hi, my name is Ed, Chief Marketing Officer here at Career Foundry, and today I've been told I'm going to be reviewing three digital marketing portfolios from around the web. Now, my role as Chief Marketing Officer, I've interviewed for a broad range of different jobs, whether it's designers or developers or product managers or marketers. And I find with a lot of the different roles and techs, such as designers and developers, they almost always submit a portfolio with that application. And with digital marketing applications, typically it's more like 20 or 30 percent. But those 20 or 30 percent have a huge advantage over their peers because obviously I can dive into the portfolio and really see the kind of work they've done in the past and the kind of experience that they've got. So for me, this is a shift that I'd really like to see in the digital marketing industry, that every time I get an application, there's also a portfolio attached, exactly the same way that as if I get an application for a UX design role or a UI design role, then there's

always have a portfolio to reference. So that begs the question, what should an ideal digital marketing portfolio actually contain? Well, I think it can be broken down to six things. First of all, who you are. So, this means a specific sentence about your current professional focus and maybe a couple of sentences about your professional background. Secondly, the kind of skills and services you provide. Thirdly, the kind of tools and systems that you're acquainted with or an expert in. Next up are samples of your work, and this could be from your educational background, it could be from work that you've done for a freelance client, it could also be work that you've done in-house potentially, and this generally makes up the body of the portfolio and is the most important thing as it's the thing that the hiring manager and potential clients really dive into to see how you work. Next up is proof points, and this can also take a few different forms. It could be the actual marketing collateral that you produced during these projects, it could be testimonials from happy clients.

could also be data points from successful campaigns, or it could be a mixture of all of those things, and finally the contact details. So how is a hiring manager or a potential freelance client ideally going to reach out to you? So when I'm reviewing portfolios, regardless of the profession, whether it's a UX designer, web developer, or a digital marketer, then I'm always looking for three things or three principles that are fulfilled. One of them is that it's purposeful, another that is specific, and another that it's clear. So what does purposeful mean? Purposeful means that the applicant knows the kind of company and the kind of role that they're aiming for. Are they aiming for a freelance role or an in-house role, and the company that they are applying to? They're looking for startups and small companies or established companies because this is really going to change the nature of the portfolio. They're going for a small company, for example, you're probably going to want to show off a broad skill set, and if you're aiming for a more

established company. They're going to be looking for much more specific, more fragmented roles and expertise in those roles. So, the second principle is being specific. You want to be specific about the exact skill set that you provide and the value that you provide, and potentially also about the industry that you want to get into. So, whether that's edtech or econos, again, these factors really influence the kind of messaging that you have in your portfolio, and potentially the kind of projects that you want to showcase as well. And the final principle is being clear or Clarity, just making sure that the portfolio is presented in a nice, intuitive, and clear way, and that it can be readily navigated by the hiring manager. If there's any complexity or unnecessary complexity there, the hiring manager is going to bounce, and it's going to start looking at other portfolios. You have to consider they might have 60 or 70 to review for any application. So, now you know as a hiring manager what I want to see in a portfolio and the kind of

principles that underlie the production of a good portfolio. Let's dive in and look at our first sample. Okay, so I have a career-friendly blog post here entitled Nine Awesome Marketing Portfolio Examples to Inspire You. What should I do next? Just scroll down to the third one. So, three of nine. Okay, then they, yeah, Diana Mayfield. Yeah, just click on that and just review it. Okay, so I've hit the home page here on the index page. Here I'm seeing emotional analytics. I mentioned the kind of purpose and specificity is important. Here, like I'd say, emotional analytics. I mean, marketing is all about marrying the creative side with the analytical side in order to do an impactful and good job. This really alludes to that. So, it's kind of speaking to my soul as a marketer. And then underneath, I guess we get a bit more specific. I'm a SAS copywriter who discovers what converts. So, immediately I'm told SAS, so software as a service copywriter who discovered conversion-based copy. So, we're

