This post does NOT include technical details or lesson on Marketo or CRM. From my personal experience, I am sharing how I improved my Marketo skills over the last 5 years. This post will help marketers who have recently started using Marketo or have a basic understanding and are looking for ways to learn more.
HERE ARE MY RECOMMENDATIONS:
1. Learn from the Marketo Community
The Marketo Community is the best thing ever happened to the Marketing Nation. The community is not just to seek answers when you are stuck. The new discussions help you learn issues which other marketers are facing, and what are the best ways to solve them. You may feel that some discussions are very technical and not related to your marketing processes. But, in future, they may be useful in your current role or a new role. You can easily filter out the discussions which have been solved or unsolved and identify new tactics or tweaks which you can implement in your current marketing process.
Just login to Marketo and start reading Product Discussions, Marketing Discussions and my favorite Marketo Whisperer: Implementation Tips
2. Follow the Champions
Marketo Champions are the smartest Marketo users you will ever meet. No offense to all other exceptionally smart Marketo users who are not a champion yet. We have a separate section in the community, Champions Blog, which has some amazing posts to help you improve Marketo operations. You should also follow them from their profile to get updates in your inbox. I love to follow Josh Hill, Grégoire Michel, and Sanford Whiteman among others.
To get additional feeds, subscribe to the web posts of Josh Hill(https://www.marketingrockstarguides.com), Sanford Whiteman (http://blog.teknkl.com/) and Jeff Shearer (http://www.jeffrshearer.com/)
3. Stay Updated
Did you see the new product announcements at the Marketo Summit this year? There is a lot that is going to change in Marketo this year (better UI, new reporting, improved backend architecture, user experience). I am sure you would receive email notification from Cheryl Chavez with all the details. However, it is always good to know what’s coming in the future.
You should see the following session recordings from the Marketo Summit 2017:
- Product Keynote
- Big Data Architecture and Performance Roadmap
- Sneak peak into the future of Marketo
- Marketo Product Roadmap and Customer Love 2017
4. Become a Tester
All Marketo campaigns are incorrect unless proven otherwise. I get it. You have done something in Marketo many times in the past and are confident of what you have built. BUT you can not skip testing. Testing is not just ensuring that your campaigns are running properly or your assets are rendering across devices. Testing has to include the impact of your new campaigns on your existing processes in Marketo and CRM.
5. Learn to Document - Prototype - Deploy
I have always loved using a Salesforce sandbox for new projects. Sadly, not every Marketo user has access to Marketo Sandbox. For every new project in Marketo, you should start by documentation (preferably with Lucidcharts). Document what needs to be done, how it will be tested (test cases and dummy data for testing), and the impact it will have on the existing processing. Once your document has been reviewed by different stakeholders, build a prototype in the sandbox and test it. If all looks good, develop the complete program and deploy. If you are testing in production, ensure you handle the data carefully and do not disrupt any active program.
If you feel I missed anything, feel free to add in the comments. Happy Learning 
P.S. If you want to learn about Marketo Concepts, you should read this post by Josh Hill.
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