Since October last year, Google has been hitting hard on unsecured websites. Therefore, you need to...
“What is inbound marketing?” That sentence is googled approximately 4.400 times every month. Chances are you were responsible for one of these at some point. Many marketers, students and people in business are asking this question. If you really want to know what it is, you should take a look at HubSpot’s certifications.
What are HubSpot certifications?
If you want to learn inbound marketing, HubSpot is the place to go. They offer several free certifications that easily guide you through the methodology of inbound, as well as providing real life examples and short tests after every chapter so that you really understand what it is all about.
The certifications consists of video divided in several chapters hosted by HubSpot experts and a multiple choice test at the end, testing you in every chapter.
You can also choose to read the transcript or download the slides. When completing the certification, you get a bagde and a certificate.
We use the badges on our website and the certificate on our LinkedIn profiles. Under “Accomplishments” on your LinkedIn profile, you can also add the certifications.
Do you want another fun fact?
Only 12 people in the world have all the certifications. Three out of them are working here at Avidly Norway. When working with inbound marketing, you have to stay on top of the latest updates and research, and the certifications are constantly improved and HubSpot makes new ones every time they see the need for it.
If you too are considering learning more about inbound marketing, you should have a look at the certifications. We checked in with our three team members that have them all to ask for their top tips on how to succeed with the certifications and what certifications we found the most useful.
Keep reading and you will get a overview of the free certifications and which we believe are the best to take for salespeople and marketers.
Are you ready?
Kristine
What are your best tips for passing the inbound certifications?
Try to relate every subject to your own experience. It makes it more interesting and easier to understand the logic behind the questions, when you relate to something you know. (And if you know it all to well, watch the videos at 150 % speed.)
Which one was your favourite?
The Sales Software Certification.
What is a key take away from your favourite certification?
As an inbound marketing strategist, I spend most of my day in the marketing software. Therefore it was very useful to get an overview of all the possibilities the sales tools provide.
With a better understanding of how the CRM system works, and how the marketing and sales tools are connected, it is easier to implement and embrace smarketing.
How useful have these certifications been?
They are incredibly useful for getting a new perspective or taking a deep dive into a new subject, like GDD for instance. The certifications are a very motivating way of learning and getting a better understanding of all the aspects of the inbound methodology.
Guro
What are your best tips for passing the inbound certifications?
Command + F! Just kidding. Unfortunately, there’s no secret to passing the inbound certification. I like to read through the transcripts as I learn better through reading than watching videos. I won’t lie: It’s not like I read every sentence carefully, I simply skip the parts that I know enough about already.
Which one was your favourite?
I found the Contextual Marketing certification interesting because in inbound marketing it is absolutely essential that you provide your website visitors with content that is tailored to their needs and preferences.
This certification guides you through just that: How to use personalisation and smart content, how to segment with context and how to deliver a successful user experience.
What is a key take away from your favourite certification?
How to create smart content. Seeing as I spend most of the working day in my own writing-bubble and not so much in HubSpot, it was interesting to see the functionality you have for creating content that is smart, in other words: content that is customising your website depending on who sees it.
Have the person reading the blog post already downloaded the e-book that is presented in the bottom of the post? With smart CTA’s you can simply swap the downloadable content so that this person is offered a different asset. Brilliant isn’t it?
How useful have these certifications been?
These certifications have helped me get a wider grip of the whole inbound process, from executing inbound marketing in order to attract, nurture and convert leads to how you would go about closing more deals.
You learn things that you would otherwise have spent a lot of time researching and reading about yourself – which saves you those hours that suddenly was spent reading page after page looking for an answer on all-things inbound.
Ingunn
What are your best tips for passing the inbound certifications?
Don’t just pass them to pass them. Think about the topics in relation to what you do. Start with the certifications most relevant to your job. Try to make a point of implementing something new after you have gone through all the videos as well. Putting it into practice makes the learning easier for the next one.
I would also highly recommend being strategic about which ones you take first. If you are a HubSpot partner, take the HubSpot Sales and HubSpot Marketing Software certifications before the partner. Many of the modules are similar, making it easier to learn.