probably talking about website copy or ad copy, and who discovers what converts. Two ways of doing that potentially is kind of upfront with qualitative research, or off the back of testing. So, this is providing me with quite a lot of information, and underneath I have some proof points, so some company logos, I guess, of the companies that she's worked with. And here's a really nice mix, actually, because Drift is a company that's very well known within the marketing industry, so that's a chatbot kind of invented this category of conversational marketing, and the other companies I'm not aware of, I think, but I have to say that is a really good thing to have a mix of companies, some that are very well known and some that are lesser known, because there's a company like Career Foundry that's 120 people or so, we're not obviously at the size of Google or Facebook, and if you only see those logos that kind of might leave you a bit starry-eyed, then maybe we doubt whether this person will have the interest of

working with us. So, this is a good start. If we scroll down, we have this aspect that I think is super important to include in the portfolios: Who are you? And here, the simple way of doing it, obviously, is to provide a photo, a few lines of the professional background. We don't have that so much until in terms of the professional background, but we have the image. And then we have a kind of opinion or bold statement to open up, which is pretty eye-catching. And obviously, it fits the copywriter. So, listen up, copy is powerful. The ability to disrupt your prospect, stop them in their tracks. Maybe this already biases me towards a certain kind of industry. So, it's more kind of attention-grabbing, potentially kind of aggressive messaging. So, I'm thinking more e-commerce or something like that, as opposed to our industry, which is edtech, which is more about kind of gradual trust building and more of a softer approach typically. Scrolling down, then we have the skills and services provided. So, as I mentioned, this is

something that's kind of bread and butter for the portfolio and here actually uh looking at this is a little bit surprising because we're talking about SEO web copy. So this is longer form. Also on the right hand side we have guides that generate uh leads. So again longer form. And then in the middle we have outbound messages that get responses. So here uh this is potentially more conversion-oriented copy. So here for me based upon the kind of messaging at the top of the page versus what's here, there's a little bit of a conflict. Um and I'm realizing now that the services that she offers are broader than first expected. And as we scroll down further, perfect, we have proof points. Um also BP of marketing, someone with status and credibility. We scroll down further, um then we see actually what look like video overviews of the projects that she's worked on. Um maybe I can click into one of those in a moment, but that's fantastic because I can really show you a lot of context and a lot of depth and potentially the

kind of thinking that went into the different projects. Now, ultimately, through the portfolio, you want to see who this person is, but you really want to see and understand how they work to get an idea of whether you would work well together. And then, obviously, you want to see the results of the work, and all these things can be very readily covered and communicated through videos. And then finally, ending up with the social icons here. Um, one point is that I do actually often click through to the social profiles because I'm kind of interested, especially as a digital marketer, whether this person has built up a personal brand. And also, I think it's a bit of a negative sign if this person has their social media profiles featured but has done very little there. So it's really important, just as a very specific example, to uh, to have that attention to detail throughout your portfolio. Everything that is a link could be clicked on, so keep that, keep that in mind. Then, if we scroll back up again, we have work samples, case studies, testimonials. I'm guessing it'd be

interesting to see what the difference is between work samples and case studies. Some case studies it's much more clearly structured and shows our process. If that's the case, then if both is featured, that's really, really good. And on this page, we have a lot of different video overviews. One thing I'd recommend here, if you're building out your portfolio, is just to give the hiring manager a bit more direction and a bit more hierarchy. So, what's the most important or most impressive project? What's the project that you're most proud of and put that front and center? And then if you want to feature more projects, I don't think you need more than two or three, because the hiring manager isn't typically going to go into more than that, but just put them a bit lower down in the hierarchy, however you want to treat that in your UI, and maybe provide a few sentences to explain why this headline project is the headline project. Then finally, we click through to the case studies. Perhaps if we click through to one of these, I would say or

