Month: December 2019

Which certification did you complete?

The one I chose for this assignment is the “Inbound Certification ” of HubSpot Academy.

How long did it take to complete?

Since this one is not that complicated as others like social media certification and Inbound Marketing Certification, It only took me about 3 hours to walk through the lectures and another 40 minutes to complete the test. As a result, I got 94/100, which is pretty satisfied for me.

What did you like best/least?

Personally, I feel like one of the best parts for me is the process of getting this certification is some sort of “review” for part of my final exam in this class. Since most of the lectures or contents are included in the textbook we use for this semesters. And this certification’s lectures enhance my knowledge for inbound marketing, I am not going to lie, some of the content did re-educate me some content that was ambiguous for me such as the difference between “Conversion Funnel” and “Inbound Funnel” and how did that better connect to the “Flywheel cycle”. I love Hubspot made the lectures very simple and understandable for people who take the test, this is really amazing and enjoyable to walk through all the content in this certification.

Were there any disappointments or frustrations?

I wouldn’t say I encountered any disappointment or frustration during the test. I prefer to say I neglected some crucial points that were later presented in the test. For example, some of the questions need a very well-understanding of the content such as the SMART strategy of “how to set a business goal”. Every word was well-defined by the HubSpot Academy and I only understood the surface of them. As a result, some of the questions really break me in some aspects. I had to spend a few more minutes before I make the choices. Additionally, I think if they can show whether I answered the questions right or wrong, I could understand more in this field.

What did you learn?

As I stated previously, most of the content of this certification is something I have learned through the course. However, in the buyer persona section, there were some details that really amazed me. For example, tutors encourage us to create each buyer persona as different as possible, from ages to educational level or even to the financial background. If one company can create buyer personas in various aspects, it means the company has a wild range in target customers’ segments. In that case, the company has the ability to create more content that can be more specific and be more accurate when one ad been published.

Do you believe this certification program is useful for other marketers?

Indeed, I truly believe this certification has almost every surface level of Inbound marketing knowledge. In other words, if one wishes to take one step into inbound marketing, this certification will be an excellent way to start. Additionally, since inbound marketing relative to all the business in the world, I believe this certification can be the “requirement” for individual or company who desires to acquire more customers or corporate who want more impressions.

What value will this add to your resume/career?

I wouldn’t say this certification is able to add any value for my resume since as I stated above, this knowledge of this certification is the foundation of all the marketing strategies. This is more like a requirement for a marketer like me, currently, I have started another certification lectures in “Social Media Certification”, that one is more difficult and more interesting for me. I would love to finish that up within the few weeks and earn more value from it. Thank you!

Ok … I knew you might ask what is Persona, right?

Before I say anything, let’s go ahead and address three fundamental questions of “Persona” – What, Why, How.

What is Persona?

A persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer. These representatives must include their own characteristics and behavior such as buying preferences and habits.  A persona is generally based on this user research and incorporates the needs, goals, and observed behavior patterns of your target audience. 

Why We Need Personas?

Personas pivotal to crafting effective email marketing campaigns. There was said in Chinese: Know the enemy, know yourself, and in every battle you will be victorious. I’m not saying you should picture your target customers as enemies, I want you to “study” them before you make a move. After you collect the imfo you need, classified them into various personas you created and made them into virtual individuals, same as some people did on social medias. Now, you will have mutiple individuals have significant personality that you can make the stretegies to approach them. A well-design personalizations cater every marketing message to the right person at the right time.

How to Develop Personas?

Personas are created through researches, surveys, and public intervires with your target audiences. This audience include a “mix of customers’ characters”, both “good” and “bad” aspects, and those outside of your contact database who might align with your target audience. You will need to collect both qualitative and quantative data to gradually shaping who are your perfect audiences and what to do to better fulfill their needs in order to create traffics or even geneate revenue to your sites. So, you might still confuse about what should include in your each persona, right? Here is some aspects you can get your hand on:

Background

This should includes the basic details of a persona’s role, key information about where he/she work for, as well as any relevant background information, such as education, interest, title or position, daily hobbies…e.g.

 Demographics

While examining your target demographics, be sure to consider information about who is your audience, including gender, age range, household/ single income, and locations – where she/he live. The reason why we want to know this information is beacause individual’s buring preference can be varied from different location. It is vital for one company to define customers behaviors in a specific region.

Goals

What are the target customers’ goal? Not only inclde their own personal goal, but the purpose why they browsing on the internet? For example, the gymer who want to build a Olympic body shape might want to find quality protien powders, and if your company have such relative products. Bingo! That type of customers are the viewers you want to approach. After listing out all the goals that one individual has, your company can easily find who has the potential to becom your customer and sent them a highly targeted campaign to them.

Challenges

Same as the goals aspect, if viewer has one clear goal, surely she/he will need to face some obstacles or challenges alone the way. What is her/his primary and secondly problems and how your company can help her/him to address this issues. For example, as we mention above, not only protien manufacturers can target on gym goer, the gyms themselves might also want to sell services to this individual to better achieve her/his goal in a more efficiently way.

Marketing messages

What is the core message of your campaigns that will resonate with your persona (target customers)? How should you describe your solution to your persona? Conducting the right messages directly to your personas are crucial to catch their interest and attract them to your webisite or landing pages. Trust me, you don’t want to make your customers confused and click the return bottom after they open your emails.

After you list out all the data you collect from your responders, sort them out, create as many fictional individuals as possible, classified them into different segments. In order to level who has the highest possibility to purchase your products or services. Additionally, you might have a higher chance to figure out which type of customer can be developed into a new customer segment. Also, base on what your persona tells you, you can customize the campaign or strategy for the specific type of customer you have.

Reference:

Using Buyer Personas in Email Marketing Campaigns

Using Personas for Email Marketing