People love to brag.
Especially when it makes them look smart, skilled, or part of an exclusive group.
In my role as Director of Growth Marketing at Wiz, we discovered a ridiculously effective way to turn this impulse into a marketing engine… ↓
Give out personalized certificates 🖼️
We started giving out ‘Cloud Security Excellence’ certificates to people who completed our challenges, and our social shares jumped by 300% almost overnight.
These certificates started spreading like 🔥wildfire🔥 across LinkedIn and X without us asking for a single share.
Let me show you how we did it.
The secret: make THEIR name big, not yours 🤯
When creating certificates, most companies mess up by making their logo too large.
But the real trick is to make the recipient’s name the largest element.
This builds on what I’ve previously called Praise-Led Marketing – when you make others look good, they’ll happily promote you.
People will share when the achievements feel earned 🎖️
Our first big win came from free “capture the flag” security challenges.
Anyone can play without signing up (e.g. EKS Cluster Games, Big IAM Challenge, Prompt Airlines). When they finish, they receive a “Certificate of Cloud Security Excellence” with their name prominently displayed.
We added leaderboards and prizes for extra engagement - but the certificates did most of the heavy lifting.
We’ve repeated this with many challenges.
Each one triggers a fresh wave of certificate shares (even years after the challenge was originally published!)
The exclusive club strategy that sells itself 💎
Not only challenges.
The same approach works with existing customers.
Our “Zero Critical Club” celebrates Wiz customers who eliminate all critical security issues using our platform. When they reach zero, we send a personalized certificate.
We also help members add this to their LinkedIn “Licenses & Certifications” section (which means we get permanent placement on their profiles).
This strategy has been incredibly effective – 50% of our customers have joined the club, and each share drives more companies to want to join. We even list the certificate as a benefit on our website:
Your best distribution channel is sitting in your Slack channels 🚩
Your team members have networks filled with your target audience. We’ve tapped into this with our “Wizfluencers” club for employees active on social media.
Membership comes with perks and a personalized certificate that they gladly share:
The selfie multiplier trick 🤳
“Growth.design” academy takes this even further with their Product Psychology course.
After distributing certificates, they collect selfies from graduates, then use these photos in marketing emails:
This collage of real people proudly displaying certificates creates real FOMO.
To be honest, I immediately wanted to join this successful-looking group.
Why “Certificate Marketing” works so well 🧠
Every personalized certificate creates 3 powerful effects:
🏆 It taps into status-seeking behavior → People love showing off achievements that make them look skilled and successful.
🧲 It creates a sense of community → Certificates make people feel part of an exclusive group of achievers.
✅ It requires absolutely zero effort → Unlike other UGC, users don’t need to create anything - just download the photo and share :)
What I love about this idea is its simplicity: A flattering certificate creates a viral marketing engine by tapping into our natural desire to be recognized and look smart.
📈 The marketing idea: Create (branded) personalized certificates that make people look good professionally → and they’ll share them everywhere.
See you next week ✌️
Tom
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