3 Easy but Effective Tips to Make a Winning Marketing Portfolio

You might associate a portfolio with an artist or writer carrying around their paintings or essays, but actually there are many types of portfolios and different reasons to have them.

An impressive marketing portfolio is a must-have, whether you are starting out as a freelancer, managing a marketing agency, or working your way up the marketing career ladder.

This portfolio is a valuable asset that highlights your skills and achievements. Think of it as a compilation of your best work, which you can show to potential clients or employers.

What is a Marketing Portfolio and Why Do You Need One?

A marketing portfolio shows off your work. It helps save time presenting your work to others. That could be during a call or interview, or when trying to land a new customer.

A curated selection of your most impressive work to date will be easily accessible and organized. You won’t have to write a long email describing your previous experience or work on extra documents.

Create a Marketing Portfolio to Create Leads

A digital portfolio can highlight previous experience in advertising – perhaps community building or email marketing. Emails and blog posts are easier to show than tweaking SEO or working on an online strategy since they are more tangible evidence of your input.

A good marketing portfolio will showcase a variety of skills and accomplishments. Some of the things you might like to include are:

• Visual examples of your previous work
• Strategies you implemented
• Results you have achieved

So what are the best ways to integrate those three factors? Let’s take a closer look.

1. Provide Visual Examples of Your Accomplishments

It is important to create visual stories that stand out, since people are mainly visual by nature. A potential employer or client will want to understand who you are and what you can do for them.

You can see their portfolio is attractive, making use of a pastel palette to keep everything on-brand, with nothing being fussy or flamboyant.

What you see is direct and to-the-point, suggesting the brand is focused on doing a good job without unnecessary fuss. This makes a great selling point for any marketing company.

Remember that the less people need to read, the better. You can show a lot with graphics, and also keep your descriptions concise. Even if you work in a non-visual role, you can showcase other graphics such as prototypes and brainstorming, leaning more heavily on data and charts.

2. Show the Successful Strategies Implemented

Showcase your most successful marketing projects by sharing two or three strategies behind each one. It isn’t necessary to over-explain, but remember this is information that the potential client wants to see.

It can offer a variety of marketing services from website design to social media marketing, for example. You might like to list SEO & SMM & PPC as your main strengths right at the beginning of the portfolio.

This way, the client can see immediately what you are best at, and won’t have to waste time going through the entire portfolio to find this information.

3. Display the End Results Achieved

The whole point of creating an outstanding marketing portfolio is to win new customers. Remember that an excellent marketing portfolio will give you a head start on your competition. Not only are you telling these potential customers that you can do a great job – you are also offering them proof!

As soon as they read figures concerning engagement, organic traffic, ROI and so on, they will have a much better idea of your skill set.

Showing it graphically, like the following example, looks more impressive than simply listing the numbers:

More Tips for a Stellar Marketing Portfolio

So what else can you include in the portfolio? Consider longer blog posts concerning your work, challenges you faced and how you overcame them, details about how you approached a past campaign, and previous client testimonials.

Consider starting off with a short bio, then a resume including context behind your work. Next you might like to add contact details and then samples of your best work. Any awards or recognition received should definitely go in there.

You can add anything which might impress or interest future customers, such as designs, email campaigns, or anything else relevant to your particular role.

Ensure you have permission from your past clients to showcase any work you did for them in your portfolio, else it might be seen as unprofessional.

A marketing portfolio can become stale if it is not regularly updated. Try to update it once a month or quarter with new pieces to keep it current.

Build a stellar marketing portfolio using these tips and soon everyone will want to hire you!