[One Page] HubSpot Content Marketing Certification Exam Answers 2020

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1. Which is true about content and its relationship with the Inbound Methodology?
   1. Content is needed to attract people to your site.
   2. Content is needed to attract visitors and convert them into leads.
   3. Content is needed to close leads into customers and turn customers into promoters.
   4. All of the above
2. What are the four stages of the Inbound Methodology?
   1. Attract, Convert, Close, and Delight
   2. Awareness, Consideration, Decision, and Delight
   3. Find, Engage, Convert, and Nurture
   4. Identify, Connect, Explore, and Advise
3. True or false? Content marketing is a relatively new practice that became popular in the 1950’s with the boom of advertising firms.
   1. TRUE
   2. FALSE
4. All of the following are content marketing practices EXCEPT:
   1. Email copy
   2. Technical SEO
   3. Social media posts
   4. Blogging
5. Which best describes the content marketing and inbound marketing relationship?
   1. A great content marketer doesn’t need to do inbound marketing.
   2. Both are valuable and take a lot of time and work. It’s best to focus your time on one or the other.
   3. Success relies on both as each serves a different function.
   4. If you do both then you’ll be competing with yourself.
6. What’s the best way to have your business’ story remembered and shared?
   1. Explain your history in detail.
   2. Show the ROI you can bring your customers.
   3. Create emotional alignment between your business and your prospects and customers.
   4. Explain the value of your products and services and how you’re the best at what you do.
7. Every story has these three storytelling elements. What are they?
   1. Characters, conflict, and resolution
   2. Conflict, idea, and resolution
   3. Characters, conflict, and interest
   4. Conflict, spark, and conclusion
8. True or false? If prospects can get the answers to their questions and see themselves as characters in your story, they’ll be more likely to purchase from you.
   1. TRUE
   2. FALSE
9. Fill in the blank: The conflict in your content’s story should focus on the ____________.
   1. prospects’ needs
   2. prospects’ stage of the buyer’s journey
   3. prospects’ problems
   4. All of the above
10. Which of the following is NOT a storytelling best practice?
    1. Create emotional appeal through your content
    2. Be consistent and authentic
    3. Use the third-person point of view
    4. Your story should be clear and concise
11. True or false? The conflict in this blog article is preventing team burnout.
    1. TRUE
    2. FALSE
12. Fill in the blank: This blog post is written from a _____________.
    1. First-person point of view
    2. Second-person point of view
    3. Third-person point of view
    4. None of the above
13. True or false? After you digest material it’s best to try and put ideas together immediately.
    1. True, because the material is fresh in your mind.
    2. True, because the best ideas come in the first 30 seconds of consuming content.
    3. False, you want to give your mind a break to process the information.
    4. False, you first need to write concepts down to organize everything.
14. Fill in the blank: __________ is when you think of an idea out of nowhere.
    1. Spontaneous ideation
    2. Thought spawning
    3. The eureka moment
    4. Aha moment
15. Joan owns a dog walking business and read a blog post that explained search engines are a great place to generate ideas on what people are searching for. Joan starts off her research by typing in ‘dog walking tip’ to see what insight she can find. Fill in the blank: Joan notices that when she types in ‘dog walking tip’ the search engine offers some helpful suggestions on popular searches, like ‘dog walking tips and tricks.’ This is known as _________.
    1. related searches
    2. autocomplete
    3. suggestion finder
    4. Google search queries
16. True or false? The goal of a braindump is to have everyone structure ideas they’ve put together.
    1. TRUE
    2. FALSE
17. All of the following are examples of a SMART goal EXCEPT:
    1. Increase year over year traffic by 30%.
    2. Significantly reduce the amount of time the team spends on creating content.
    3. Add five new content formats to the website by end of year.
    4. All of the above are SMART goals.
18. You just landed your dream job as a content creator at a local startup. It’s your first week and your boss asks you to perform a content audit to get acquainted with the company’s collateral as well as organize it. Where might you start looking for content that already exists?
    1. Talk with the sales team
    2. Check with more tenured employees
    3. Look through the company’s CRM and CMS
    4. All of the above
19. When it comes to a long-term content strategy, what is an important buyer persona trait?
    1. Demographics
    2. Challenges
    3. Identifiers
    4. All of the above
20. Fill in the blank: When identifying buyer’s journey content for a long-term content strategy, it’s important to focus on content for the ___________ stage(s).