conversion copywriting for travel perks that's been featured a couple of times. And then we open up a PDF, and in this PDF, we have increasing conversions for Europe's fastest growing SAS startup. So super interesting. Again, this suggests that she's used to working within a SAS environment within a high-growth company already conversion-focused. So that's really good background for coming into other growth-oriented companies. And then we have a description of the company, a description of the problem, and then the outcome. So what happened afterwards. And really good, we also have actual metrics. So what was actually achieved by making these changes. That's fantastic because in any marketer, you really want to see the impact of their work, an understanding of that impact. So what action led to this impact. So this is really good. And just one thing, one takeaway here is that I think any case study needs to include a number of different steps. It needs to include the brief, maybe a bit of information about the company that you're working for as well. And then it needs to include

the required outcomes of that project. And then basically the method and approach that you took in order to fulfill those required outcomes. Then obviously the results. So that could be marketing collateral, that could be the kind of images that you've generated or video content. But it could also be the ads that you run. Or as we've seen here, the conversion copy implemented on the website. And ideally, and what's also really, really good here, the results as well of those changes. So just to wrap up on that portfolio, I think it. I thought it was really strong. If I were looking for someone to improve the conversion copy across the website, she would be a great either applicant or in-house for sure, given all the experience with different companies. Or a great freelancer to work with. Okay, so that's the first portfolio reviewed. Um, what should I do next? Um, which I really like more, five or six. I mean, we just did three, three plus three or six. So could do six. Yeah, go ahead and click on it and just review it.

for us, although five does look quite cool, it's a nice, nice retro image there. Yeah, anyway, let's move on to six. That's uh Victoria, uh, games industry digital marketing manager. So, anyone in the games industry, obviously, immediately this is going to appeal to. So, have you, you know, hiring or applying to a specific industry, then just dropping in something like that right at the top immediately thinks, okay, this, this is the kind of person I'm looking for. This is more specific and therefore more relevant than someone that just puts digital marketing manager. If I'm in the games industry. And then, uh, we have the, the image. So, answering that question of who you are to an extent, um, and a headline making people disable Adblock one ad at a time, um, which is, uh, yeah, has some personality to it, um, and has the, the highlights on disabled ad block. These are all kind of, I know it shows a bit of creative copywriting that captures attention. It points to a kind of particular pain point of the digital marketing industry and very likely specifically or or more.

so for the games industry, again, no expert in the games industry, but I can imagine that's a bit more of a problem there. So let's scroll down further. This is me, uh, well-traveled with experience of living in multiple countries. So then we have, uh, I guess a lot of cultural awareness and diversity is what inspires my work. Level things come or not. So they're really just setting the scene. Um, and here again the different areas that I'm guessing she works on. We have that context scrolling down. I create engaging content and empower companies with creative strategies. Yeah, still at quite a broad level. So I'm still asking myself what's her area of focus and what value can she provide really specifically to my business. Yeah, again we have the marriage of creativity and data analytics. Really pleasing to see that kind of dichotomy or assume the dichotomy coming up over and over again. Do more than beautiful copies are more than more than a copyright and study measure continuously improve. Okay, so you have that analytical aspect also referencing the kind of cyclical process.

of digital marketing and of so many Tech roles as well. We can see projects and collaborations again. Here we have a few logos, a bit of low contrast there on the logo on the background, and some blog posts as well. I always think it's cool if there's some kind of content production. Also, not only does it show a kind of interest in content production and in maybe building a personal brand, but it also suggests that this person is trying to kind of stay at the forefront of their industry and maybe even be a bit of a thought leader in the industry as well. Navigation isn't quite as clear, I think, as on the previous site. Always good, I think, to have that top nav because people are so used to going there to get where they need to go. If we enter the portfolio section, you can see some different marketing collateral, and then you can see the various different projects that she's worked on. Not so much hierarchy here, a little bit like in the previous portfolio as well. Always good just to help the hiring.

