How to Make Your Digital Marketing Portfolio Evergreen

• Introduction
• Digital marketing portfolio explained
• Is a portfolio a resume?
• What are the 3 types of portfolio?
• How do I create a digital marketing portfolio?
• What should be in a digital marketing portfolio?
• Ways to make my portfolio stand out
• Conclusion

Introduction

How to Make Your Digital Marketing Portfolio Evergreen?

What do I mean by “evergreen”?

Evergreen portfolio is a portfolio that continues to attract employers and readers to click on it long after it has been created.

Portfolios are always associated with writers and artists – a collection of paintings, photographs, or perhaps a folder of poems. The concept, although, is crucial to every career. At its core, a portfolio is a collection of your best work: the projects that show your qualifications, training and experience. For marketing experts, such a collection is important to highlight your particular skill set and professional style. Armed with this resource, you may earn the attention of recruiters, see new job opportunities, and your credibility in the industry. Instead to compile a printed collection of your work, nowadays is better to create a website and put your portfolio online.

When looking for a job, you basically submit a resume and cover letter in hope to presente yourself as the best candidate for the job. But there are many ways to get the attention of digital marketing agencies and one of them is to create a portfolio.

The portfolio is for career growth and job hunting aid among experts, especially creatives. However, a well-designed digital marketing portfolio is an important tool no matter the kind of discipline of marketing you’re in. You might be a social media marketer, content marketer, product manager, marketing analytics specialist, copywriter, UX designer or brand strategist. You have what it takes to build a work portfolio of some kind.

It’s an opportunity to tell potential employers what you do and visually show it. This digital compilation of your work is a visual representation of your skills and capabilities, and how well you use them.

Digital marketing portfolio explained

Digital marketing portfolio is an online portfolio that highlights your best work as a marketer for potential clients and employers to be able to see your best work. It will not only help you get a freelance contract easier.
But it will equally save you the time spent to present your previous work to others during in-person interviews. What you’ve done will be organized and be easily accessible. There is no need to add additional documents or write long emails about your experience.

Why do you need a digital marketing portfolio

It is tempting to see your digital marketing portfolio as a resume but don’t forget that it’s not about presenting all of your work at once. What you should strive to do, is to curate stream of what you’ve created previously in different roles and projects. It’s all about showcasing your best work. It can equally help you show the variety of your skills and experience are.

Benefits of having a digital marketing portfolio

Your resume may only say so much about your capacity as a digital marketer. That’s why it’s veey important for marketing experts to have a portfolio, so they will be able to attract potential clients.

The beauty of having a digital marketing portfolio comes to this: professionalism, visibility, and flexibility.

Having all of your work designed in one organized area is a great way to create a good first impression with potential clients. Imagine it as your 24/7 salesman, showing your best work in respective of the time or place.

When your digital marketing portfolio is making the sale for you. It is will be easy for you to find time to learn opportunities that will help grow your career and business, and to work on deliverables for clients that pays.

Also, the large and ever-changing nature of the digital world gives you much flexibility when it comes to how you build your digital marketing portfolio. You don’t have to use just one format or style. You will be able to update your portfolio regularly, while it keeps attracting clients like clockwork.

Is a portfolio a resume?

A portfolio and resume are two different things entirely.

A resume is a piece that summarizes with words your skills, work experiences and education on one or two pages. It would state with a few sentences about the work you have done. For instance, “Creative digital ads for clients for local campaign.” A portfolio would show samples and clips of the actual digital ads used in the campaign.

Basically, portfolios come in two forms – print or digital. Before now, designers and creative experts would carry a print i.e., physical portfolio with them to interviews. This would give an employer the opportunity to go through your clips/samples to get a feel of the style/quality of your work. Sometimes, a candidate may have a very nice portfolio that they will keep after the interview was complete. In other words, they may not give it to the employer. Other times, you would create a little version of the portfolio that will be easily reproduced. In this case, you would leave a copy behind after the interview for the employer.

Nowadays, digital portfolios are more common today. There are too much content management systems and tools that will make creating a website for a portfolio easy and quick. Creative experts may include photos or images that show their work. They will equally link to websites or other digital works they have worked on. This allows the portfolio to be shared through email easily.

