Skilled B2B marketers who can coordinate complex campaigns involving traditional and digital channels are now in demand. According to McKinley's 2018 Marketing Hiring Trends report, 69% of marketing leaders expect to expand their teams and hire new marketers this year—a 25% increase from 2017. As Gary Vaynerchuk said, marketers ruin everything. Once an effective marketing strategy or method gets attention, it can quickly become oversaturated. The smartest marketers get to grips with new methods, tactics and channels first, long before the noisy majority gets in. To stay ahead, B2B marketers must continually push themselves to grow and add new skills. Thanks to technology, growth is no longer time-consuming or expensive. Many of the best demand-generating training resources don't require travel or student loan-worthy tuition. To help you find the best resources on the noisy internet, we've curated a list of 20 of our favorite continuing education resources for B2B demand marketing. Demand Generation Training Resources Many of the resources below are free, and there are some affordable paid options. Some bill themselves as certifications, while others are just resources for public consumption. However, all of this provides some of the best marketers in the business with leading insights into the realm of demand generation. Event Marketing #1: Experiential Marketing Bootcamp Hosting four options in major metro areas across the country, the experiential marketing bootcamp is
Event Marketer's one-day production to "prepare tomorrow's in-person marketing leaders." The course is described as a master class and may be best suited for individuals who are already actively involved in event marketing. Topics include: The role of experiential marketing in 2018 Insights and case studies from top brands Industry Trends, Research and Best Practices #2. On-Demand Webinars: Optimizing Event Leads Are you optimizing the revenue potential of campaign leads? 70% of marketers say they are dissatisfied with the time it takes to follow up industry mailing list event leads, and 75% of event leads never receive a follow-up. Presented by Synthio's Emily Wingrove, PFL's Frances McCutchon, and Integrate's Kate Athmer, this on-demand webinar provides first-class insights into pre-planning, improving and routing event data, and more. #3: On-Demand Webinar: How Marketing Operations Can Maximize Event ROI Operational efficiency plays an important role in how B2B marketers effectively maximize event spend. Marketing operations professionals can benefit from this 30-minute webinar, which also features downloadable slides. Topics discussed include: How to Reconcile Event Revenue with Sales Ex-ante activities affecting revenue channels Tools and Processes to Improve Revenue content marketing #4:
HubSpot Content Marketing Certification Course HubSpot Academy offers a number of free courses in the digital and inbound marketing disciplines that, by their count, have certified 137,000 marketing professionals. This self-paced course consists of 11 content marketing lessons designed to provide basic and intermediate skills. B2B marketers can choose from topics covered, including: business story effective content promotion Create topic clusters and pillar pages Develop a growth mindset #5: University of Washington: Certificate in Storytelling and Content Strategy If you're ready to make a big commitment to content marketing as the backbone of your in-demand marketing career, the University of Washington's 8-month online program is one of the top online programs for professionals looking to advance in content marketing. These courses focus on content creation, content strategy, and content science. There are some preliminary requirements for applicants, including a marketing background and applicable work experience. #6. Content Marketing Institute University CMI University is an online content education hub for demand marketers, B2B professionals, and other digital professionals from all disciplines. With an ever-evolving curriculum and roster of renowned faculty such as Joe Pullizzi, Robert Rose and Ardath Albee, students who choose to enroll can participate in coursework as their professional educational needs and schedule allow. At the heart of CMI University is the certificate, which consists of mostly self-paced 13-module courses and quizzes. Through accreditation, students gain access to additional courses that are added each year. #7. DigitalMarketer: