The Salesforce Marketing Cloud consultant certification is very popular in the cloud computing industry. This isn’t a beginner certification; to earn it, engineers must be well-engrossed with marketing cloud products and have extensive knowledge of making the best configurations suitable for businesses.
Engineers with a marketing cloud consultant certification on their resume become more valuable to employers and have a higher chance of commanding much better compensation. However, earning this role requires you to show expertise in design practices, deployments, and implementation of unique solutions for customers.
To help you straighten out the path to achieving this certification, we’ve curated five simple steps to help you become a better marketing cloud consultant.
How to Become a Better Marketing Cloud Consultant
1. Understand the Marketing Cloud Consultant Exam
The best way to ensure you emerge successful at the end of your certification exam is to understand the scope of the certification you wish to tackle. Like most IT certification exams, the marketing cloud consultant exam consists of 60 multiple-choice questions, and you’re expected to tackle these questions within a maximum of 105 minutes.
To pass the exam, you need a minimum of 67%. Unlike most certifications, this is relatively cheap, it costs 200 US Dollars (tax included) and an exam retake fee of $100. Before you can sit for the marketing cloud consultant exam, you must have passed the Salesforce Certified Marketing Cloud Administrator credential.
2. Register for a Reputable Training / Course
According to the certification body, you need at least six months of prior implementation experience and or at least five implementation projects, including hands-on training as a salesforce marketing solutions architect.
You can self-study and follow the official exam guide, but this isn’t always very effective. Enrolling in an expert-led course is one of the best ways to grasp the knowledge required to acquire this certification quickly.
The certification provider, Trailhead, has many expert-led courses you can register for. Some of these courses are priced as low as $75, while some go as high as $2,500 (USD).
3. Always Take Practice Tests / Exams
Completing the recommended training and course materials doesn’t guarantee success on D-day. You might be fully equipped with all the knowledge needed to tackle the cert, but getting a first-hand feel of the questions can help increase your success probability.
Taking practice tests will give you a practical approach to tackling the 60 multiple-choice questions you’ll have on exam day. Practice tests are completely harmless irrespective of the outcome of the test; the sole aim is to provide you with an insight into the exam.
Practice tests can help you practice your exam strategy and tactics to implement them most efficiently. For example, taking a practice test can help you organize your time management and attention to detail and test your strengths and weakness of your knowledge.
If it’s possible, you should take multiple tests to familiarize yourself with the exam environment of the Salesforce marketing cloud consultant.
4. Join the Trailblazer Community
In the IT industry, going solo is not the most efficient way to improve your knowledge and skills. If you plan on taking the Salesforce marketing cloud consultant certification, joining a community of fellow Trailblazers can be very helpful.
In the Trailblazer community, you meet like-minded folks who are equally as motivated and can keep you motivated and in check throughout your learning journey. If you’re lucky enough, you might find a mentor willing to devote time to help you become a better marketing cloud consultant.
Finding a mentor isn’t always easy at first but finding a study partner is much easier. With a few right questions and answers, you can interact with some of the most interesting people who look forward to becoming better marketing consultants.
Experts in the community can also provide you with insights and advice to help you pass the certification.
5. Maintaining your Certification
The one thing that is constant in the IT world is change. Everything evolves at a light speed, and what you learned a while back might become more or less irrelevant as technology evolves.
After passing the Salesforce marketing cloud consultant exam and acquiring your certification, you’ll be qualified to operate as a Salesforce Marketing Cloud Consultant. You might choose to maintain this role as a long-term position or push further, acquire more certifications to move on to much more advanced positions.
However, passing the test is one thing; what’s even more important is retaining the value of your certification. As we said earlier, the IT world moves at lightspeed; if you stick only to the knowledge you acquired during your certification days, you’ll inevitably find yourself lacking behind.
Trailhead has several maintenance courses that must be completed yearly. Each certification has a Maintenance module and a deadline for completion. If you don’t complete your maintenance module within your deadline, any certificates relating to that module will expire.
Conclusion
The salesforce marketing cloud consultant certification is highly respected, and acquiring it would serve as a launch pad for your cloud consultancy career. In this article, we’ve highlighted five ways you can become a better cloud consultant; feel free to implement them to become a better marketing cloud consultant.