Which one was your favourite?
I found the HubSpot Partner Certification very interesting. This certification provides a comprehensive introduction on how to grow your agency with inbound and HubSpot.
As one of the only companies in Norway offering Sales Enablement Services, we are eagerly awaiting HubSpot’s certification for this as well (coming soon). Although we have delivery processes established for this, we always want to learn more and develop our knowledge further.
What is a key take away from your favourite certification?
Our amazing team at Avidly Norway have processes and client delivery nailed, so it is useful to have a certification that focuses on structuring the agency. Pulling important aspects of sales, marketing and processes together really helps build a solid foundation for ourselves as a business.
The certification also provides additional reading, such as the e-book “5 steps to defining your agency’s positioning strategy”. These are great resources to take the things you have learned further and implement change in your company.
How useful have these certifications been?
Incredibly useful. Inbound marketing is very new still, especially in Norway. Not many have the skill or knowledge needed to execute this type of marketing well. Our team at Avidly Norway have a diverse background from studying anything from marketing, to politics, to psychology modules and journalism.
All this is a great foundation for what we do, but we are still keen to learn more. The courses are also great for welcoming new hires to the agency as we can use them as an integral part of our training program.
What HubSpot certifications should you be focusing on?
To make it easier to choose the right certifications for you we have split them into categories. Find the one that best describes you and take a look:
Which HubSpot certifications are recommended for everyone?
- Inbound: The Inbound Certification course is available to everyone whether you are using HubSpot or not. It features twelve classes looking at all four stages of the Inbound Marketing Methodology. It touches on topics such as optimizing your website for more search traffic, to landing page anatomy that generates more leads.
Which certifications are open and available to anyone?
- Inbound
- Email Marketing
- Content Marketing
- HubSpot Design
- Inbound Sales
Screenshot from the design certification. Here you can see the different classes in the column to the left, and you can adjust the speed to your preferred pace beneath the video.
Which are recommended for marketing?
- Inbound (see above)
- HubSpot Marketing Software: A great way to get to know the marketing tools in HubSpot better. You also submit a practicum when taking this certification, ensuring that you can put theory into practise.
- Contextual Marketing: You'll learn how to create a website experience tailored to your users' needs and preferences.
- Email Marketing: Teaching you how lifecycle marketing, segmentation, email design, deliverability, analytics and optimization come together to create a successful email marketing strategy.
- Content Marketing: Introducing you to the world of content marketing. Providing you a big picture view of everything you need for a successful content marketing strategy.
Which are recommended for sales?
- HubSpot Sales Software: Great for learning more about how to use HubSpot Sales and HubSpot Marketing Free. After taking the test you also have to submit a practicum showing your brilliance in the tool.
- Inbound Sales: An introduction to the Inbound Sales Methodology, from identifying potential buyers, to developing outreach strategies, to building personalized presentations.
- Developing a Sales Plan: Teaching you how to put together a focused and actionable sales plan.
- Selling Sales Services: Teaching you how to package, price, and sell sales services to your existing clients.
Which are recommended for HubSpot Partners?
-
HubSpot Agency Partner: The ultimate certification for any Inbound Agency with a comprehensive introduction on how to market, sell, deliver, and grow your agency with inbound and HubSpot.
- Delivering Client Success: Taking this certification will help you improve your client delivery process. Lots of actionable take aways to help you make changes immediately.
- Developing a Sales Plan: see above
- Delivering Sales Services: Teaching you how to offer sales services as a way of delivering stronger ROI to clients.
- Selling Sales Services: see above
- Client Management: Teaching you how to effectively manage your clients during each lifecycle stage - from onboarding to upselling.
- Growth Driven Design: This certification allows you to learn more about the new way of building websites. The Growth-Driven Design Methodology allows businesses to create websites based on statistics and not their own preferences. Let your customers determine what you include on your next website!
- HubSpot Design: Learn how to design the on the HubSpot COS (Content Optimization System). You will need to be somewhat familiar with CSS and HTML to be successful at this certification.