If it’s your very first time to create a portfolio, look online to see portfolio samples. There are different ways to make a portfolio and you will need to find the one that best suits your needs. Above all, always keep samples of your work.

What are the 3 types of portfolio?

There are different ways to describe the types and purposes of online portfolios. For now, let’s look at these three types: developmental, reflective, and representational (showcase) portfolios.

Developmental portfolios

A developmental digital portfolio can be used by you as a log or journal of things accomplished or created over time.

Reflective portfolios

A reflective digital portfolio is a portfolio that include reflection on the content and learning, how it was developed, and what it means to you.

Representational (Showcase) portfolios

A representational digital portfolio is intended to showcase your achievements and mastery in a particular area.

In the world of professional, especially in technology-related areas, representational portfolio sites are a powerful equipment, and may often replace a traditional resume. They allow their owners to showcase their skills and achievements, instead of just listing them. Currently most potential employers conduct online searches for job candidates. And a representational portfolio is a powerful way to showcase what you know and what you can do.

How do I create a digital marketing portfolio?

Choose an online platform

Displaying your portfolio online will make you to come across many professional, showing potential employers that you’re good in what you do. To create a website for your digital marketing portfolio. It will be easy to get found by clients and recruiters and have the chance to showcase your work to the public.

A convenient way to begin with your digital marketing portfolio is to create a professional website.

Create a compelling homepage

As you are building your portfolio site, have it in mind that the homepage always form your audience’s first impression of your brand. To make your homepage design perfect, make it clear what you’re from the very beginning. Boldly introduce your site and yourself with a 1-2 sentence statement that simply explains your experts activities and goals.

You should equally make the homepage easy and simple to navigate. Don’t occupy the page with loud images or long chunks of text. Remember that your goal isn’t for your visitors to spend time on the page, but to direct them to other areas of your site. With this, use your homepage to provide links to your portfolio page and work samples.

Additionally, you should include calls-to-action (CTAs) near the top of the homepage. Clickable reading buttons“Contact me” or “Start now” will help bring visitors a step closer to working with you.

Design a strong About page

Never forget to include an About page as well. This is where you will place your professional bio, resume and links to your relevant social media profiles.

This page should be able to summarize your professional experience and equally highlight your achievements in a way that sets you that stand you out in the field. Ideally, it should be able to explain how you got to where you are today and the very purpose behind your work.

Showcase your best samples

Here comes the major part of your digital marketing portfolio: your work samples. Start by creating a different page titled Portfolio or Work. This will be the avenue to present your most successful projects.

Most likely, you’ll have different projects to choose from. Instead of trying to showcase all of them, carefully select the ones that will best represent what you’re capable of. Always remember this, quality is far better than quantity here.

If you’re confuse on which samples to include, then consider the following:

Select examples with great results: As you scan through examples of past projects, start by selecting the ones that yielded the most success.

Show your most innovative and creative ideas: Perhaps you lend your creative ability to orchestrate a project launch, managed a successful rebrand, or introduced a new marketing channel to a client.

Highlighting an integrated marketing campaign: Probably you’ve effectively pulled off a complex digital marketing project. Forr example, a campaign that involve integrated website content, social media content, email marketing and more. You should adequately highlight that in your digital marketing portfolio. This will certainly show that you are a good strategic thinker and understand how to target different users across a wide range of platforms.

Explain your work process

To select your work samples might be the most difficult part of creating your digital marketing portfolio, but it’s not the final stage. To state your experience, you need to explain the context behind every project. You may place these explanations side by side examples of your project, or share some case studies and other insights on your blog.

As you are explaining your work process, equally include the following elements:

• The goals behind very project
• Your role and responsibilities
• The challenges you faced and how you were able to overcome them
• An overview of the process from beginning to end
• The final outputs and results

Make yourself easy to contact

Lastly, encourage your visitors to reach out by placing your contact details in different places across the site. Imagine where people can look for your contact details, and do place the information there. This includes the website’s footer and the About page, as well as a dedicated Contact page.

It’s equally important to include a contact form on your website. This way, visitors won’t stress themselves to copy and paste your email address on a different tab. But will instead send a message directly through your site.

What should be in a digital marketing portfolio?

