My Journey To Becoming A Growth Pro- CXL Growth Marketing Mini-degree
WHY CXL INSTITUTE?
The mission of CXL is to democratize elite know-how. CXL provides marketing training to people serious about their career and online revenue optimization & experimental services for mid-to-large companies.
The growth marketing degree is made up of 33 courses which takes 114 hours. CXL Growth marketing mini-degree promises to make you two things:
1) Become a T-shaped marketer with a focus on growth
2) Grow from a dabbler to a growth pro.
HOW I GOT TO KNOW ABOUT CXL INSTITUTE
I first heard of CXL Institute from a slack member on the Product Marketing Alliance Slack group- PMA. I think the person asked for a review between CXL’s copywriting course and one other online learning-can’t remember. I felt it was one of these many digital marketing courses and I honestly had a lineup of online courses for my personal learning so I wasn’t ready to take on another.
Two weeks later, I was in the Treford Bootcamp for Product Marketing Managers and boom, Adewunmi Adewale- one of the facilitators who works at VoyanceHQ as a PMM mentioned that she got a mini degree in CXL’s Growth marketing. I got on the website in 5 seconds and later that day, researched on CXL institute-nothing but great reviews.
I went through the pricing and as at Dec 2020, CXL Growth mini-degree costs 40,842.35 Naira per annum and a personal all-access costs 59014,70 Naira per annum. The scholarship option is also available but it comes with some requirements. I opted for the scholarship because ___________________
GETTING THE SCHOLARSHIP
After going through the website, pick the course of your choice and then look for the CXL scholarship button.
· Fill in your personal details
· Choose the mini-degree you are interested in
· What website you will publish on?
· Reason why you want to study the particular course of your choice
· What role do you occupy now and what role do you want?
· How will the chosen course make you marketable?
· Not less than 500 words why you are passionate about the course you have chosen
After submission, I waited patiently for approval of my application. I got a congratulatory message 4 days later saying I got the scholarship.
MY JOURNEY THROUGH CXL GROWTH MARKETING MINI-DEGREE
The Growth marketing mini-degree begins with an introductory track- Growth marketing foundation. It consists of:
a) Three event videos which I strongly advise you to watch. Just like an appetizer, it awakens your taste buds of what is to come.
b) Growth mindset: growth vs traditional marketing
c) Building a growth process
d) User-centric marketing
e) Identifying and amplifying growth channels
For me to sustain my CXL scholarship, I have to post 12 reviews about my learning in 12 weeks. This article is one of the 12 series. I was able to cover a, b & c this week.
Here are my thoughts and takeaways starting from the event videos:
1) Setting and achieving right growth objective by Sean Ellis-Growth Hacker founder.
Sean Ellis coined the word-hacking and this video shows you his awesomeness and wealth of experience.
My key takeaway:
· Customer Journey is very important
· Identify your North Star Metric
· Limit short term goals- one person per goal max.
· Assign a committed and passionate team member as the goal owner.
2) From street music to rock star by David Arnoux- Head of Growth, Growth Tribe
This video is fucking awesome- trust me, you will encounter more cuss in this video. I stood up to clap after his presentation.
My key take-away:
· Some growth hacking tricks may be unethical but we technical people see it as creatives
· Use OPN- Other People’s Network (Udemy built a scraper-meta scraper from you tube to buy in customers)
· Acquisition is important but retention is more important.
· Only 3% of apps are retained.
· Use tools. Use tools. Use tools.
3) Growth marketing Bullshit by Morgan Brown- Growth Hacker Co-founder
Is Growth hacking a fancy name from conversion optimization or engineering-led marketing?
My takeaway
· Growth hacking/ Marketing should be companywide-horizontal not vertical
· Growth hacking is not about taking shortcuts
· Do not take best practices as the absolute truth-test them
Done with the appetizer!!! Lets move to the main course
LESSON ONE: GROWTH MARKETING VS TRADITIONAL MARKETING BY JOHN MCBRIDE
This is more of an introductory lesson on growth marketing. For me, the takeaway were:
· Traditional marketing focuses on acquisition and retention while growth marketing focuses on the whole funnel
· The process of growth is driven by experiments
· Traditional marketing focuses on a single campaign while growth marketing focuses on optimizing strategic campaigns making it more effective.
LESSON TWO: BUILDING A GROWTH PROCESS BY JOHN MCBRIDE
Where are your customers? How will they find your brand? How will you scale your business? The answers to these are right here:
· Think of what website your customers are before your product is seen
· Give your customers a good experience-personalized experience
· Identify the biggest area of opportunity-where are your customer falling?
· Set goals-quarterly and monthly growth
· Your goals should be achievable
· Optimize past experience before moving to a new growth strategy
· You are not the customer- walk through the customer journey
· Check out what your favorite companies and competitors are doing
· Brainstorm to generate new ideas
· Prioritize using ICE framework- Impact of experiment, Confidence of result projection, Effort required to implement.
LESSON THREE: USER CENTRIC MARKETING
The instructor- Paul Boag talks about the importance of creating user-centric products. Here are some tips:
· Traditional personas days are numbered. Empathy marketing is the new baby
· You can understand your customers without spending a cent- ask your sales team and customer support team
· You have 5seconds to let your customers know what value you give as soon as they land on your website
· People are really busy-ask them to fill long and boring surveys
· Spend time with your users. Get them in the process not just reviews
· What are your followers on social media posting?
At the end of this lesson, i had to take an exam in user-centric marketing. CXL is known for its quality education. You need to take 90% of the questions right. I got 93% on the third attempt. I was able to cover the three event videos and three lessons this week.
Using tools as a growth marketer is non-negotiable. Below are some of the tools recommended:
· Qualtroo · Hotjar · Google Analytics · Clearbit · Blockspring
· Crystalknows · Intercom · Bubble · Amplitude · Import.io
Wow! You made it to the end of the article. Join me next week for my next review.
I am happy to connect with you. Find me on linkedIn @zeenatgbadamosi. Please note that all pictures used in this article were downloaded from unsplash.