    1. Awareness
    2. Consideration
    3. Decision
    4. All of the above
21. True or false? A buyer’s journey is ever-evolving. You should make updates as you learn more about your buyer persona.
    1. TRUE
    2. FALSE
22. All of the following are attributes of a content creation workflow EXCEPT:
    1. Identifies outside influencers who will be contributing
    2. Identifies and organizes who is in charge of specific tasks
    3. How much money it will cost to complete initiative
    4. Breaks down all of the work needed to complete a specific initiative
23. How many rounds of edits should content undergo before being finished?
    1. 1
    2. 2-4
    3. Post your content once it’s finished and edit as you receive feedback.
    4. As many times as you possibly can
24. Fill in the blank: The above graphic uses a ___________ to help organize hosted files.
    1. nomenclature system
    2. linear word formula
    3. Word association connector
    4. acronym-based system
25. True or false? Your content creation framework should stay consistent over time.
    1. True, the best way to remain efficient is to stick with a process.
    2. True, the investment to update a process can be very expensive and time intensive.
    3. False, as business goals and content change, so should your process to support them.
    4. False, your process should be updated every time a new team member joins.
26. True or false? If you want to produce great content, then you need to hire an in-house content creator.
    1. TRUE
    2. FALSE
27. What can you do to make a headline more compelling?
    1. Broaden the topic
    2. Make a promise to the reader
    3. Over five words
    4. Use special characters to help it stand out
28. The following question pertains to the blog post shown below: The above blog post is an example of which type of headline format?
    1. List format
    2. How-to format
    3. Secret of format
    4. Negative angle format
29. True or false? Effective writers start by filling in the main points of their content and save writing the introduction and conclusion for after they’ve written their piece.
    1. True, it can be overwhelming to write an introduction first without knowing where the content is headed.
    2. True, the introduction is always the easiest part to write.
    3. False, writing an introduction first will help align the rest of the article.
    4. False, you should write your conclusion before your introduction.
30. True or false? When possible, you should try and use extensive vocabulary in your writing.
    1. True, extensive vocabulary makes you appear more credible and confident.
    2. True, people make purchasing decisions based on if you look smarter than your competitors.
    3. False, extensive vocabulary makes you appear less credible and confident.
    4. False, extensive vocabulary takes up too much space on a page.
31. Fill in the blank: The following sentence is an example of ____________ voice? “The grocery shopping was done by your father.”
    1. Active
    2. Passive
    3. Reactive
    4. Subtle
32. How could this sentence be corrected to cut our fluffy words? “I really just want to go to the store to buy groceries in order to be be prepared for the week.”
    1. “I really want to go to the store to buy groceries in order to be prepared.”
    2. “I just want to go to the store to buy groceries in order to be prepared for the week.”
    3. “I want to go buy groceries at the store to be prepared for the week.”
    4. “I really want to go to the store to buy groceries in order to be prepared for the week.”
33. True or false? Never use acronyms in your writing.
    1. True, this helps avoid confusion.
    2. True, deleting acronyms makes your content more welcoming.
    3. False, use acronyms sparingly.
    4. False, your audience will know what the acronyms mean.
34. Which of the following do you need to include in a republished piece of content to maintain SEO authority and attribute value to the appropriate website or author?
    1. UTM tracking code
    2. Canonical tag
    3. Anchor text
    4. All of the above
35. How can a third-party website avoid duplicate content issues with republishing your content?
    1. Add a NoIndex tag
    2. Add a tracking URL
    3. Update the content to make it different
    4. Have the third-party publish it at the same time as the original piece
36. How long should you wait before republishing a piece of content to a new website?
    1. You shouldn’t wait. Republish it immediately.
    2. One week
    3. Two weeks
    4. It depends, wait until you have at least 5 inbound links.
37. You have a top-performing blog post that you want to republish. Which platforms should you republish it to?
    1. As many websites as possible; the more sites the more impressions the content will receive.
    2. Only websites that you have partnerships with as you won’t have to pay for it.
    3. Only sites that are relevant to your business and industry.
    4. You shouldn’t republish content because you’ll have duplicate content issues.
38. You are trying to turn an ebook into a checklist, which method should you keep in mind when repurposing content?
    1. BASE
    2. ARC
    3. ACE
    4. DART
39. You can use weekly content activities to grow into which type of long-form content offer?
    1. Case study
    2. Ebook
    3. Webinar
    4. All of the above
40. True or false? A benefit of organic content promotion is that it allows you to show your content to a highly specific audience.