While creating your digital marketing portfolio save everything and decide later what you need to include in your portfolio. A portfolio is a work that showcase your career related skills and experiences and need to be presented in your own creative style.

The following is basically included in a digital marketing portfolio:

• Statement of Originality: A paragraph that states that this is your work and that it is very confidential. It should equally indicate if any parts of the portfolio should not be copied no matter what. Instance: Statement of originality and confidentiality. This portfolio is the work of Urbizboost. Please do not copy without due permission from the owner. Most of the projects, works, and service are the property of the agency whose name appears on the document. Urbizboost has granted appropriate permission for this product to be used as a demonstration of this work.
• Work Philosophy: A short description of your beliefs, including beliefs about yourself and the industry.
• Career Goals: Your professional goals for the next six years. This should be in line with your industry philosophy.
• Resume: Here add a link to your online resume.
• Skill areas: Identify by stating three to five of your major skill set areas you have that would be relevant for someone in your industry to have. Examples include the following: Management, Computer Skills, Public Relations, Leadership, Accounting, Communications, and Customer Service.

Next add letters of recommendation or testimonials and particular work samples or projects that showcase these skill sets.

Ways to make my portfolio stand out

Digital marketing is a fast growing industry with a vast array of opportunities. It’s an exciting time to build your dream career in the industry. With so many amazing digital marketing jobs out there, and so many well-qualified digital marketer. How will you make your digital marketing portfolio stand out?

Let’s look at the top tips here at Urbizboost that we share with our staff:

Select your work carefully

Don’t make the mistake of throwing all your work into the portfolio. Because one piece of bad work can undermine the entire portfolio, demonstrating your lack of discretions towards best quality. So select projects which best highlight your talent and energy. The people in the industry don’t expect to see every piece of your work you have ever done. But they will love to see a variety of different work that showcase your talent, desire and application. Be careful to present a range of projects that will reveal both your ability and your experience.

When you are pitching for a particular project, like you would do a CV for a role. Be sure that the work you present demonstrates closely the skills you would need to showcase your relevance for the role. Probably you are applying as a digital marketer for a company, display your ability to work with, and interpret SEO, SEM, PPC and the rest.

Choose your path

Probably you may have done some good work for previous clients. If it isn’t the kind of work or style you would like to do in future or suitable for the project in question. Then consider not to include it, or to place more emphasis on the work you have done that leads more towards the direction you are pursuing. Though it is very good to show diversity, you need to focus on appealing to the needs of clients. Together with the work you would be really excited about completing. You are equally likely to be more passionate and confident about these projects, which would shine forth in any face-to-face discussion. You need to showcase you can adapt to the project at hand, but equally reveal your motivations and passions.

Make it personal

Not all of the works you show have to be commissioned work. Show your strength to adapt through demonstrating what step you would take for an existing product or brand. This shows that, you are not only passionate about your work, but equally demonstrates your talent when you are free from the constraints of clients. We would advise you stay away from well known brand. Try doing this with a local store or a company you feel does not have a strong brand or visual identity currently.

Show the story

Each project within your portfolio will have a story of how it came to be. Who commissioned it, what was their target and how did you do it? What did they state that must be changed and how did you find the solutions to it? This way, the potential employer will get an idea of how you would work through the process of discovery, rather than just an end result.

Don’t be afraid to highlight your abilities along the way, as these will help explain your decisions to a client for a certain look or feel. This equally demonstrates your ability to deal with criticism.

Context

Highlight at least project in the environment it is meant for. If you worked with a company to generate more traffic to their site. Try to vary it, to show how well you can adapt and work on a different types of projects.

Introduce yourself

Tell your story. Showcase your passion and give a brief summary of your professional background and experience. Outline your technical and professional skills and tell how you gained them. Be very careful not to make it too long as you need them to focus on your talent and work. This is equally your opportunity to talk about your interest in the a particular project.

When your strong digital marketing portfolio catches the interest of an employer and you are scheduled for a meeting or interview. The most important thing to show is your passion and interest.

Conclusion

As a creative marketing agency, we always encounter and hire experts with huge digital marketing portfolios. The number of amazing creative and striking portfolios on the internet is just overwhelming. And to be able to stand out in a competitive market, there is need to make yours as impressive as you can.