoting a website like: online advertising, inbound and referral links, e-mail marketing, social media, submitting your website to a directory/search engine.
Understand the main parts of a website like: home page, company identity, contact information, news or articles, services/product description, landing page, search, e-commerce facility, web forms, video section, links and meta-description.
Understand common online advertising terms like: pay per click (PPC), cost per acquisition (CPA) and cost per conversion (CPC), return on advertising spend (ROAS).
Understand common e-mail terms like: open rate, click rate, bounce rate, unsubscribe, total subscribers.
Understand the term web traffic and the importance of attracting quality web traffic
Understand the term A/B testing. Recognize its importance in measuring and the improvement of campaigns like: e-mail marketing, online advertising, website and content creation.
Understand the term analytics. Recognize the importance of measuring the performance of a digital marketing campaign over time.
Understand the main elements of a digital marketing strategy like: alignment to business goals and marketing objectives, identification of target audience, analysis of competitors, selection of appropriate platforms and mediums, planning and creation of content, allocation of budgets, reporting
Recognize the need for a consistent online presence synchronized with corporate identity and design.
Recognize the main legal and regulatory obligations when carrying out digital marketing in a country.
Understand some of the limitations of digital marketing: lack of face-to- face interaction, can be obtrusive, time commitment to manage it professionally, may not be suitable for every product or service.
Understand some of the advantages of digital marketing: cost effectiveness, ability to track and measure progress, targeted demographic reach, higher engagement compared to traditional marketing, catering to mobile customers.
Identify typical goals when using digital marketing like: increased brand awareness, lead generation, sales generation, informing customers, improved customer service, direct customer engagement, generating traffic
Define different elements of digital marketing like: content marketing, social media marketing, e-mail marketing, mobile marketing, affiliate marketing, search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), display advertising, analytics.
Understand the term Digital Marketing

Soft skills learning goals

Practicing strategic thinking
Practicing to plan and execute studies, make observations and measurements
Practicing to create questions and make justifiable arguments based on observations
Practicing to notice causal connections
Developing problem solving skills
Encouraging students to be innovative and express new ideas
Practicing creative thinking
Creating requirements for creative thinking
Learning to find the joy of learning and new challenges
Practicing persistent working
Learning to notice causal connections
Practicing categorization and classification
Using technology for interaction and collaboration
Using technological resources for finding and applying information
Using technology as a part of explorative and creative process
Building common knowledge of technological solutions and their meaning in everyday life
Familiarizing with the influences of media and understanding its affordances
Learning to view and consider media and advertising critically
Practicing to find, evaluate and share information
Practicing to use information independently and interactively
Learning to acquire, modify and produce information in different forms
Understanding and interpreting of matrices and diagrams
Learning to understand and interpret diverse types of texts, from vernacular to academic
Practicing logical reasoning to understand and interpret information in different forms
Connecting subjects learned at school to skills needed at working life
Practicing decision making
Learning to plan and organize work processes
Learning consumer knowledge and smart economics
Practicing time management
Learning decision-making, influencing and accountability
Practicing to work with others
Learning to build information on top of previously learned

The Finnish Educational Quality Certificate

Our Quality Evaluation Method is an academically sound approach to evaluating a product’s pedagogical design from the viewpoint of educational psychology.

The method has been developed with university researchers and all evaluators are carefully selected Finnish teachers with a master's degree in education.

More about the evaluation