    1. TRUE
    2. FALSE
41. When is the most effective time to boost content on social media?
    1. When it’s performing well
    2. When it has a link to a website
    3. When it showcases one of your products or services
    4. You should boost every social media post no matter the context
42. True or false? You should post the same message across all of your social channels.
    1. True, redundant messages ensure that your audience will see it and you get the highest reach.
    2. True, posting the same message will help you save time that you can use on more important initiatives.
    3. False, you should customize the message based on the platform.
    4. False, post the same message to Twitter and Facebook, but update LinkedIn as it’s more of a B2B social platform.
43. Fill in the blank: ______________ is used to achieve the best possible content promotion outcome.
    1. Optimization
    2. Saturation
    3. Experimentation
    4. Consistency
44. True or false? You should initially spend less time promoting your content than you did creating it, so you can increase your content output.
    1. TRUE
    2. FALSE
45. You can measure brand awareness by all of the following, except?
    1. How many press releases exist on your website.
    2. Level of engagement on your social channels.
    3. Inbound links coming to your website.
    4. How high you rank in search engine results.
46. True or false? It’s best to determine a few key metrics and stick to them.
    1. TRUE
    2. FALSE
47. Fill in the blank: All of the following are engagement signals that help you understand your content’s effectiveness, except for _______________.
    1. comments on a recent blog post
    2. likes and shares on a Facebook post
    3. email send rate
    4. sharing the thank you page to an offer someone just downloaded
48. Your boss asks you to report on how your content campaign has contributed to his lead generation goals. What metric do you report on to demonstrate its contribution?
    1. Total leads generated from your campaign
    2. Increase of brand awareness
    3. Returning blog subscribers generated from your campaign
    4. Social engagements
49. Fill in the blank: You had a successful team meeting where you were able to prove the ROI of your content marketing efforts. However, your boss wants more details on the content path that helped closed leads into customers. You could do this by creating a(n) ______________.
    1. attribution report
    2. referrals report
    3. sales report
    4. None of the above
50. One month into a three-month lead generation campaign, it becomes clear your current plan to reach your goal of ten marketing qualified leads (MQLs) goal does not look feasible. What option will you present during next week’s meeting with your CEO?
    1. You present an updated campaign content plan to reach your set SMART goals, based off of the first month’s data.
    2. You present updated SMART goals better aligned with your projected MQLs for the campaign’s remaining two months, based off the first month’s data.
    3. You hold back on reporting the progress on that particular SMART goal for the campaign, in hopes of things picking up.
    4. You propose staying the course on the current SMART goals and planned content marketing activities, noting that one month of data is not enough to justify changing your SMART goal.
51. Once you’re able to quantify your metrics, what is the next step in developing a growth mindset?
    1. Start looking for strengths in your funnel
    2. Start looking for weaknesses in your funnel
    3. Select a marketing channel to focus on
    4. Create a facebook audience
52. What does the center ring of the bullseye framework represent?
    1. Your top-performing channels
    2. Your possibility channels
    3. Your long-shot channels
    4. The channels you haven’t tested yet
53. Fill in the blank: When conducting a test, it should work to uncover _______________.
    1. the cost to attain a customer through this channel
    2. the amount of customers available through this channel
    3. whether or not you should be acquiring these customers
    4. All of the above
54. You’re the Marketing Director for a global financial company. The holidays are approaching and your boss wants to improve the company’s bottom line by 7%. You host a team meeting where the goal is to identify opportunities to test, then assign tasks to team members to start implementing right away. Is this approach correct?
