Team Work

We’re Hiring Demand Generation Consultants

My most important role at Solomon is searching for the brightest consultants and experts to join the team. When I started Solomon in 2008, I wanted to work with the smartest, most creative, hardest working marketers in the industry. It brings so much inspiration to me, as that vision has been realized, and I get to enjoy it every workday.  Together, our team has delivered amazing success for our diverse portfolio of clients; from start-ups to global enterprises.  The team continually drives innovation within MarTech, all in the name of delivering customer-centric marketing that results in amazing revenue growth for our clients. The Solomon team is comprised of Industry Leaders, Senior Consultants, Analysts, and most recently the addition of a talented development team. As we continue to question the status quo – we’ve developing our own products to fill experiential gaps within the customer-centric MarTech journey.  I’ve never been so excited about our future together at Solomon.

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Green leaves growing towards the light to represent career growth with Marketo Certified Expert

Grow Your Marketing Career: Become a Marketo Certified Associate (Study Guide)

Marketo is adding an additional certification program, the Marketo Certified Associate (MCA), and we got a advanced preview. Read more about the new MCA program and how it differs from the Marketo Certified Expert (MCE) designation or skip ahead for a detailed breakdown of the new exam content. What’s on the Marketo Certified Associate exam? The BETA exam we took contained 145 questions with 120 minutes to complete and review the questions. Based on the BETA exam performance, Marketo will narrow the total questions and time allotted. For comparison, the MCE exam contains 75 questions with 90 minutes allotted for completion. Three members of the Solomon Solution team took the BETA MCA exam: Jessica, a Marketo Certified Expert (2016) with 4 years Marketo Admin experience; Veronika, also a Marketo Certified Expert (2018) with a year of Marketo user experience; and new team member Austin Stephens, who has one year of

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Meet McKell Cousins: Demand Generation Analyst   

Being a great consultant also means working for a great consulting agency. The agency is the backbone of what you represent and work for. What Do You Bring to Solomon?  I bring a positive attitude that isn’t afraid to get in the trenches and figure things out. I love new challenges! Those new challenges help me grow as an individual, they help everyone grow.   When Did You Start Your Marketing Career?  I started my Marketing Career in 2016. At the time, I was in between going to school for marketing or starting an internship. Luckily, I knew someone who was a director over a Marketing Operations team. He ended up bringing me on his team as an Email Marketer. From there my career took off!   What’s Your Proudest Professional Moment  I am proud of myself for how quickly I’ve picked up marketing over the years. After my first year in digital marketing I became the Marketo Admin at the last

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Laptop computer on a desk with a notebook, iced coffee and headphones, ready to study for the Marketo Certified Associate Program

Coming Soon: Marketo Certified ASSOCIATE Program

We got a sneak-preview into Marketo’s latest certification program, the Marketo Certified Associate (MCA). While the Marketo Certified Expert (MCE) designation is still the gold-standard, this new certification aims to be more accessible, can be a good baseline for your marketing team, and is a great preparation step towards obtaining MCE status for Marketo Admins and other advanced users. Three members of the Solomon Solution team took the BETA MCE exam: Jessica, a Marketo Certified Expert (2016) with 4 years Marketo Admin experience; Veronika, also a Marketo Certified Expert (2018) with a year of Marketo user experience; and new team member Austin Stephens, who has one year of Marketo Admin experience and is currently studying to take the MCE exam. What’s a Marketo Certified Associate? Set to be released later this year, Marketo describes the MCA exam as “designed to assess a candidate’s knowledge in marketing automation, general marketing concepts,

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We’re Looking for Lead Development Representatives

My most important role at Solomon is searching for the brightest consultants and experts to join the team. When I started Solomon in 2008, I wanted to work with the smartest, most creative, hardest working marketers in the industry. It brings so much inspiration to me, as that vision has been realized, and I get to enjoy it every workday.  Together, our team has delivered amazing success for our diverse portfolio of clients; from start-ups to global enterprises.  The team continually drives innovation within MarTech, all in the name of delivering customer-centric marketing that results in amazing revenue growth for our clients. The Solomon team is comprised of Industry Leaders, Senior Consultants, Analysts, and most recently the addition of a talented development team. As we continue to question the status quo – we’ve developing our own products to fill experiential gaps within the customer-centric MarTech journey.  I’ve never been so excited about our future together at Solomon.

