CXL Full Experience
In the last week of the CXL Growth Marketing Mini Degree, which is my twelfth week, I would like to share my experience with the process so far and not to talk about a specific topic. I started CXL Growth Marketing Mini Degree three months ago, applied for the scholarship and started the course once I got the acceptance. I didn’t take a long time to hear back from CXL but within a short time period I received an email with the acceptance. The Mini Degree is a set of different courses combined together about different topics that are related by job nature and description. The course is combined in 8 lessons including the final exam.
The course starts with Growth Marketing Foundation by going through the difference between Growth Marketing and Traditional Marketing. After finishing the course you will be able to identify and explain what is Growth Marketing as due to the rise of digital and the multitasking there are confusions about the field.
In the second lesson, which is the most practical one along with the Google Analytics Courses. You will have the chance to know more about one of the skills that differentiate one from another which is Running Growth Experiments. It happens often that copywriters assume on the content, media planners assumes on the targeting, and strategists assumes on the persona/avatar. The digital industry has evolved to the point where you are no longer supposed to assume. People are out there on the web sharing what they love, what they don’t, what they interact with, and who are they. Ignoring all of these and going with assumptions makes no sense.
Google Analytics is by far the most beneficial skill you can get due to its importance, the course goes through the beginner and the intermediate followed with Tag Manager and Attribution. Briefly, you can go from a beginner to an expert in Google Analytics with this lesson.
The last course in the lesson is Excel Sheets, by far is my favorite one, before starting Excel and Sheets for Marketers I always used Power Bi to process Excel Sheets and to clean and filter the data. I knew Excel has the features that could help me in processing the data faster and more efficiently. When I started CXL, I was waiting to reach for the Excel and Sheets for Marketers week. The course goes through equations in processing the data, alongside with functions, and other tips that can really help you while working.
The fourth course is Conversion, which contains Landing Page Optimization and Product Messaging. I liked both of them but related more to the second one which is Product Messaging as I used the techniques mentioned in a task I was working on. The course goes through how to conduct a copy teardown and how craft a copy.
The longest and most technical one is the fifth lesson in CXL Growth Marketing Mini Degree, which is Channel Specific Growth Skills. The course goes through channels that you can advertise on and channels that you can use. Email Marketing, Public Relation, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Search Engine Optimization, Google Ads, Retention, PPC, Influencer, and Account Based Marketing. I have the sixth and seventh lessons left to finish the course along with the final exam.
One part that I liked about the degree is the materials provided in every section, whether materials to use or to read. Every instructor shares content that is used in the course. So, if the instructor used an excel sheet you will find it in the materials section along with other resources. Each part of the course has an exam that you should pass in order to pass and get the certificate.
One thing I didn’t like about the website is the interface. Adding more buttons in the interface of the page would make it easier to navigate between pages without clicking in multiple icons or pages to reach your destination.
So, the mini degree covers the process starting from the buyer persona to metrics to be measured. It is essential to start with buyer persona and craft a buyer journey for you user. Those two skills are covered in multiple courses through the mini degree. When crafting a persona, try to use data as possible, from manual research or from tools. SparkToro is a great tool when using it to know more about you audience. What they interact with and what are the hidden gems that you can use. Results can be used for your persona, targeting, and finally Public Relation activity.
One weakness of influencer marketing is choosing influencers with high number of followers, going with the mass media. Eventually, not reaching your key performance indicators and drooping the idea of the influencer while when used well can drive better performance. To overcome this, use SparkToro to find more about your audience hidden gems and use it for a PR activity. No gain in targeting an account that has 2M followers mass media than targeting an account that has 200k followers but all are interested in the topic that you are offering. For an example, let’s assume that you sell Yoga Pants. What would be better? targeting an account that has 2M followers that has an Instagram page and create fun videos, or a Yoga practitioner that create Yoga videos for audience? who is more better to feature your product?.
To summarize, alongside with learning and getting a new input into the industry. I had so much fun in the courses, not only it is educational but fun to consumer as well. I will be checking CXL other courses to enroll in. The digital industry is evolving to a point where learning is essential to cope with the changes. I believe it is all about your output, what are you able to do and how, to increase your output you should look for more inputs. Inputs can be courses, degrees, books, or even now days blogs. I believe that CXL was a great input for me and I will be looking for other courses in CXL.