A beginner’s guide to creating mock projects for marketing portfolio (+ examples)
Let’s say you applied for a marketing position and are feeling pretty good about your application. To make it sweeter, the talent manager reaches out to you. Everything seems to go in the right direction until the ”p” word comes up.
You’re asked to share your portfolio, which should contain relevant samples of what the company is looking for. While you may be a great marketer, you’re new to the industry without real-world experience. So, you don’t have a portfolio, and no portfolio equals no progressing to the next application stage.
Sounds familiar?
It’s incredibly rare for an employer to hire you without seeing proof of work. So, in this article, I’ll share some mock project ideas you can use for your portfolio, show you what to include in a marketing portfolio, and share some real-life examples of marketing portfolios to inspire yours.
Table of content
Why create mock projects for your marketing portfolio?
Think of your portfolio as an extension of your resume. While a resume lists your accomplishments and qualifications, your portfolio is a collection of your best samples that give more insight into your work process and execution.
Going back to our hypothetical scenario, should you feel at a loss because you have no real-life work experience? Not at all! That’s where mock projects come in.
Mock projects demonstrate your abilities to potential employers. Here are reasons why creating mock projects in your marketing portfolio is a good idea:
1. Gets you through the front door
Resumes and portfolios are crucial for landing a job. But while a well-crafted resume gets you to the front door, a portfolio of quality mock projects gets you inside. “Mock projects help people see what you can do,” says Etashe Linto, community lead at Smarketers Hub.
“And that's really relevant in the marketing industry. People want to see that you can do things and drive results based on what you do.”
2. Improves your marketing skills
You’re able to get into the mind of your hypothetical audience and offer a solution to their problem. The more you hone those skills, the better you become as a marketer.
Etashe adds, “They help you build your mental muscles for creating things and getting your work done as a marketer. So if you've taken lots of courses, but have never had work experience, building mock projects allows you to move from theory to practical.”
3. Boosts your confidence
A great portfolio of mock projects increases your chances of getting hired. This also boosts your confidence to pitch to prospective employers (we’ll talk more about this as we go on).
Mock project ideas for your marketing portfolio
1. Borrow from the experiences of others
Robyn-Lee Samuels made a great LinkedIn post on how beginner marketers can borrow from the experiences of others. She says:
“You can dissect your favorite pieces of content or ads. For example, you can look at the headlines, tone, structure, and approach used in those pieces, then, try to emulate that in your work. That kind of content is super trendy too.”
Consider an example. Suppose you know a wildly successful marketing campaign, you could try to figure out what made it work and replicate that with your mock campaign for a fictitious brand.
You could do the same for a brand that executed its campaign poorly. The goal is to demonstrate how you would implement the campaign if it were real.
2. Create on-spec content
On-spec (speculative) pieces refer to any sample of work you create without a guarantee of payment but with an optimistic belief that someone will recognize its value and pay for its worth upon completion. Think of a product or service you currently use and appreciate. Write about its features that you find appealing.
This personal connection allows you to dig deeper into its functionalities. You can start by dissecting the appealing product or service features. What specific user problems does it solve? How does it enhance your experience? Create content based on your findings.
Elna Cain, a freelance writer with ten years of experience, recently shared her experience in one of her weekly newsletters. She talked about purchasing Catit products for a kitten she just adopted.
She says that if she were interested in writing for Catit, she would “take some time to research one of the products by going to YouTube and reading reviews to get a complete idea about the features and benefits of that product.”
“From there, I can create a spec piece about this product and use it to get a freelance writing job for Catit,” she adds. According to Elna, doing on-spec pieces might be a faster approach to landing client work and building your portfolio.
3. Design a mock campaign for your dream brand
Maybe there’s a brand you’d like to work with. You may even have the skills to excel in your dream role in your dream company but you don’t have the work experience. You can develop a marketing content piece to showcase your skills, passion for the brand, and strategic thinking.
Suppose your ideal role is social media content creator and your dream brand is Green Earth Goods, which sells sustainable and ethically sourced home and lifestyle products. Let's say you want to help them increase brand engagement and demonstrate creative ways to use their product.
Your marketing campaign may look something like this:
An example of a user-generated content campaign
Of course, you should indicate that your creation is a mock project and that the brand didn’t hire you.
4. Create a customer journey piece
To do this, you could examine the signup process for a well-known product and highlight where improvements in content or the customer journey would make a difference.