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It’s Not Really OK to Fail (Unless You Do it Right)

OK, hands up if you’ve worked in one of those organizations (or teams, or for one of those clients). You know what I’m talking about: the organizations where leadership likes to talk a big game about innovation, but refuses to support anything that smacks of risk. Or the team where your manager says they want to be on the cutting edge—except if it means sticking out their necks out for an unfamiliar process or idea. If you’re a decision-maker, maybe even you have felt that hesitation: “I want to be innovative, but what will happen to my reputation if I fail?” Being paralyzed by the status quo never drove anyone forward. But bridging the gap between talking about innovation and actually making it a part of how you do business takes more than just heart. It requires methodically incorporating failure into your workflow. That doesn’t mean making it “safe to

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Marketo Certified Expert Study Guide Part 5: Program Fundamentals

Part 4: Implementation & Operations Up Next: Pass the Exam MCE progress bar: 100% Program Fundamentals MCE Study guide topics Congratulations, you made it to the last section Welcome to the final MCE study guide page. You have made it this far and you only have one more large section to go. The Program Fundamentals portion of this exam is demanding. It is important to understand all the program fundamentals that are outlined here but also the information that lives in the Marketo documentation. This topic list comes from internal research as well as direct from Marketo. It is best to use this in congruence with all the other resources when preparing for the MCE exam. Review the A/B testing functionality in the email program, including the dashboard, and know the steps to set up a subject line test Create the email program within the desired location of Marketo. Once

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Marketo Certified Expert Study Guide Part 4: Implementation & Operations

Part 3: Targeting & Personalization Part 5: Program Fundamentals MCE progress bar: 80% Marketo offers a plethora of tools for marketers to use, and it is important to understand all of them. Implementation and Operations is one of the largest categories on the Marketo Certified Expert exam. That’s why we are going to do a deep-dive into it here. The topics are going to range from admin functions down to local program-level execution. Keep in mind that studying the documentation Marketo provides is still a great idea. Use this study guide as a tool for when you need to learn the more granular details. Implementation & Operations Understand operational emails versus promotional emails Operational emails are transactional and do not require an unsubscribe link. Operational emails are emails that are explicitly solicited in response to a requested service. Some examples of operational emails include: an order confirmation email, a webinar

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Marketo Certified Expert Study Guide Part 3: Targeting & Personalization

Part 2: Analytics & Reporting Part 4: Implementation & Operations MCE progress bar: 60% Marketo has a powerful set of targeting and personalization tools that can help standardize processes and make critical alignment attainable for every campaign you launch. Targeting and personalization consists of: Tokens Segments Dynamic Content Script tokens Lead tokens And many more features with countless ways to standardize your Marketo instance Targeting & Personalization Understand how inherited tokens work Tokens are hierarchical. Inherited tokens reside in a parent folder or program. Programs and folders existing within the parent folder or program inherit all the tokens of their parent. When looking at the Tokens tab of a program or folder, inherited tokens are located underneath a separate “Inherited Tokens” heading. You can overwrite tokens inherited from a parent program/folder at the child program/folder level. Like inherited tokens, overwritten tokens are located underneath a separate “Overwritten Tokens” heading in

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Marketo Certified Expert Study Guide Part 2: Analytics & Reporting

Part 1: Lead Management Part 3: Targeting & Personalization MCE progress bar: 40% In this section of Solomon’s study guide to the Marketo Certified Expert exam, we look at the available analytics and reporting in Marketo. The key takeaway when looking through this section is to know what each report can be used for. The standard reports available in Marketo are as follows: Campaign Activity Report Campaign Email Performance Report Company Web Activity Report People Performance Report/ Lead Performance Report People by Status Report People by Revenue Stage Report Landing Page Performance Program Performance Social Influence Engagement Stream Performance Report Report type Overview Web Page Activity Report Email Link Performance Analytics & Reporting Know how custom columns work in a report Custom columns is a special filter available in the Setup tab for specific reports. It enables a user to filter by an additional column. The reports are: Lead performance

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Marketo Certified Expert Study Guide Part 1: Lead Management

Overview: MCE Study Guide Part 2: Analytics & Reporting MCE progress bar: 20% This study guide is meant to help someone prepare for the Marketo Certified Expert exam. There are many ways to study for this exam, but making sure you understand every high-level topic is critical for passing. The exam is scenario-based, and the exact questions asked are randomized. You may note that some of the answers are pretty easy, and this study guide does not cover absolutely everything. Its purpose is to lower the amount of study time it takes to pass, while cutting directly to the source for some of the tougher, more granular answers. Now, let’s jump into our first topic. Lead Management Understand approaches to resetting the score of a lead This is done using a smart campaign. Within the list of available flow steps, there is a filter called “Change Score.” Use =0 to

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