Honest CXL growth marketing minidegree review. Part 7/12
Hello there. If you land on this article looking for opinions about CXL, there is something you should know before. First of all, welcome. I was in the same situation as you are, and I know how hard it is to find genuine reviews in this magic world. I will be 100% honest with you.
Please read the following disclaimer to better understand the reason behind my review on CXL.
Just to be 100% honest with you, I am going to use some GIFs from The Office show just to make the reading less boring. 101% honestly, it is more for me than for you. Not very passionate about writing and GIFs help me not giving up.
This article reviews just the CXL growth marketing minidegree (not all the CXL courses). The review is written by an actual user, me (Diego). BUT… it is not entirely bias-free. My experience with CXL is due to them granting me a scholarship (yes 100% courses). We know that in this capitalistic world nothing is for free and there is always a bilateral exchanging. Santa Claus does not exist, and it is not a drama only for children. Instead of money, the CXL scholarship program asks you to write 12 posts sharing your learning outputs and impressions with the mini degree. So yes, this review is biased but just for the fact that I am grateful to CXL. As a broken AF graduate (like me) trying to start a marketing career, it is very stressful to gain useful knowledge for free. Giving back to the community by delivering free education to people unable to afford expensive courses is per se a great reason to buy CXL products.
You can find more about the CXL growth markeing minidegree here:
And more about the CXL sholarship here:
A little bit of contextualization. CXL growth marketing minidegree is a 111h long course (111h 42min to be fair) composed of 9 modules. In this article, I am going to review the fifth module: Channel-specific growth skills. This module is the longest within the minidegree so I am going to cover it in multiples articles. Just to give you an idea: this model includes thirteen potential channels you can leverage to grow your business includining PPC, SEO, influncer and email. For the complete review of the Channel-specific growth skills modul or other modeuls have a look at the link at the bottom.
I would like to take a more unusual approach to reviewing by talking about people instead of contents. Growth marking video courses are approximately the same all over the industry. What really matters is how growth marketing has been taught, depending on teachers, not contents. So, today I am going to talk about two resourceful professionals and one who could give more to the course. I will explain why later.
Curt Maly talking about Facebook Ads.
Curt is literally a champion when it comes to Facebooks Ads, not only because his facebook strategies are outperforming but also because he has won the Facebook champion BELT.
It may sound weird but the core of his course is a methodology actually called the BELT. The professionalism of a Facebook advertiser does not come from his ability to use the tool or understanding the platform algorithm but rather from his understanding of the user journey. Therefore, the first lesson from Curt is all about rethinking the consumer journey with the goal to raise awareness about the blended attribution model where advertising is not evaluated as a bunch of clicks but more as an engaging increasing strategy. At the end of the day, nobody buys just because he has seen an ad but because the level of engagement he has with the product/brand is high enough to be confident about spending money in exchanging something. The BELT method is based on this assumption. A good Facebook marketer can cover the entire funnel with proper communication. So, your mission to increase the engagement with your audience can be simply summarized in the execution of the BELT
- Belive: help your audience believe that it has a need and that you may solve it.
- Engage: help your audience n evaluating the best positioning of your offer by educating and entertaining it.
- Lead: help your audience to advance on the next clear step towards your solution.
- Transact: help your audience to do business with you.
This method may sound banal at a first impact but is as simple as it is mid-blowing. Obviously, the BELT method can be understood with just 4 bullet points, that is why the Curt course is long 6 hours. Once Curt has shown you the why and how of the BELT method, he transfers it inside Facebook. While the BELT method please people all the Facebook-focused strategy taught by Curl will please the platform. The union of pleasing people and pleasing the platform will result in successful Facebook marketing. So, in Curl’s course, you will learn everything about Facebook including ad content, placement, bidding, lives, audiences, targeting and so much more. Lastly, all the information and insights on the course are surrounded by procedures and processes to constantly optimize your Facebook advertising strategies.
Andy Crestodina talking about Content Strategy and SEO for Lead Generation.
Andy is the content marketing made human. As content marketing is defined as the way you answer questions from users, Andy is the way you give answers to all the possible questions about content marketing. His course is so packed with information, tips, strategy, procedures and so much more that is almost overwhelming. In fact, my first opinion of this course is that it is so confusing and disorientating but when I finished it I realized why so. What Andy deliveries with this course are a guide on content marketing useful for your entire career. Basically, you can use this course no matter your level of proficiency in content marketing or SEO. He corves the most basic stuff as well the most advanced ones. So, my advice is to enroll in the course, watch it fully and just absorb what you can then after months or years jump in it again and absorb new stuff, and iterate this process through your entire professional life. If at the first time you may find it overwhelming you are gonna love it more every time you watch it.
While Andy covers tons of topics, what I found really interesting from my perspective as a student starting a career in marketing is that content is not just creativity but involves a lot of research and data analysis. Paradoxically, a great researcher and analysis can produce better content than just a creative person. Andy is so much firm on this concept that he explains keywords, copy, formats, images, visuals, placement, technical SEO, design, process, and strategies as the direct output from some sort of researches and analysis. As he says the sweet spot for successful content marketers is the intersection of the ability to analyzed and the creativity of producing something original.
Ray Young talking about Messaging Strategy in Public Relations.
Ray is the classical example of why some teachers in the CXL institute are just pretty faces. I mean, Ray is for sure an expert in PR but his course is just twenty-three minutes long. This course is pretty useless and I am pissed because CXl could infinitely better leverage Ray’s knowledge and expertise.
PR is not an easy world and especially when digital is changing the rules on how to spread the visibility of brands through media. So, my review is a great professional teacher but horrible course. Only if you have no clued about with P and R stands for, you can invest twenty-three minutes of your life in watching this course, for the rest of you you can skip it.
And that is pretty much my comments on the forth module of CXL growth marketing minidegree. If you want to know more, please read the previous reviews of the CXL growth marketing minidegree:
Or simply go check the CXL Institute, they offer a 7-day free trial so you can have a first-hand experience of the validity of their courses and teachers:
Peace out!