    1. Yes, the entire team is present and participating.
    2. Yes, but make sure to assign the test to the appropriate team members.
    3. No, ideation and implementation should be done in separate meetings.
    4. No, you need approval from your boss before running a series of tests.
55. True or false? If your marketing tests have over a 50% failure rate, then you’ve done something wrong.
    1. True, the majority of your tests should be successful.
    2. True, you should never have over a 50% failure rate with your tests.
    3. False, the purpose of a test is to prove or disprove your hypothesis.
    4. False, you need to perform enough tests that more than 50% fail.
56. Fill in the blank: The goal of a marketing test is to _____________.
    1. continuously optimize your channels
    2. find a system that works and stick with it
    3. show your competitors that you know what you’re doing
    4. All of the above
57. True or false? When instilling a growth mindset within your organization, it’s more important to receive buy-in from the customer support team than the products and services team.
    1. TRUE
    2. FALSE
58. Fill in the blank: A shortcut to improving your SEO is to ____________.
    1. continuously optimize your pages based on updated keyword research
    2. get referenced on sites that already rank well
    3. add more keywords to a page you want to rank for
    4. use more images than text
59. Fill in the blank: __________ is when you help guide your prospects through purchasing your products or services.
    1. Value-add guidance
    2. Concierge on-boarding
    3. Success channeling
    4. Premier showcasing
60. Your boss has tasked you with writing a company story that will help make them stand out from their competitors. Keeping this in mind, what’s the most effective question you should start with?
    1. What are you offering?
    2. How will this help your audience?
    3. Why are you doing what you are doing?
    4. None of the above
61. True or false? You need conflict to tell an impactful story.
    1. True, conflict helps build developmental and emotional connections.
    2. True, people care more about the conflict than the resolution.
    3. False, your story is strong enough to explain the value of your products and services.
    4. False, conflict only reduces the connection of what you’re trying to communicate.
62. Fill in the blank: When you tell a story and the character is your audience, you should tell the story with a ___________.
    1. first-person point of view
    2. second-person point of view
    3. third-person point of view
    4. None of the above
63. True or false? When identifying raw material for generating ideas, it’s best to stick with a specific area of focus. This way you can become an expert in generating ideas in this field.
    1. TRUE
    2. FALSE
64. You’re a content creator for an automobile dealership. You’re looking for some inspiration to help generate new content ideas for an upcoming holiday promotion. What source might you find valuable and be inspired by?
    1. Motor Trend Magazine
    2. Wall Street Journal
    3. TIME Magazine
    4. All of the above
65. How can you uncover your buyer personas’ reading habits?
    1. a. Include a question on a form
    2. b. Interview some of your best customers
    3. c. Make a list of publications you read
    4. d. A and B
    5. e. All of the above
66. Which of the following is NOT a category you should organize your content audit by?
    1. Buyer’s journey stage
    2. Content length
    3. Marketing funnel stage
    4. Content title
67. Fill in the blank: A content compass helps organize monthly initiatives by ____________.
    1. SMART goals
    2. sales campaigns
    3. inbound marketing campaigns
    4. All of the above
68. Fill in the blank: To keep your content calendar agile, it shouldn’t extend more than ___________.
    1. two weeks
    2. one month
    3. three months
    4. six months
69. You asked your colleague to provide feedback on a blog post you recently wrote. When they sent you their feedback, they made edits directly in the doc. Is this a best practice for a content editing process?
    1. Yes, because having an editor complete your content ensures it will read well to others.
    2. Yes, a content editor’s role is to make updates the way they see fit.
    3. No, the editor should have tracked changes which would have shown you where they would apply recommended edits.
    4. No, they should have set up a meeting to discuss each edit so you could apply them together.
70. Fill in the blank: When creating a headline for your content, you should come up with ___________ different headlines.
    1. 1
    2. 5-10
    3. At least 10
    4. More than 10
71. The following question pertains to the blog post shown below: The above blog post is an example of which type of headline format?
    1. List format
    2. How-to format
    3. Secret of format
    4. Negative angle format
72. When republishing your content, how can you make sure the republished post stands out in contrast to your original post in search engine result listings?
