Part of every marketing position is a commitment to ongoing training to ensure you’re staying up to date with industry trends and growing your marketing knowledge. One of the best ways to do this is by earning certifications from HubSpot, a leader in inbound marketing and sales software. You can complete these certifications through courses that have been developed as part of HubSpot Academy.
You might be wondering what HubSpot certifications are and whether or not they are worth the time and effort. In this blog post, we’ll provide insight on those fronts and suggest a few certifications that we think are the best options for marketers at any level. Let’s dive in.
What are HubSpot certifications?
Through HubSpot Academy, businesses can advance their knowledge of digital inbound marketing and sales methods. Marketers and sales professionals can earn HubSpot certifications by taking free courses and training sessions. Once certified, they can display their badges on their professional profiles, such as LinkedIn.
Who’s getting certified? Over 305,000 people have earned certifications in an area of marketing.
You can choose from dozens of free courses that make sense to your position. Some are short mini-courses while others are more comprehensive training sessions. To make sure you’re only taking courses that come with a certification, you have the option to turn on the “show only certifications” option.
Are HubSpot certifications worth It?
Let’s start from the monetary standpoint: Most definitely, it’s worth it. HubSpot certifications are 100 percent free. If you’re skeptical about free stuff, don’t be. HubSpot is a recognized leader and authority on inbound marketing and their courses follow suit. Each course is well-crafted and separated into main sections, making the content portions manageable.
When it comes to expanding your knowledge of marketing, it’s worth it on this front too. By taking courses from experts in the field, you’ll also have a visible boost to your resume and professional profiles. Employers are always looking for people with knowledge in a range of marketing topics, and HubSpot certifications are a great way to provide evidence of that knowledge.
Which certifications should you have?
Now that you’re ready to dive into HubSpot Academy, you’ll need to know which certifications are recommended for each level. As you’ll read, the majority of certifications are accomplished at start-of-career positions. However, for those at higher-level positions who are also new to the HubSpot Academy, it’s highly recommended that these initial certifications are completed.
Marketing Coordinators
With the following certifications, marketing coordinators can establish a solid foundation of marketing knowledge for inbound marketing, marketing softwares, email marketing, and social media campaigns.
HubSpot Inbound Marketing Certification
This certification essentially provides the foundation for inbound marketing. Throughout the course, you will learn about inbound marketing techniques and develop an understanding of core inbound marketing tactics. Some of these tactics include long-term content strategy, creating a blog post, creating topic clusters and pillar pages, and more.
HubSpot Inbound Certification
This course dives a bit deeper into inbound methodology with a focus on the flywheel as a core part of an inbound business.
HubSpot Marketing Software Certification
To be successful with inbound marketing, you need a strong foundational understanding of the HubSpot marketing software so that you have a solid grasp on the many useful tools and how they work together.
A quick note: To become certified, certain practical exercises in this certification require a Pro or Enterprise HubSpot subscription, but the educational resources are free.
HubSpot Email Marketing Certification
With this certification course, you will learn how to build a human-centered, helpful email marketing strategy that builds trust with your contacts.
HubSpot Social Media Certification
In this course, you will learn the fundamentals of developing a social media strategy and social media listening and monitoring.
Marketing Specialists
In addition to the certifications listed above, marketing specialists would greatly benefit from gaining a stronger understanding of content marketing, contextual marketing, sales software, and reporting.
HubSpot Content Marketing Certification
In this lesson, you will dig deeper into content marketing and how to implement content strategies. Some highlights of the course include the power of content, generating content ideas, planning long-term content strategy, building a content creation framework, and more.
HubSpot Contextual Marketing Certification
The Contextual Marketing certification provides you with the fundamentals of contextual marketing, which is targeted marketing based upon user information. In this course, you will gain insight into designing the user experience, using personalization, planning a contextual marketing strategy, and more.
HubSpot Sales Software Certification
This certification will demonstrate your ability to execute an inbound sales process. Made up of three lessons, this course gives you practical exercises to apply what you’ve learned at the end of each class. This course is focused on identifying good-fit leads, connecting with your contacts, and closing sales in HubSpot.
HubSpot Reporting Certification
In this certification course, you will learn how to incorporate data-driven decision-making with the use of the HubSpot reporting tools. Over the course of eight lessons, you will learn the fundamentals of a data-driven business, collecting meaningful business data, driving growth with attract-stage reporting, and more through the use of data collection tools.
Marketing Strategists
In addition to the certifications listed above, marketing strategists need to add the HubSpot Service Hub certification to their tool kit.
HubSpot Service Hub Certification
With the Service Hub Software Certification, strategists can demonstrate their ability to execute an inbound service strategy using HubSpot’s Service Hub. Over the course of six lessons, you will learn about customer journey mapping and HubSpot tools such as help desk, knowledge base, and customer feedback.
A quick note: Although the educational resources are free, to become certified you will need a Pro or Enterprise HubSpot subscription to access the practical exercises.
Marketing Directors
In addition to the certifications listed above, we recommend two certifications that will help marketing directors learn how to switch gears and become the teacher as well as how to build a growth-driven website.
HubSpot Trainer Certification
With all the knowledge you’ve acquired from previous certifications, it’s time to hop into the world of training. By learning the fundamentals of training, you will learn how to deliver engaging training sessions and implement training services at your agency. You’ll be teaching inbound and HubSpot like the pros in no time.
HubSpot Growth-Driven Design Certification
There are plenty of frustrations, risks, and lack of results with a traditional website redesign. Typically, these are due to a broken playbook. With this certification course, you will learn about the new playbook and growth-driven design. You’ll also learn how to use these tools to build a peak-performing website that delivers user value and drives business growth.
Get Your Learning On as a SmartBug
If you’re thinking that all these certifications sound great but wondering when you’d have the time to take the courses, consider looking into a position with SmartBug Media®. Once a quarter, we close our “offices” (we’re a fully remote company) for an entire day dedicated to certification courses to ensure our ’Bugs are up to date on trends, tools, and practices in digital inbound marketing.
Check out our positions, and we look forward to speaking with you soon!
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