Technical and Marketing Communication: Content for a Convergent World

This week, the exam period for Inbound Marketing University III closes on Nov. 12th. If you’re busily studying for inbound marketing certification during the coming week, I’ve shared below the Inbound Marketing Exam Review slides, presented by HubSpot’s Mike Volpe, for sessions #1 – #10.  You can access all the HubSpot slides for Inbound Marketing University’s sessions on SlideShare, including subsequent presentations (sessions #12-15) , from Inbound Marketing University II and III.

After the slides, I’ve provided general notes, which I compiled from Volpe’s presentation. I passed the IMU #1 exam, scoring in the low nineties, after watching all ten webinars (including the review session, IMU #11), some a few times, as well as studying the concepts in the slides below.  

For the best exam results, I suggest reviewing especially well the more advanced topics on SEO,  conversion, and analytics. It also helps if you are active in social media, and have directly used the more popular tools, such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. It wouldn’t hurt reviewing the usage guidelines for these tools. (See the Linkedin Learning Center, Twitter Frequently Asked Questions, and Facebook Help Center.)

The IMU forum, student bulletin board, Mike Volpe’s exam review slides, and the HubSpot/IMU presentations on SlideShare are other excellent ways to review IMU principles and best practices on blogging, social media, search, lead conversion, lead nurturing, and closed-loop analysis. 

The online certification test in June was timed, so following good test-taking practice, I flew through the questions very quickly, intending to review my responses more carefully, if there were time remaining. In hindsight, I wished I had gone more slowly, especially as I had all sorts of extra time, at the end. However, the online exam would not let me return to review my previous answers. If that’s still the case for IMU #3’s exam, make sure to read through the questions slowly, especially any occasional questions with double negatives, which I found confusing, during the IMU #1 exam.

Even if you aren’t interested in pursuing inbound marketing certification, you can’t go wrong participating in Inbound Marketing University, or reviewing any of HubSpot’s first-rate webinars and presentations. 

In the slides below, Volpe recommends using a free trial of HubSpot’s Internet marketing software, which makes SEO easy, helping you to get found online. As a future resource, you might also want to check out Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs, recently published by HubSpot founders Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, as well as HubSpot TV, and its Alltop-listed Marketing Blog.

Under my notes and the related links below, I provide links to a number of additional posts and study aids that helped me to get ready in June, for my own exam. I hope my related posts, which summarize my notes from the IMU presentations, bring you the same good luck that they brought to me, when I reviewed sessions #1-10. Don’t forget to check out sessions #12-15 (not currently covered in my posts), at the Inbound Marketing University site or via HubSpot’s presentations on SlideShare. Happy studying!

Notes (Compiled 6/09) from Various IMU sessions, Mike Volpe’s Exam Review, and Other HubSpot|Web Resources  

Inbound Marketing versus Outbound Marketing:

Source: HubSpot’s Marketing Blog, Inbound Marketing & the Next Phase of Marketing on the Web

Inbound Marketing:

Examples: Blogs, ebooks, white papers, viral YouTube videos, search engine optimization, webinars, and feeds, RSS.

Instead of interrupting people with television ads, [inbound marketers] create videos that potential customers want to see. Instead of buying display ads in print publications, they create their own blog that people subscribe to and look forward to reading. Instead of cold calling, they create useful content and tools so that people call them looking for more information.

Instead of driving their message into a crowd over and over again like a sledgehammer, [inbound marketers] attract highly qualified customers to their business like a magnet.

Outbound Marketing:

Examples: Print ads, television ads, cold calling, trade shows, and email blasts.

Technology is making [outbound] techniques less effective and more expensive. Caller ID blocks cold calls, TiVo makes T.V. advertising less effective, spam filters block mass emails and tools like RSS are making print and display advertising less effective. It’s still possible to get a message out via these channels, but it costs more.”

Is email marketing, an example of inbound or outbound marketing?

According to Volpe, “if people have asked for you to communicate with them, then email marketing is an example of inbound marketing. If  you rented a list, then email marketing is distraction-based, and therefore an example of outbound marketing.”

Three Steps for “Getting Found”:

The three steps for getting found are creating, optimizing, and promoting content.

Marketing Persona:

Volpe describes your marketing persona as “who are you trying to attract to your company, and who are you selling to…Your marketing persona is the test by which you measure all your content and activity…The test is whether the marketing persona you created is useful…” He advises creating content that interests your marketing personas, not the content that interests you. 

Three Stages of Succesful Inbound Marketing:

The three stages of succesful inbound marketing are getting found, converting leads, and analyzing.

For more notes on the first ten sessions of Inbound Marketing University, see these related posts:

• Inbound Marketing University Study Guide: Notes on Getting Found
• Inbound Marketing University Study Guide: Notes on Converting from Visits, to Leads, to Sales
• Inbound Marketing University Study Guide: Notes on Analyzing Metrics 

Related Links

• Inbound Marketing University III, with HubSpot (Registration Open)
• Inbound Marketing University: Kudos to HubSpot
• Inbound Marketing University: Stats of Note