For any potential client, you’re only as good as what your website portfolio states. If they are looking you up for the first time, your online profile should impress them enough to want to engage with you. If you want to attract clients and potential employers, you need to take some time in creating a strong marketing portfolio that will represent you on the web.
As a marketing professional, your work revolves around building brand awareness and making people want to buy into a particular product or service. Nobody knows the importance of promoting your value more than you do. This expertise should translate into how you design your website portfolio. If you look at some of the best marketing portfolio examples here on Strikingly, you will see that most of them have one thing in common: a simple portfolio template combined with a powerful message in the content. You want to aim for this kind of standard (or even surpass it) when creating your own online profile. Here are a few tips to get you started.
1. Your portfolio should answer the question “WHY”
Why are you the right person for the job? The best marketing portfolio sites start with a strong tagline that describes the value you want to give to a potential client. Some professionals opt to include a short biography that outlines their training, expertise and passions. Others go with a magnetic headline and follow through with some great content once the user starts scrolling down the site. No matter which route you take, the idea is to be able to answer the first question in a client’s head: why are you suitable for the job he requires?
2. Your previous work should describe your workflow
Many clients would like to understand how you work and your creative process when solving marketing challenges. It’s not enough that you showcase your best projects so far. Present them in a way that tells a story about the kind of challenges that you had to overcome to turn it into a successful marketing campaign. Aside from adding a gallery section to display previous clients you have worked with, you might also want to do a feature on your most notable works in blog form. Add the Simple Blog to your Strikingly portfolio template so you get a bit more space to tell your story to followers and prospective clients.
3. Site navigation is key to a great user experience
This might sound like common sense but with many websites prioritizing aesthetics over function, it seems important to still emphasize the importance of navigation and planning your site menu. Your website, no matter how fancy it looks or how great the imagery is, cannot be effective if users cannot find their way around it. Visitors who cannot find your portfolio gallery or contact page easily will most likely grow frustrated and leave instead of exerting that extra effort. There are, after all, a lot of other marketing professionals they can check out in the time that they will spend trying to find the information they are looking for on your website.
4. Group your work into categories
Speaking of navigation, it’s also important to create separate gallery sections for different types of projects to make browsing easier. If say, you provide different services - e.g. logo design, website design, SEO, social media marketing - you want to create different categories according to these services so clients can focus on specific areas that they are more interested in.
5. Include social proof
Clients are more likely to engage with professionals who come highly recommended. If you’re a new designer and nobody’s raving about your work, potential clients may find it difficult to see the value in working with you. Make potential employers want to hire you by adding testimonials from previous clients.
Start creating a powerful brand with a marketing portfolio website by Strikingly.