manager and navigate them where they need to go. Uh, let's click on this slightly kind of distorted Facebook logo here. Um, my finally Financial, uh, creating social media templates. So, this is something that would be super useful for a lot of companies to facilitate their social media output. And if we dive into the first page of the case study, then it gives some context as to the aim, so the required outcomes they were looking for someone to not only produce these templates but also to generate a strategy and do keyword research. To be honest, like with the connection between good research and what looks like Instagram content is potentially a bit tenuous versus other ways of doing research for Instagram that might be a bit more impactful. Looking at what other content is really performing well in that particular category, what's gaining traction, which formats are working might be an approach that I would take. Um, and then if we scroll down a little bit further, you see the different kind of templates that she's created. What I like here, I mean everything looks very consistent there.

seems to be a pattern behind what she's doing um, and then she has a few words here about the kind of strategy that she implemented um, and the result here is kind of very generic. The client was happy, completely believable, but again, especially with social media, that the data is quite readily available once the strategy has gone live. So, uh, what was the result of this? What kind of optic engagement was there? Uh, how many followers, maybe what's the kind of before and after as we saw in the previous portfolio would be fantastic to see as well. Um, generally, if we go back to the portfolio site, my feeling is, uh, that this person has this broader scope. Um, and one potential criticism is, as I mentioned, it's kind of positive that she was focused on the games industry in the portfolio section. That didn't seem to be so much or so much that it was obvious that was, uh, directly tied to the games industry, and I think that's obviously quite quite important. Um, but yeah, has this kind of broad scope. Um, so for a smaller company just

starting off um could be a really interesting person to bring on as a freelancer or a hire um but doesn't show to me this level of kind of specificity that we saw to a larger extent in the previous portfolio and definitely something as your career develops that I'd really encourage that you show off these kind of deep expertise in one particular area in your portfolio. Okay, so that's uh that wraps it up for that portfolio so I'll come back to the to the blog post uh and then you can tell me what uh what I'm obliged to do next. Okay, so let's uh click through to Adelina's project so this is I guess a little bit different to the portfolios that we looked at before in the sense that this really focuses on a single case study or single project rather than the entire portfolio introducing the the person the digital marketer behind those projects there are a few sentences here um describing the backgrounds added in this background that she used to be a safety advisor has made this career change into digital marketing graduated.

back in 2021, why she decided to take the Career Founder Digital Marketing Program. Then, uh, what she most enjoyed about it, and what she most enjoyed about creating this portfolio project, and then what she wants to do in the future. And that's to, uh, get this focus or develop this focus on branding and content creation. So, more by the sounds of it on the kind of non-technical side of marketing as opposed to the more kind of, uh, rigidly performance or analytics side. Um, so that's super interesting background. Let's dive into the project itself and see what it's all about. If we scroll down a little bit further, we can see that the portfolio project itself is focused on a product launch for a company called Green Gatherings. Front launch is an interesting area to choose because I think, uh, it's very different to building a channel. If you're building organic traffic through a blog, you build a kind of system that then just repeats through a curse. And when the product launch is a little bit different because you have to produce content that

increases awareness dramatically, and also inherently within it, it kind of increases excitement around this product release, and I think that's in many ways a lot more difficult to do than building out these systems. First of all, to give some context, that looks like she has a brand overview, a few words about green Gatherings, even its position as a company. Apparently, what they do is produce a product line of sustainable and biodegradable picnic supplies. Then we have her approach, so the fact that it started with market analysis, this is fantastic, shows that she's acquainted with the process. Laying down the foundation of strong qualitative and quantitative research. Again, a few more words about market research, the target market, which seems pretty specifically defined, and also defining, and this is super interesting, the ideal distribution channels, are the most popular platforms, because this immediately tells us, okay, we're going to launch a product, and we're going to produce marketing collateral. Which are the channels that we want to go live on are not already starting to shape this early on in.

