Portfolio of a marketer without clients: 7 tasks that are done on public data
Without cases, they don’t hire people; without work, there’s nowhere to get cases. What breaks this down is that much of a marketer's work can be done on open data. Seven tasks, an assumption rule and a one-page case structure.
The vicious circle is familiar to everyone who started: without cases they don’t hire, without work there is nowhere to get cases. It is torn by the fact that most of the work of a marketer can be done on public data - and show exactly what they are looking at: the train of thought.
In June's portfolio, they look not at the result, but at how a person reasons. He cannot yet have a result, and everyone understands this.
1. What people actually watch
Three things, and none of them are about the result number.
Train of thought. Do you understand why you are doing this? “I launched Direct” and “I launched Direct because the demand has been formed and it just needs to be intercepted” - different levels, and this is immediately visible.
Decoration. Do you know how to explain what you did to a person who was not in the context. This is exactly the skill you will use to report to your manager every week.
Honesty with numbers. Are assumptions marked? This is checked by one clarifying question, and most often it all ends there.
2. Seven tasks
| Quest | Time | What does it show |
|---|---|---|
| Analysis of someone else's funnel from ad to application | 2 hours | See the entire funnel, not a separate banner |
| Media plan for a given budget | 3-4 hours | Know how to justify money, not list channels |
| Content plan with rubricator | 3 hours | Bring your plan to text, not to a sign |
| Landing page audit | 2-3 hours | Prioritize rather than list nitpicks |
| Unit economics based on open data | day | You count, not just run |
| Five ads per offer | 2 hours | Can you write from different angles? |
| Campaign report | 2 hours | Ready to report as the client needs it |
A detailed description of each - what to do, what the output will be, what it shows - is in file with seven tasks.
3. Take one company for all tasks
Seven cases about seven different businesses read like a set of exercises. Seven cases about one company read like the work of a marketer who immersed himself in it.
Plus savings: the context is collected once. We’ve sorted out the funnel - you already understand the offer and the audience, which means the media plan and content plan are written twice as fast.
It is better to choose a local medium-sized business. For a large brand, everything is done well, and there is nothing to take apart. A very small one has no advertising, no website, no data.
4. Assumption rule
The only rule, the violation of which kills the meaning of the whole idea: invented numbers are signed as invented. Not a footnote at the bottom, but right in the text of the case - “assumption: the average bill is 4,500 ₽, I took it at prices on the website.”
The reason is practical. At the interview for your case, they will definitely ask where the figure comes from. If this assumption is written that way, you explain the logic, and the conversation moves on. If you presented it as a fact, you will not survive the second question, and along with it the rest of your portfolio will depreciate.
Separately: other people's internal data does not appear in the portfolio. Even if you saw them at the internship, even if they didn’t sign an NDA. This is checked once and closes the way to normal companies.
5. Design: one page per case
| Block | What's in it |
|---|---|
| Problem | What needed to be decided and why it was important |
| What did you do | Actions step by step, without filler about “carried out an analysis” |
| What happened | The result or, if there is none, the conclusions of the analysis |
| What would I change? | Honest assessment of your own work |
Almost everyone skips the last block, but reads it more carefully than the others. It alone shows whether you know how to look at your work from the outside - and without this skill a person cannot be left alone with a task.
About how to pack an entire portfolio when there are already cases - in a separate analysis marketing portfolio.
6. What to do
Not from scratch. There are ready-made forms for tasks, and using a template is not considered a weakness - on the contrary, it shows that you work systematically:
- media plan - media plan template or annual form;
- content plan - content plan plus rubricator;
- landing page audit - according to the structure of Technical specifications for landing page;
- unit economics - calculator and analysis of the methodology;
- standards for reconciliation - CPL benchmarks and landing page conversions.
7. Summary
Four cases, one company, honestly marked assumptions, the same one-page structure and a link in the resume as the first line. This can be done over the weekend and eliminates half of the interview questions.
The main thing to remember is that the case study is not a disadvantage. The disadvantage is the attempt to pass it off as commercial.
File with tasks: seven portfolio tasks. Related materials: marketing portfolio, job search for a marketer, how much to charge for work.
If you complete the first task, send it to Telegram, I will say that it reads like the work of a junior, and what is already like the work of a middle.