Let’s say you picked a streaming service platform that we’ll call Beta. You’d need to walk through the signup steps, from the landing page to confirmation to identify any areas where the content or design might create friction for potential users.
Then, you’d suggest specific changes that could improve the customer journey for each pain point you identify.
Could a short explainer video showcasing the product's features be more effective for the landing page? Would offering social login options make signup faster and easier? Document your research and recommend content or design improvements that make the signup process smoother and more engaging.
Customer journey pieces like this can demonstrate that you understand customer psychology and how it affects brand perception.
What should you include in a marketing portfolio?
Here are the essential elements to insert in your marketing portfolio and win hiring managers over:
1. About me
Your “About me” page must include a professional headshot and compelling bio. There’s no hard and fast rule on the length, but you want to make sure it captures your professional background, experiences (if you don’t have them yet, you can include relevant skills), and goals.
You should also highlight your personal growth in your career. This humanizes your portfolio and helps readers (or prospective employers) connect with you.
2. Project showcase
Recruiters want to see your body of work to know if you’re the right fit for the role. So depending on your marketing niche, your work samples may include web content, PDFs, links to web pages, images, videos, and/or graphics.
3. Project details
You want to walk viewers through your strategy, work process, and accomplishment. So, include a summary of the projects you handled, how you executed them, for whom, to what end, what worked, and the overall results.
Allow numbers to speak for you by citing relevant performance metrics and KPIs.
4. A Clear CTA
It’s important to be specific on the action your visitors should take. Your CTA must be bold and easy to spot on your portfolio.
Avoid vague, and generalized calls to action. Do you want them to call you, email you, or connect with you on socials? State it in a compelling but clear way.
5. Contact information
If your portfolio impresses your visitors, then they might want to reach out to you. Ensure you fill out your contact page with a working email address and an active LinkedIn profile.
6. Client testimonials
Humans are big on trust. It’s what makes testimonials a great way to land jobs. If company XYZ or John Doe leaves you a nice review of a job well done, then happily flaunt it on your portfolio.
It’s a big win because recruiters are more likely to hire you if others trust you.
7. Certifications
Don’t be shy to include certifications and higher-learning courses you’ve completed to learn new skills or upskill your career. This will indicate that you have the training and knowledge a prospective employer wants.
Tips to remember during and after creating your marketing portfolio
1. Branding
If you’re thinking of a branding statement, remember to keep it short, sweet, and simple. You don’t want to get bogged down on all the details about why you’re the best marketer out there.
Maintain a consistent style- font, color, graphics, theme- throughout your portfolio. Study relevant marketing campaigns, pay attention to the message, and draw inspiration to create your branding statement.
2. Optimize for search engines
With the recent Google update that prioritizes user-first content, your optimized portfolio will make it easy for potential clients to find you organically through search engines. This increases your chances of ranking high on the SERPs. You can do this by conducting simple keyword research and incorporating keywords relevant to the skills your target audience is searching for.
3. Easy navigation
Make it easy for visitors to move from point A to point B on your portfolio. You should choose a good portfolio-building platform that offers a well-arranged layout with a clear menu and categories.
Since 92.3% of internet users access the web using a mobile device, whatever portfolio design you opt for must be as mobile-friendly as possible, giving your audience a positive user experience.
4. Do regular updates
Just like you regularly declutter, throw out old stuff, and do general cleanups at home, you need to do the same for your portfolio.
For example, is there an old piece of content you need to replace with fresh, new content? Do your words still align with your positioning strategy? Performing regular audits on your portfolio will help you identify those gaps.
5 great platforms for building your marketing portfolio
We’ve analyzed several marketing portfolios to save you the time and stress of finding the right one. In no particular order, here is our top pick of platforms to build your marketing portfolio on.
1. Authory
Authory's portfolio builder helps users to easily curate, back up, showcase, explore, and share their work. It’s mostly used by writers, content marketers, journalists, and social media marketers but is not limited to these use cases.
Features
Self-updating portfolio that saves you hours and effort. It generates all your published works and tracks future content under your name, populating your portfolio automatically.
Automated backups of all your projects including past, present, and future work, in a searchable archive that you can download.
Analytic tool that tracks web traffic and monitors your content performance on social media.
Notification alerts when any of your work gets published.
Cost: Free plan available. Premium starts from $12 to $18 per month.