the case study then um talking about some secondary or third-party research. Industry research, obviously, you don't have to do everything yourself. There's already almost everything, there's already a ton of information, uh, carried out by different companies, different institutions, and things which is already public on the internet that you can go to to give you that Foundation. Then we have the uvp, unique value proposition, of green Gatherings, which is to make biodegradable products that are accessible, fun, and give back to the mother nature and are perfect for picnics and outdoor gatherings. Um, brand guidelines and messaging, so this is all very clear, nice color scheme that obviously harmonizes with their uvp. Then some brand messaging information by our personas, so this is building on the target market to personify it a little bit to help with the creation of that those marketing materials. Then we have, uh, what looks like the kind of marketing materials that she then produced, a long-form Blog article, for example, um, and what's very nice also a conversion point on that article is so

often missed when people write blog articles. The whole point of writing a Blog article is to bring traffic. Next question is, what do you do with the traffic? Often those two areas of a company are siled. So, uh, someone writes the blog, it brings traffic, but then nothing is done with that traffic because the page itself isn't conversion optimized. So there's some good thought going into this product landing page, so this is detailing the product itself, an email campaign to go with it, and even a keyword analysis as well. Difficulty score is a super important metric and an interesting metric to look at. Essentially, it tells you the amount of competition there is on certain keywords, but there's also red or relatively easy to get metrics on keyword volume and things like that, and how those two interplay is quite important. So that would have been nice to see here to get a more holistic perspective. And even here, this is quite impressive looking at technical SEO metrics by the looks of it, um, before and after. It looks like technical SEO optimization. So this is again a really broad-reaching

Um, page view report in the spike, maybe, is the point of the product launch. So, as I mentioned, that's kind of what you're aiming for with a product launch. Um, it'd be nice to have a little bit more context as to whether that's the case, with a bit more text to explain that. Here, actually, we have one example: welcome email, um, an automated email flow, I guess, and the emails themselves, again, really nicely branded. Okay, here, as I mentioned earlier on with the first portfolio, there's actually, uh, some reflections. So, what would have, um, if she were to go back and do this again, then what would she do differently? Um, I think these kinds of reflections, whether you're in an interview or in your portfolio and things, really show a level of kind of responsiveness and willingness to learn that's only becoming more important, um, in our highs. It's something that we really, really look for. So, if you can demonstrate that up front in your portfolio, something really, really positive. And then a project report as well.

really showing that she's looking back on uh the different deliverables. What was delivered and uh to what level of success. And off the back of that, some recommendations. So this is super super comprehensive. Um and obviously, it's really kind of an end-to-end campaign that it looks like she uh did individually, which in itself is impressive as well. Again, I think uh if I were to add to this a few explanations, uh to help out with the visuals would be good. And then finally, also if possible, um some of those success metrics. Some of those metrics to give them more context to what worked well. So what were the kind of email open rates, uh what were the purchases off the back of that if it's possible to give that information, then it's always good to really detail the impact. But otherwise, um a really interesting project and I think it shows a really broad range of knowledge across digital marketing. So perfect for someone that's kind of looking for that Junior stroke entry-level role and is now choosing which area they would like to specialize.

in that brings us to the end of the portfolio reviews. As you can see, those three principles that I mentioned before are pretty important: to be purposeful, to be specific, to be clear. I think the three examples here did a really nice job, but you can see if you keep those three principles in mind when you're developing your portfolio, then you might avoid some. So if you want to check out those portfolios and more, then check the link to the blog post in the description below. If you're just starting out in digital marketing and are unsure if it's the career for you, we have a free short course that I recommend you sign up to. And if you're at the stage already that you know it's the career for you, you're ready to start building out your portfolio, then the full Career Foundry Digital Marketing Program is perfect because it takes you from beginner to job-ready, and we help you land a job too. If you're enjoying this video, be sure to subscribe to the channel, and if you want more tips on how to build out your

digital marketing portfolio. Then just let us know in the comments below. And last but not least, check out this video here to find out how I would start over in the digital marketing industry if I was starting from scratch all over again.

Create an Effective Digital Marketing Portfolio in 2024

Create an Effective Digital Marketing Portfolio in 2024

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