Content Marketing Certification Exam Answer's 2017

1. Which is true about content and its relationship with the Inbound Methodology?

a. Content is only needed to attract people to your site.

b. Content is needed to attract visitors and convert them into leads.

c. Content is needed to close leads into customers and turn customers into promoters.

d. B and C

e. All of the above

2. True or false? Content marketing is a relatively new practice that became popular in the 1950’s with the boom of advertising firms.

True

False

3. What are the four stages of the Inbound Methodology?

Find, Engage, Convert, and Nurture

Awareness, Consideration, Decision, and Delight

Attract, Convert, Close, and Delight

Identify, Connect, Explore, and Advise

4. Which best describes the content marketing and inbound marketing relationship?

Success relies on both as each serves a different function.

Both are valuable and take a lot of time and work. It’s best to focus your time on one or the other.

If you do both then you’ll be competing with yourself.

A great content marketer doesn’t need to do inbound marketing.

5. Every story has these three storytelling elements. What are they?

Characters, conflict, and interest

Characters, conflict, and resolution

Conflict, idea, and resolution

Conflict, spark, and conclusion 6. Fill in the blank: The _________ can help you develop a mission statement that connects with your audience. persona creation process Golden Circle Inbound Methodology buyer's journey  7. What’s the best way to have your business’ story remembered and shared? Explain the value of your products and services and how you’re the best at what you do. Show the ROI you can bring your customers. Create emotional alignment between your business and your prospects and customers. Explain your history in detail. 8. True or false? The conflict in this blog article is preventing team burnout. True False 9. Fill in the blank: When you tell a story and the character is your audience, you should tell the story with a ___________. first-person point of view second-person point of view third-person point of view All of the above 10. 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? What are you offering? How will this help your audience? Why are you doing what you are doing? None of the above 11. True or false? You need conflict to tell an impactful story. False, conflict only reduces the connection of what you’re trying to communicate. True, conflict helps build developmental and emotional connections. True, people care more about the conflict than the resolution. False, your story is strong enough to explain the value of your products and services. 12. 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. True False 13. 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? Motor Trend Magazine Wall Street Journal TIME Magazine All of the above 14. True or false? After you digest material it’s best to try and put ideas together immediately. False, you first need to write concepts down to organize everything. True, because the best ideas come in the first 30 seconds of consuming content. False, you want to give your mind a break to process the information. True, because the material is fresh in your mind. 15. Fill in the blank: __________ is when you think of an idea out of nowhere. Spontaneous ideation Thought spawning The eureka moment Aha moment 16. How can you uncover your buyer personas’ reading habits? a. Include a question on a form b. Interview some of your best customers c. Make a list of publications you read d. A and B e. All of the above 17. 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). Awareness Consideration Decision All of the above 18. Which of the following is NOT a category you should organize your content audit by? Content title Buyer’s journey stage Marketing funnel stage Content length 19. All of the following are examples of a SMART goal EXCEPT: Increase year over year traffic by 30%. Significantly reduce the amount of time the team spends on creating content. Add five new content formats to the website by end of year. All of the above are SMART goals. 20. When it comes to a long-term content strategy, what is an important buyer persona trait? Demographics Challenges Identifiers All of the above 21. 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? Talk with the sales team Check with more tenured employees Look through the company’s CRM and CMS All of the above 22. Fill in the blank: A content compass helps organize monthly initiatives by ____________. SMART goals sales campaigns inbound marketing campaigns All of the above 23. True or false? A buyer’s journey is ever-evolving. You should make updates as you learn more about your buyer persona. True False 24. Fill in the blank: To keep your content calendar agile, it shouldn’t extend more than ___________. two weeks one month three months six months 25. All of the following are attributes of a content creation workflow EXCEPT: How much money it will cost to complete initiative Identifies and organizes who is in charge of specific tasks Breaks down all of the work needed to complete a specific initiative Identifies outside influencers who will be contributing 26. How many rounds of edits should content undergo before being finished? 1 2-4 Post your content once it’s finished and edit as you receive feedback. As many times as you possibly can 27. 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? Yes, because having an editor complete your content ensures it will read well to others. Yes, a content editor's role is to make updates the way they see fit. No, the editor should have tracked changes which would have shown you where they would apply recommended edits. No, they should have set up a meeting to discuss each edit so you could apply them together. 28. Fill in the blank: The above graphic uses a ___________ to help organize hosted files. acronym-based system nomenclature system Word association connector linear word formula 29. True or false? Your content creation framework should stay consistent over time. True, the best way to remain efficient is to stick with a process. True, the investment to update a process can be very expensive and time intensive. False, as business goals and content change, so should your process to support them. False, your process should be updated every time a new team member joins. 