2. Notion
Notion offers an all-in-one solution for portfolio building that includes content management, flexible layout, collaboration, and sharing options. Its high-custom features also make it a good fit for professionals in any industry.
Features
Mobile-friendly interface
Customizable sections to showcase your soft and hard skills, education, work experience, interest, and achievement to prospective clients/employers.
Robust integration system that allows you to sync external tools like calendars, social media feeds, OneDrive, and Google Analytics directly into your portfolio.
Cost: A free version is available. The premium plan starts at $8 per month.
3. Wix
With its collection of 900+ stunning and customizable templates, Wix can help you present your work, making your portfolio stand out in the job market. It offers full creative freedom and can be used by all kinds of marketers.
Features
An AI website builder that simplifies the creation process.
A tool that lets you build a contact list of visitors who interact with your website and keep track of leads with labels and filters.
A dashboard for adding, organizing and managing multiple projects.
A logo maker for creating a free, customized logo that fits your brand.
Cost: Free. To add more features, Wix offers premium plans from $7 per month.
4. Journo Portfolio
Journo Portfolio is an easy-to-use platform with accessible functions for less experienced users. Though built with writers in mind, Journo Portfolio serves the needs of designers, content creators, artists, photographers, and other creatives.
Features
A free custom domain name to make your portfolio look professional.
Add and customize a subscribe form to your page, allowing visitors to sign up for a weekly notification of any new items you publish on your portfolio.
Automatically backup your uploads if lost or deleted.
Offers password protection and allows you to manage access to your portfolio
Cost: Free but has options for an upgrade at $9 per month.
5. Clippings.me
Clippings is ideal for new freelance writers, bloggers and journalists. Its less-is-more approach and functional design appeal to users who value simplicity.
Features
Easy to set up.
Organize your work by category (e.g.podcast, Instagram, blog post, etc.) and include relevant tags to make your content easily discoverable.
Access to a community and networking opportunities.
Cost: The basic plan is free. Premium costs $9.99 per month.
Real-life examples of marketing portfolios (+ template)
1. Afoma Umesi
Afoma is a freelance content marketer and editor for marketing, healthcare, and analytics software companies.
What makes her content marketing portfolio interesting?
Her About section weaves a compelling narrative of her professional background, work experience, interests, and hobbies. It gives you an insight into her personality.
Afoma included screenshots of content pieces she’s written and their high performance on the SERPs as proof of her expertise.
Every visitor who signs up for her newsletter gets a free content style guide template. By first offering value, she positions herself as someone who genuinely wants to help prospective clients achieve their goals, not just land them.
2. Oyinkansola Ogunyinka Edem
Oyinkansola is a content marketer for SaaS brands. She creates product-led content and offers content strategy services for high-growth companies.
What makes her content marketing portfolio interesting?
She chose a simple, clean layout that gives her home page a well-aligned structure. For instance, she placed her circular profile picture in the middle at the top, her name, and a simple description of her role underneath.
She organized her projects into four categories- Ghostwriting, bylined pieces, case studies, social media posts, and Ebooks. Each category leads to a separate page that showcases her past work.
The minimalist design makes it easy for visitors to find what they’re looking for and it's mobile-friendly.
3. Seyi Sobowale
Seyi is a brand manager and social media marketer who works with small businesses to develop tailor-made social media strategies that drive results.
What makes her marketing portfolio interesting?
Though simple, Seyi built her portfolio with aesthetics in mind. She paired different shades of pink and white colors, and font styles, giving the website a bold and confident look.
She created a separate slide where she highlighted her accomplishments in the projects she handled.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed at the thought of creating an outstanding portfolio similar to these examples. Or maybe you need a practical guide or dare I say, a template you can duplicate to design your brand-new portfolio. You can get the Portfolio for Creatives template by Aisha Owolabi, a leading content manager and founder of Smarketers Hub.
Here’s something extra for you
As a beginner marketer, having a strong portfolio is one of the keys to your success. But that’s not all. You would likely encounter some other challenges as you navigate the marketing industry, including finding relevant roles, knowing the right skills to build, keeping up with industry trends, etc. The good news is that you don’t have to figure it out alone.
You can join the Smarketers Hub community to find like-minded marketers who are happy to be a part of your journey to success. As a member, you’ll also get access to free resources offered by world-class marketers and direct feedback on your portfolio to help you move forward in your career.
So, go join the Marketers Room, and good luck with creating your portfolio!
