Mastering Content Strategy: What I learned with HubSpot’s Inbound Marketing Certification

HubSpot revolutionizes marketing strategies by leveraging content to deliver tangible value.
More than just a CRM platform, it serves as a comprehensive automation solution, boasting features such as email marketing, A/B testing, lead tracking, social media management, and robust analytics.

By completing the Inbound Marketing Certification I had a view of the benefits of different tools to scale different business.

If you decide to proceed with the HubSpot CRM you would have a view similar to:

Below you will find what each section of the course has to offer.

1. Fundamentals

Inbound marketing is a business methodology that attracts customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to them. While outbound marketing interrupts your audience with content they don’t always want, inbound marketing forms connections your visitors are looking for and solves problems they already have.

• What is a MarTech stack?
  It’s the collection of technologies — tools that marketers use to optimize and augment their processes throughout the customer lifecycle.
• What are the components of a martech stack?
  Email Service Provider (ESP)
  Customer Relations Management (CRM)
  Marketing Automation
  A/B Testing tools
  Content Management System (CMS)
  Social Media Tools
  Adtech Tools

2.Get to Know your Customer

Studies show that 60–70% of content created by marketing departments sits unused. In order to create content that your target audience needs, you need to create an accurate buyer persona. But how will you effectively create a buyer persona?

Gather data from surveys, conduct 1:1 interviews or focus groups in order to understand your audience’s purchase behavior and identify their demographics. Then, create as few buyer personas as appropriate.

Lesson 3: Creating Content for the Buyer’s Journey

Once you have defined your buyer’s persona you should:

-Define your buyer’s journey
-Brainstorm content for each stage of your buyer’s journey,
-Develop impactful content that initiates buyers to act
-Include CTA’s

What does a buyer journey include?

Lesson 4: Developing a Content Distribution Strategy

Distribution plays a huge role in your content’s success. Its crucial to distinguish which channels to use to create content as your buyer personas will use different channels in different products, in order to reach out to your leads and convert them to customers. To do this:

• Set a content distribution goal
• Identify the channels where your target audience consumes content

What are the differences between owned, earned and paid channels?

1. Owned Channels: Brands control and manage owned channels, such as company websites and social media profiles. Example: Company website, blog, social media profiles.
2. Earned Channels: Brand exposure on earned channels is gained organically through shares, mentions, or reviews, often from satisfied customers or influencers. Example: Customer reviews on third-party sites, social media shares of brand content.
3. Paid Channels: Brands invest in paid channels, such as Google Ads or sponsored social media content, to gain exposure and reach specific target audiences.

What are five ways to research your audience’s preferred channels?

1. Conduct Surveys: Create surveys to directly ask your audience which channels they prefer for accessing information or engaging with brands.
2. View Website Analytics: Use tools like Google Analytics to track where your website visitors are coming from and which channels drive the most traffic.
3. Social Media Insights: Analyze metrics provided by social media platforms to understand where your audience is most active and engaged.
4. Competitor Analysis: Study your competitors to see which channels they are utilizing effectively and where they are engaging with their audience.
5. Customer Interviews: Interview existing customers to gather insights into their preferred channels for discovering and interacting with brands.

Lesson 5: Understanding Behavioral Marketing and Customer Segmentation

Marketers are expected to be everywhere with just the right message at the right time, but how can this be done effectively? Segmenting customers and creating campaigns is key.

Crafting the perfect customer segmentation you should look for patterns such as observing user behavior on your website — tracking clicks, downloads, and engagement.

How to Segment your Customers?

• Define your tracking criteria, whether it’s monitoring clicks on subscription CTAs or interactions with your blog content.
• Once you’ve gathered this treasure trove of data, segment your customers based on both their behaviors and demographics. Group them based on similarities in their actions and characteristics.
• Lastly, create tailor-made campaigns. Create laser-focused marketing campaigns that resonate deeply with each segment’s unique preferences and needs per segmented customer groups. It’s the point where you should stop including generic marketing blasts, rather include personalized experiences that truly connect with your audience.

What is the difference between implicit and explicit segmentation?

• Implicit segmentation involves categorizing customers based on their behaviors, actions, or engagement with your brand, without them explicitly providing information about themselves. For example, tracking which products a customer views on an e-commerce site to infer their interests.
• Explicit segmentation relies on customers voluntarily providing information about themselves, such as their age, location, or preferences, which is then used to categorize them into segments. An example would be when customers fill out a form indicating their industry or job role on a website.

Lesson 6: Maximizing ROI with Marketing Attribution and Experimentation

Sales and marketing teams have more channels (CRM etc) than ever to convert leads into revenue. With the increase in marketing channels, consumers are using considerably more touchpoints along their path to purchase a product.