30. What can you do to make a headline more compelling? a. Broaden the topic b. Make a promise to the reader c. Over five words d. Use special characters to help it stand out 31. Fill in the blank: When creating a headline for your content, you should come up with ___________ different headlines. 1 2-3 5-10 At least 10 32. The above blog post is an example of which type of headline format? How-to format Secret of format List format Negative angle format 33.   The above blog post is an example of which type of headline format? Secret of format List format How-to format Negative angle format 34. 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. True, it can be overwhelming to write an introduction first without knowing where the content is headed. True, the introduction is always the easiest part to write. False, writing an introduction first will help align the rest of the article. False, you should write your conclusion before your introduction. 35. True or false? When possible, you should try and use extensive vocabulary in your writing. True, extensive vocabulary makes you appear more credible and confident. True, people make purchasing decisions based on if you look smarter than your competitors. False, extensive vocabulary makes you appear less credible and confident. False, extensive vocabulary takes up too much space on a page. 36. 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? a. UTM tracking code b. Canonical tag c. Anchor text d. None of the above 37. How can a third-party website avoid duplicate content issues with republishing your content? Add a NoIndex tag Have the third-party publish it at the same time as the original piece Update the content to make it different Add a tracking URL 38. How long should you wait before republishing a piece of content to a new website? You shouldn’t wait. Republish it immediately. It depends, wait until you have at least 5 inbound links. One week Two weeks 39. You have a top-performing blog post that you want to republish. Which platforms should you republish it to? You shouldn’t republish content because you’ll have duplicate content issues. Only sites that are relevant to your business and industry. Only websites that you have partnerships with as you won’t have to pay for it. As many websites as possible; the more sites the more impressions the content will receive. 40. 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? Update the headline Use a new author Add sub-headings to each section All of the above 41. You are trying to turn an ebook into a checklist, which method should you keep in mind when repurposing content? DART ACE BASE ARC 42. 42. After you identify the theme and format for an offer, what should you do next? Identify a list of support topics Choose a template to put it together Build a content creation timeline Start writing the content 43. True or false? A benefit of organic content promotion is that it allows you to show your content to a highly specific audience. True False 44. 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? a. Twitter b. LinkedIn c. Google d. A and B e. All of the above 45. When is the most effective time to boost content on social media? When it’s performing well When it has a call-to-action that links to your website When it showcases one of your products or services If budget is permitting, then you should boost every social media post 46. True or false? You should post the same message across all of your social channels. True, redundant messages ensure that your audience will see it and you get the highest reach. True, posting the same message will help you save time that you can use on more important initiatives. False, you should customize the message based on the platform. False, post the same message to Twitter and Facebook, but update LinkedIn as it’s more of a B2B social platform. 47. Fill in the blank: _______________ helps you group an audience together based on specific criteria from a large list of people. Ideal matching Demographics Segmentation Buyer personas 48. 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. True False 49. You can measure brand awareness by all of the following, except? How many press releases exist on your website. How high you rank in search engine results. Inbound links coming to your website. Level of engagement on your social channels. 50. True or false? It’s best to change your key metrics every few months to follow what’s trending. True False 51. Fill in the blank: All of the following are engagement signals that help you understand your content’s effectiveness, except for _______________. email send rate likes and shares on a Facebook post sharing the thank you page to an offer someone just downloaded comments on a recent blog post 52. 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? Total leads generated from your campaign Increase of brand awareness Social engagements Returning blog subscribers generated from your campaign 53. What does an UTM parameter help you identify? Lead attribution Content medium Company name Lifecycle stage 54. 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) ______________. attribution report referrals report sales report None of the above 55. Which departments does growth marketing support? a. Marketing b. Sales c. Customer Service d. A and B e. All of the above 56. Fill in the blank: Understanding your ____________ is the first step to instilling a growth mindset within your organization. buyer personas ad budget marketing funnel buyer’s journey 57. Once you're able to quantify your metrics, what is the next step in developing a growth mindset? Start looking for strengths in your funnel Start looking for weaknesses in your funnel Select a marketing channel to focus on Create a facebook audience 58. Which best explains the bullseye framework? A testing sequence geared towards identifying content your audience cares about An organized three-step approach to gaining traction A system that notifies you when your competitors produce a piece of high-performing content All of the above 59. What does the center ring of the bullseye framework represent? Your long-shot channels The channels you haven't tested yet Your top-performing channels Your possibility channels 60. Fill in the blank: When conducting a test, it should work to uncover _______________. the cost to attain a customer through this channel the amount of customers available through this channel whether or not you should be acquiring these customers All of the above