2024 was huge for us. We worked with 30 high-profile clients, scored the biggest HubSpot license sale in the CEE region, and generated nearly 600 leads for 6Minded with our content. We also earned two HubSpot accreditations.
We’ve been grinding hard with the CRM and Design and Dev teams to achieve these wins while working in the trenches, pursuing the third HubSpot Accreditation badge for Content Experience.
Spoiler: we nailed it. 🎉 The journey? A wild ride. Twists, bumps, and unexpected turns worthy of House Targaryen's intricate lineage. Of course, we wouldn't have made it safe—and victorious—if it wasn't for two amazing customers who trusted us with the content work ⭐ Pwrteams and ⭐ GoodVision. They played a key part in our joint success!
Every HubSpot digital marketing agency has a certification. It's like a participation trophy for marketers. No shade—I've got my fair share. At 6Minded, we stay updated with constant re-training. And being HubSpot certified means you're current with the system's current features and the latest in sales and marketing.
But effort-wise, most can do it. It takes a few hours to watch HubSpot Academy videos and answer some questions correctly.
Accreditation? That’s a whole different ball game. It’s not just about sitting through a test; it proves you can design and manage complex and effective content strategies with HubSpot by verifying your experience, projects, briefs, and results.
So how does HubSpot figure out who’s a legitimate expert? Through a two-stage, painstaking process taking months, and a list of requirements spanning a 30-page slide deck.
And it's not for anyone, either. To even join the participant list:
Here is the complete list of certificates needed to apply for the HubSpot Content Experience Accreditation. In total, 35 certificates are required and must be distributed among a maximum of five people. [Source: HubSpot]
HubSpot Academy's free certificates cover everything from automation to digital marketing, sales, and customer care. We're a Diamond HubSpot partner, so yep, we're all certified.
If you're a HubSpot user, check out our Partner profile for nearly 30 categories of certificates we hold. Are you not a user yet? What's stopping you? Drop us your details, and we'll help you sell and excel!
So, getting past the first prerequisite hurdle and obtaining all required certifications might not have seemed a big deal since we're always brushing up on our skills.
But this time, we were racing against the clock. 🐉
We had less than six weeks to snag 12 certificate types for the 2024 HubSpot Content Experience Accreditation, with at least three team members needed for each one. And while we're great in marketing, Salesforce Integration or Objectives-Based Onboarding aren't really our thing.
So, despite being highly certified, our Content Team was missing most of the 35 badges we needed, and each one took hours to finish, plus sometimes a few days to get practical tasks scored.
On top of that, the certification interface was a horror. Don't even get me started on the badge name circus—HubSpot Marketing Software, HubSpot Marketing Implementation, HubSpot Marketing Hub Software Certification—now, determine which is which. Times three!
And yet, that wasn’t even the low point. Deciphering the byzantine team certification interface to figure out who holds what was an ordeal in itself. Try to make a head or tail of a sprawling matrix that demands several screen scrolls to navigate. Each row? A person and their certificates. The details? Encoded in tiny badges that require hovering to reveal a tooltip with the certificate name. (HubSpot, you can do better UX than that!).
But what counts is that we pulled it off. It cost me sleep, and I’m pretty sure the team is done with me hounding them about deadlines and reminders.
There were hiccups—like the Salesforce certification. Tough cookie🍪. A few retakes were involved. But we got there, collecting every required badge—and probably a few extras, just to cover our bases.
At this point, I’m convinced I’ve deserved a HubSpot certificate in certificate management. 😅
It may resemble a bingo sheet, but it's a snippet of the endless HubSpot certification screen at 6Minded—unlabeled, unnamed, and tough to navigate. I was dreaming about this grid all through August and September. Those weren't good dreams.
Meeting the certificate prerequisites was a hassle. A necessary one, sure, but not the key to victory. What mattered was showing we could run content campaigns. The whole point of accreditation is to prove you know your way around content marketing and can think ahead.
For round one, we had two options: present a detailed brief of a project using HubSpot or submit a HubSpot website we built. We did both, showcasing what we did for our stellar client, Pwrteams, experts at putting together dedicated tech teams.
We laid out how our collaboration started in late 2023. It began with creating a Marketing Hub, developing a content strategy, and regularly producing content. Then, it snowballed into a website relaunch to match their growth and ambitious goals.
Specifically, we provided the following information:
To achieve our numbers, we needed a solid plan. We shared the following materials with HubSpot to outline our content strategy:
For the website part, we provided the following project documentation:
A glimpse of the client's website wireframe crafted by our Content Team in UXPin, along with the updated copy. After approval, the Design Team developed mockups featuring dynamic elements in Figma.
After submitting our info, we waited—and made it to round two!
This time, the task was to record a 25-minute video for the HubSpot judges, walking them through the project from start to finish. We showcased Pwrteams' website and additionally highlighted our content support for GoodVision, leaders in AI-powered traffic analytics.
In the video, I presented our strategy, main content channels, chosen examples, and the overarching theme connecting everything. I guided the jury through the companies of both clients, explaining their operations and showcasing the types of content they produce and their distribution methods.
Additionally, I provided a brief overview of their social media and HubSpot modules for content marketing, highlighting their strategic approach to digital activities. I further explained our use of Generative AI and Content Hub in projects, offering insights into intelligent, AI-driven content marketing.
I did a few reruns to fit everything into the time limit. Then, I hit submit and… we waited. A lot.
The deadline was mid-November. Results? January 10th. Two months of judges reviewing, logging into HubSpot, checking campaigns, and analyzing content quality.
When I said this accreditation was earned, I meant it.
Finally, on January 10th, the email arrived. We got it! 🎉
A still from the video I recorded for the accreditation, going through the project tooling, stages, and goals.
Another badge, another win. This one joins the Clutch Global Award, HubSpot Impact Award, two other accreditations, and the latest AVA Digital Award (more on that soon!).
Sure, they highlight our skills in content marketing, HubSpot design, and CRM integration, but they aren't the goal. Rather, they're the outcomes of practicing our approach to what we do—customers first, always learning, always improving.
Awards are great, but they don’t change us. Though, I’ll admit, I’m finally getting some sleep 😴🛌