As a result, understanding and tracking the customer journey from start to finish has become an increasingly complex issue for marketing and sales teams.

But there is a solution, and it simply comes down to full-funnel attribution.👇

Attribution surfaces which interaction a person or group of people took along their journey towards a ‘conversion’ or desired outcome. It assigns credit to the channels & touch points that influenced a buyer.
This calculation (understanding which channel lead to the sale) is done through various statistical models and is called attribution models. It helps to better predict the ROI for each channel — touchpoint & estimate where to allocate the marketing budget and create better campaigns for yourunique personas.

What are the benefits of Attribution Strategy?

📈See how a blog post or social media campaign impacted sales. For example how many leads (clicks on a CTA) or how many assets are being influenced.

📈Attribution surfaces which interactions a person took along their journey towards a desired outcome or ‘conversion’

📈Not all marketing channels should be treated equally.

What’s the difference between single-touch and multi-touch attribution models?

Single-touch attribution models attribute all the credit for a conversion to a single touchpoint in the customer journey, typically the first or last interaction.

For example, in a first touch single-touch model, if a customer makes a purchase after clicking on a Facebook ad, only the Facebook ad would receive credit for the sale.

• First Touch Attribution: Credit for a purchase is assigned solely to the first interaction a customer has with a brand, such as clicking on a Google search ad.
• Last Touch Attribution: The last touchpoint before a conversion receives full credit, such as an email click leading directly to a purchase.

Multi-touch attribution models distribute credit for a conversion across multiple touchpoints throughout the customer journey, recognizing the influence of each interaction. For instance, if a customer makes a purchase after first clicking on a Google search ad, then viewing a Facebook ad, and finally clicking a referral link, each of these touchpoints would receive some credit for the sale in a multi-touch model.

• Linear Attribution: All touchpoints in the customer journey are given equal credit for a conversion, regardless of when they occurred or their position in the journey.
  When is it used?
  It’s particularly beneficial when marketing efforts are spread across various channels, and there’s a desire to acknowledge the contribution of each touchpoint.
  Example:
  An e-commerce retailer with a presence across social media, email marketing, and search advertising may use linear attribution to fairly credit each channel for contributing to sales, recognizing the collective effort of all marketing initiatives.
• Full Path Attribution: Every touchpoint across the entire customer journey receives proportional credit for a conversion, acknowledging the contribution of each interaction.
  When is it used?
  It’s valuable for gaining insights into how different channels and interactions influence the ultimate outcome, helping to optimize marketing strategies accordingly.
  Example:
  A software-as-a-service (SaaS) company offering a complex product might employ full path attribution to understand how various touchpoints, such as website visits, demo requests, and email interactions, influence the customer journey from initial interest to subscription.
• Time Decay Attribution: Touchpoints closer in time to the conversion are assigned more weight, such as an email click just before a purchase receiving greater credit than a social media ad clicked days earlier.
  When is it used?
  It’s beneficial in fast-paced industries or when marketing campaigns frequently change, ensuring that the most recent efforts receive appropriate credit for conversions.
  Example:
  A mobile app developer launching frequent updates might utilize time decay attribution to prioritize recent interactions, ensuring that the most recent advertising campaigns or app updates receive appropriate credit for driving app downloads and in-app purchases.

When should you use A/B Testing ?

A/B testing, also known as split testing, is a method used to compare two versions of a webpage, email or CTA to see which one works better.

It helps figure out what your audience likes best so you can improve your stuff and get better results.

Which are the most common A/B tests?

1. Landing Pages

For statistical validity, split testing sets a cookie per visitor to ensure the visitor sees the same variation each time they go to test the page.
We stick to the version that inspired taking the desired action, in this case clicking.

2. CTAs
Consider Changing: Size, Placement, Color, Copy, Graphics

3. Email
Consider the following: Format, Layout, Timing, Sender, Subject Lines,

Lesson 7: Utilizing Marketing Automation and Artificial Intelligence

In order to scale your business and grow you should use automation and AI🤖.

Examples include: automating when its best to send emails. Or when people enroll in an online lesson or download an eBook should be included in other campaigns and receive relevant promotions.

When diving into marketing automation and AI, the spotlight shines on two crucial aspects of customer-facing processes: making interactions feel personal and smooth.
It’s about crafting experiences that resonate with each customer individually while also making life easier for your team, allowing them to focus on what truly matters — building meaningful connections with your audience.

To enroll in the course for free click here:
👊 https://academy.hubspot.com/courses/inbound-marketing 👊