If It’s May, It’s Time for More Copywriter Portfolio Tips

Every May, I get about 10-15 emails from graduating copywriters hoping to share their portfolio, and looking for copywriter portfolio tips. Most of them suffer from the same problem: no context. So here’s the portfolio tip I usually email back to them.

Dear Madison/Toby/Emily/Tyler,

If I could make just one (very long) comment on your portfolio, it’s this: I want to know why you made the choices you made for each ad/campaign. What business or creative needs led you to these executions? What funny dead-ends did you find along the way? Tell me a little story that explains why you did what you did.

It is the copywriting equivalent of your fourth-grade math teacher harping on you to “show me the work.” As your future boss, I want to know how you approach a problem. Because unlike math, copywriting never provides a single correct answer.

And here’s the real twist: Only your future boss will care about this. The person who’s reading the advertising doesn’t care — they don’t get the benefit of that context.

But if you’re a copywriting and social media expert, you’d better be able to tell me how/why you’ve targeted Headline A to Audience A, and Headline B to Audience B.  Or why that line works for a print ad, but not for a direct mail piece. Or what emotion you’re trying to elicit. Tell me a story.

Anyway, add a little intro to each of these (no more than a paragraph) explaining what you were trying to do, and why you feel it works. And shoot it back to me sometime soon.

-Thom

p.s. Please proofread. I’m not a huge stickler for the traditional rules of grammar and punctuation, but tweak them consistently or you risk me focusing on the wrong thing. Besides, it’s always a good idea to get a second set of eyes on something you’re sending out. Especially to another writer — we’re a prickly bunch!

Another frequent portfolio email? Where I explain to aspiring copywriters that their blog is NOT copywriting. Oh, it’s funny, sure. But it’s not copywriting. Copywriting has a point. It has constraints.

Copywriting is writing for hire — where a client gives you a product, an offer, an audience and a medium, and then you write something more brilliant than they could’ve hoped to read.

But blogging about the smelly guy on the bus, or tweeting about the colossal ass you made of yourself at the bar? That’s not copywriting. This rant? It’s not copywriting, either, and I sure would never put it into my portfolio. Please don’t put it in yours.