    1. Update the headline
    2. Use a new author
    3. Add sub-headings to each section
    4. All of the above
73. True or false? You should only include a call-to-action on a blog post once the offer is launched.
    1. True, if you don’t have a relevant call-to-action, then leave blank.
    2. True, once you publish a blog post, it’s not a best practice to update calls-to-action over time.
    3. False, always provide a next step, even if it’s to sign up for email updates.
    4. False, adding a relevant call-to-action to a blog post will improve your SEO efforts.
74. Fill in the blank: _______________ helps you group an audience together based on specific criteria from a large list of people.
    1. Ideal matching
    2. Segmentation
    3. Buyer personas
    4. Demographics
75. True or false? To make sure you’re appropriately communicating the value of your content, you should define as many benefits as possible when promoting it. The more the better.
    1. True
    2. FALSE
76. You’re analyzing the performance of your social channels and you notice that Facebook consistently outperforms your Twitter and LinkedIn page. What should you do next?
    1. Post the same message on all channels as Facebook since it is working well.
    2. Analyze Facebook further to see which posts are working for future content ideas.
    3. Transition all social ad budget to Facebook in support of boosting each post moving forward.
    4. All of the above
77. Optimizing your content helps improve __________.
    1. reach
    2. engagement
    3. conversions
    4. All of the above
78. When examining your attribution report, you notice 85% of your leads that have closed into customers have downloaded your introductory ebook, but your sales team is only closing 1% of leads from social sources. How do you support your Sales team to close more leads from social into customers?
    1. Ensure all leads from social sources are nurtured with the introductory ebook before speaking to sales.
    2. Devote more time to posting blogs on Facebook.
    3. Direct further resources for paid advertising on Twitter to spread your influence to additional channels.
    4. Connect with your sales team to coach them on their disconnect in closing the leads.
79. What results can you yield by establishing reporting expectations prior to campaign launch?
    1. The campaign’s written SMART goals will free stakeholders from being directly involved.
    2. The campaign’s planned content will insulate your team from developing unexpected material outside of the written SMART goals.
    3. The campaign’s written SMART goals better align your work with the stakeholders’ key metrics.
    4. The campaign’s planned content better aligns your work with the CEO’s quarterly expectations.
80. Which departments does growth marketing support?
    1. a. Marketing
    2. b. Sales
    3. c. Customer Service
    4. d. A and B
    5. e. All of the above
81. Which best explains the bullseye framework?
    1. An organized three-step approach to gaining traction
    2. Identifying a top-performing blog post and reposting every few months
    3. A system that notifies you when your competitors produce a piece of high-performing content
    4. None of the above
82. Fill in the blank: The _________ can help you develop a mission statement that connects with your audience.
    1. persona creation process
    2. Golden Circle
    3. Inbound Methodology
    4. buyer’s journey
83. Every content brainstorm needs the following EXCEPT:
    1. A moderator
    2. A clear agenda
    3. At least five people
    4. Visual aids
84. Fill in the blank: A great way to create a comfortable atmosphere for a company brainstorm is to start off with _________.
    1. role call
    2. icebreakers
    3. team goals
    4. breaking into groups
85. You’re in a brainstorming session with your co-workers. You come up with five topics for your ebook, your colleague says that’s all you need. How should you respond?
    1. “Yes, there’s no reason to keep going if we have enough topics for our ebook.”
    2. “Yes, we can always identify more later if we need them.”
    3. “No, we should have at least ten supporting topics for every ebook we want to create.”
    4. “No, we should make a list of as many supporting topics as we can.”
86. To help increase awareness for an upcoming product launch, your manager increases paid promotion funds by 300%. Which channels could you disperse these funds to?
    1. a. Twitter
    2. b. LinkedIn
    3. c. Google
    4. d. A and B
    5. e. All of the above
87. True or false? SnapChat and Pinterest are examples of platforms that a growth marketer might want to test for their business.
    1. TRUE
    2. FALSE
88. What does an UTM parameter help you identify?
    1. Lifecycle stage
    2. Lead attribution
    3. Company name
    4. Content medium
89. Fill in the blank: To effectively tell your business’ story, you need ________________.
    1. a mission with supporting values
    2. great products and services
    3. a testimonial from a happy customer
    4. an interesting history
90. Fill in the blank: Understanding your ____________ is the first step to instilling a growth mindset within your organization.
    1. marketing funnel
    2. buyer’s journey
    3. buyer personas
    4. ad budget