Even though they boast more than half a million members, the best kept secret in marketing education is still MarketingProfs. Since 2000, they have been dishing out reliable marketing advice. From the best marketers in the industry, MarketingProfs features tips and advice. Conferences, podcasts, reports, newsletters, articles, webinars, guides, and other formats are used to dispense wisdom.

And, MarketingProfs does not just take any “Johnny come lately” marketer. Only the best of the best can pass the strict vetting process. From newfangled concepts like email marketing and social media to classic concerns such as public relations and branding, they provide exhaustive coverage of all aspects of marketing.

Here we provide an extensive review of MarketingProfs’ services to help you determine if they are right for your marketing learning needs.

About MarketingProfs

At the turn of the millennium, a marketing academic named Allen Weiss decided to found a place where both marketing professionals and marketing professors could communicate. The plan was to create an arena where marketing gurus could exchange ideas and knowledge and thus learn from each other. In the fourteen years since their founding, Marketing Profs has built quite the empire:

• 18,641 articles
• 451 seminars
• 121 podcasts

All of the content available on their site comes from giants in the marketing field. The top topics on the site include email marketing, marketing strategy, and social media. And, their most popular MarketingProfs University courses are “Content Marketing Crash Course,” “Social Media Marketing: The Full Monty,” and “Marketing Writing Bootcamp.”

Top Features of MarketingProfs

There are both free and paid features on MarketingProfs.com. I am going to start by going over what you can access for free. In the next section, I will cover what you get when you are willing to pay a little extra.

By evaluating the free version, you can get a taste of what MarketingProfs has to offer. Some of the content you can see with the free Basic version is similar to that of what PRO members see. You have access to the article library. Unfortunately, each time you click on an article, you get a pop-up box that tries to get you to sign up.

You will receive newsletters each week filled with quality content once you have signed up. Within the broad scope of marketing, MarketingProfs pinpoints your interests. Based on your unique preferences, they will send you article suggestions. You can choose to get these emails on a weekly basis, but they are set up to come to your inbox every day by default.

Access to the weekly podcasts featuring marketers in a variety of areas is one of the best free features. The podcasts are not pushed in the marketing materials, so you need to look for them. You get real advice from the trenches and actionable insights from the extensive library.

You can either download the podcasts to listen to on your smartphone while in transit, or they can be played on your browser. Plus, they are nice and short at 30 minutes.

Known elsewhere as “discussion forums,” the Know-How Exchange is another great free feature. More than a quarter million answers and 50,000 questions are housed in the Know-How Exchange. You can assign points to each question using MarketingProfs unique system. Experts who come up with the best answers earn points, which provide an indication of their level of expertise.

You can open the door to job opportunities and build your credibility by answering these questions. The job and membership directories are also found in the Know-How Exchange. Based on their specialty and experience, you can search for other marketers in the membership directory and contact them. This is a great tool for job searching, business development, networking, and hiring.

MarketingProfs Prices

To become a PRO member, it costs $279 per year. That works out to about $25 per month and under a buck a day. If you have a group of three or more employees who need access to MarketingProfs, you can get a PRO Team membership for about $167 per employee per year.

Above and beyond the Basic features, you get the following with PRO:

You do not have to sit through advertisements or share your information with marketing companies to view the more than 400 90-minute seminars you get full access to with the PRO membership. Chocked full of the greatest and latest marketing advice and techniques, MarketingProfs is constantly recording new seminars.

Each year, 30 to 40 new online seminars are added for PRO members to get live access. You can either watch them live as they are taking place or later, since they are all recorded. Marketing guru Guy Kawasaki and other prominent guest speakers appear in the PRO seminars.

For those interest in investing in online courses and going the extra mile, there is MarketingProfs University. In the interrelated disciplines that make up the marketing mix, MarketingProfs University provides comprehensive and inexpensive online training. You get ten to seventeen hours of instruction with each course teaching you what you need to build, measure, and plan successful marketing programs.

Enrolling in a single course costs you $595, but you can knock that price down a couple ways. When you enroll in three or more classes at once, the price decreases to $230 each. Also, if you are a PRO member, you get 40 percent off of all of the courses.

Criticism of MarketingProfs

I personally really enjoyed using MarketingProfs. I used the Basic version and took full advantage of the free seven day trial of the PRO membership. I learned a lot in that time. I did not like that I was required to share my personal information with them to get full access to the free content, but it really is a small price to pay.

I searched the marketing discussion forums online to find out what the buzz is about MarketingProfs. For the most part, there were only positive comments and recommendations for MarketingProfs. The only negative comments I saw appeared to be spammy posts about how the user had a better service, but these posts appeared to be unfounded.

Customer Support

There is a toll free number and support email if you ever encounter problems with MarketingProfs. Via both methods, we had prompt responses to our questions when we tried them. For your marketing questions, you can also get substantial support from the Q&A board. If you take the initiative to take advantage of it, you will find that MarketingProfs’ support is very solid.

Conclusion

There is always some quality activity or event going on that can appeal to anyone on MarketingProfs no matter what you are looking to do and no matter what time of day it is. To help you meet your goals, MarketingProfs has high quality, rich marketing content no matter what stage of growth your business is in or what stage your marketing career is in.

With PDFs, articles, podcasts, videos, and just about any other format, they serve up learning content no matter what topic you are interested in. One thing you will notice when you start getting the weekly or daily emails is that they are continually adding exciting and fresh content from the top experts in the field.

For marketers old and young, MarketingProfs is the ultimate companion guide. It is the first membership we would recommend if you are considering or are already engulfed in a career in marketing.