Kickstart your digital marketing career with a powerful portfolio that opens doors to your dream job. Discover how to create an impressive digital marketing portfolio that will set you apart from the competition.
The proliferation of the internet has led to people spending significant time on the web. From social media to YouTube videos, people now have more information that’s influencing their buying behaviours. In response to this, firms have doubled down on their marketing activities online.
Due to this shift in marketing, people with exceptional digital marketing skills are highly sought after. That means you will likely encounter stiff competition when applying for a digital marketing job. Consequently, you must differentiate yourself. A marketing portfolio can help you prove that you possess the skills a recruiter is looking for.
Here is a guide to help you put together a compelling digital marketing profile and land that dream position.
Benefits of Having a Digital Marketing Portfolio
Everyone looking for a digital marketing job knows that an exceptional resume is non-negotiable if you want to get hired. But, how else can you stand out beyond your resume? Enter the digital marketing profile. Creating a marketing profile is a bonus that can bring you closer to your dream job. Here’s how.
1. You Can Make an Unforgettable First Impression
A significant draw to having a marketing profile is that it goes beyond what a resume can do by way of showing your skills are more than just theoretical. When an employer is thumbing through a stack of resumes, the applicants are in many ways the same. Unless one applicant’s documentation jumps out at an employer, they are liable to forget about you.
A digital marketing profile helps flesh out your accomplishments so that an employer can get a feel for who you are. Through the marketing profile, anyone looking to give you a job can get a sense of your personality. They can also have a practical idea of the skills you possess, which is much better than simply stating what you can do on your resume.
Since you are applying for a digital marketing position, an online profile can help an employer see you understand the value of branding yourself.
2. Easy Access
Conventional wisdom holds that if you are looking for a job, you ought to make it easy for an employer to say yes to you. Part of doing that includes being accessible no matter the time of day. Thus, you need to showcase your skills at the tap of a screen to remain a competitive candidate.
With all the tools and platforms technology offers today, you have no excuse for not having an online marketing profile that speaks on your behalf. Furthermore, if you are applying for a digital-oriented position, you must show your mastery of online tools and a profile helps you do just that.
3. Always Show Your Current Skills
By its very nature, an online marketing profile makes it easy for you to add content whenever you want. Therefore, every time you do an outstanding job and want to showcase it to potential employers, you can add it to your profile. The more current your work, the more employers see the new skills you are developing and might want to hire you.
4. It Supports Your In-Person Skills
Having a digital marketing profile can be extremely useful during a face to face job interview. As you walk the interviewer through your career’s journey, you can illustrate it using a digital profile. That then helps you stand out from the other applicants interviewing for the same role.
How to Craft a Digital Marketing Portfolio
It is one thing to know why you need a digital marketing profile when applying for a digital marketing job, and quite another to understand how to build it. Here are some standout ideas you can use in creating a profile that shows your marketing skills to the world.
1. Decide on What You Want Others to See
A powerful portfolio is one that speaks clearly to the person studying it. Even though you have more space on your online profile to add content than in your resume, you need to be ruthless with what you put on it for brevity’s sake.
For your portfolio to deliver exceptional results, it needs to help people understand a few basics about you. These include who you are, other organisations you’ve worked for in the past, your previous work, among others.
The beginning point in learning how to make a portfolio is to decide what you want it to achieve. For example, if your focus is on crafting a portfolio that will bolster your resume, then the content should support all the qualifications you have on your digital marketing resume.
2. Select Your Best Work
Your portfolio is not the place to put all the work you’ve ever done before. As a creative, you are only as good as your last project. Thus, you need to select your best work that is relevant to the position you are trying to land.
For example, if you were in charge of print marketing but want to break into digital marketing, your portfolio should focus on the latter. You want to assure an employer that you have the right skill set for digital marketing.
Once you’ve picked the work you want to include on your online portfolio, ensure that you open and close strongly. That means you place your best work first and put the second most excellent job at the end.
When you are making a selection, try to avoid any work that is more than five years old. You want a portfolio that reflects your current abilities to an employer. The only exception here would be if you were the brains behind a very famous or high-impact campaign.
3. Design a User-Friendly Site
User experience is hugely critical in how impactful any website is and your portfolio site is no different. When you are designing the site, focus on ways you can reduce the rate a user has to click, scroll and read on it. Make it easy for a recruiter to find the information they need without navigating multiple menus.
Incorporate intuitive design into your portfolio site to make you come across as more professional. For example, when you opt to use an image to indicate a campaign you worked on, make it clickable. You can also explore using tiles, but only after you make it obvious what each tile stands for.
If you are an entry-level digital marketer, the best design approach to use is a chronological one. Open it with your most recent work going backwards for a recruiter to see the evolution of your talent.
For seasoned digital marketers, an industry-specific approach is a much better choice. It allows your portfolio to get right at the heart of the application for the particular opening.
Does your portfolio contain different types of projects? Create categories that will enable a recruiter to understand each project without wading through an endless queue.
4. Stay On-Brand
One thing that should never happen when a recruiter visits your online portfolio is for them to be unclear on what its about. Not only will they likely pass you over for the role, but you will look like a marketer who doesn’t understand how to be on-brand.
To make sure an employer will immediately grasp what your portfolio is about, your home page needs to be concise. Create a tagline to go with your logo on the home page. Your summary of the qualifications you hold should be no more than two sentences. You can expound on this on your ‘About Me’ page.
5. Use Visuals to Make It Pop
An unattractive portfolio site is one that works against, and not for, you. That’s because to a potential recruiter it will make you come across as uncommitted and not thoughtful. Two qualities employers dread.
Thus, you should look for high-quality images and graphics you can use to bring the message home creatively. Try to use images that convey more information so that you can use less text.
A pro tip here is to select high-quality images that will be consistent with the rest of the materials you’ve used in your job application.
6. Use a Call-To-Action
The ultimate point of your online portfolio is to get a recruiter to hire you. Therefore, you need to include a call-to-action that can trigger their reaching out to you.
A call-to-action can be as simple as using an ‘enquire now’ button or the traditional contact form. Where you locate the call-to-action link will matter. Place it in a spot on the page that makes it intuitive to use. That will help you capitalise on the excellent work the rest of your online portfolio has done in convincing an employer to hire you.
Don’t be afraid to pair your call-to-action with an appropriate inbound tactic. For example, you can feature buttons to encourage a recruiter to explore your social media pages.
Make Your Portfolio Stand Out and Win Your Dream Job
The internet has shifted the ways in which people buy products and services. To counter this change, businesses are investing heavily in digital marketing, making the competition for such positions stiff.
When you are applying for a digital marketing position, you should add a digital marketing portfolio to your resume. Doing so will differentiate you from other applicants and prove you have what it takes.
Are you looking for a new job? Browse our specialised digital marketing job board platform home to firms looking for people just like you.
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