Automating your agency’s portfolio with screenshots
A portfolio is a document in which an agency showcases its work to new prospects. Learn how screenshots remove the grunt work when building your agency's portfolio.
Marketing agencies work with lots of different clients from various industries. On top of that, the engagement with each can also vary, as every company's communicational needs are different.
The results from these engagements are concentrated in an agency portfolio. A portfolio is a key document any agency should have ready to showcase their work to new prospects. But with an ever-growing array of assets, how do you ensure it's updated and tailored to each client's requirements?
This article will cover how to build an archive of client assets for your portfolio using automated screenshots.
Why you should automate your agency’s portfolio
A good agency portfolio is the one that best represents the abilities of your team. That is achieved by featuring solid examples of actual clients. Some agencies will have a document ready to share with interested parties; others will have a website to showcase these assets. Whichever medium you choose, you need to collect these examples periodically.
Going through each account's social media profiles and websites looking for pieces you've worked with can be good practice if there's a respected set frequency. However, forgetting to capture specific posts in their natural environment before they're deleted, taken down, or edited is annoying. It leads the portfolio to be incomplete and lose value.
That is why it is essential to have a solution that helps automate this entire process. So, first, let's look at making a portfolio using this technology.
How to build an agency portfolio using screenshots
The assembly of agency portfolio assets should not be a manual task. For example, you could search for a tool that helps save certain links on your browser or use native social media features like the save option on Instagram to start keeping a record of them. However, some solutions can gather all these types of work in one place.
One of the technologies that agencies rely on when looking to save their work once it's published is screen capturing. An automated screenshot tool like Stillio allows you to set captures at your desired interval. That can be daily, weekly, monthly, or even up to 5 minutes. In addition, the capture interval can be adjusted, depending on how often that content changes. For example, if it's social media, it could be daily, whereas a website's homepage could be monthly.
Screenshots are saved to your account for you to reference later. That means the content is collected in the background while you do your daily work. Then, when the time comes to give your online portfolio an update (whatever the format), you have assets ready to feed it on Stillio.
If you're a more prominent agency tailoring to clients worldwide, geo IP locations can be your ally. Stillio allows you to change the server location to other continents for the URL captures you desire, being able to screenshot content in every country you operate.
Stillio also lets you create tags to group your content. Then, when returning to your account to retrieve saved assets, you can easily find them in their set category.
There are many additional uses for screenshots in agencies. Now that you know how vital screenshot automation is for your portfolio let's move over to see what assets you can capture to feed it.
What you can include in your agency portfolio
Social media work
Social media is one of the biggest areas of work for agencies today, which is one of the main reasons companies go after an agency. So you can't miss including some social media experience in a digital marketing portfolio.
Choose relevant clients with many followers, established brands, and those with the more creative freedom that allow your team to go one step further with ideas. Then, go through the content you've created for them and take those posts that make your agency stand out from the rest. Include both design and copy to showcase your visual skills and your ability to manage different voices.
If you've worked with or managed influencers, you can track their activity too and feature them on your portfolio. A social media archive that features these aspects can be paramount both for the portfolio and the agency's records.
Website design
Agencies offer lots of services. However, a key pillar of communication is graphic and web design, which must be featured on the portfolio.
Choose sites with different messages, styles, and purposes so that prospects can see the full range your team is capable of.
Automated screenshots also let you keep track of changes in these websites. Not only is it helpful to not have to worry about remembering to capture the previous and new versions of a site, but it can also allow you to include the evolution of a site you've worked on in the portfolio. That is particularly useful if you've worked on rebrandings.
Copywriting
The pillar that intersects with design is copywriting. For example, some prospects will appear looking for someone to lead their new brand blog, and you need to have evidence ready that your team will excel at that project.
Internal documents won't cut the chase because there are usually many versions of an article going back and forth between you and the final client. The best example you can use is the last version on their website, as it also proves it was published and may already have some comments from the audience.
Similar to what we mentioned about websites, articles are updated and can change frequently. Setting automatic screenshots allows you always to have the final version ready to share.
SEO
You surely apply SEO concepts if you have experience working on websites and blogs. You may even offer SEO as a separate service, optimizing pages through keyword research, backlinks, and many other strategies. In that case, keeping track of SERPs can be a solid addition when creating a portfolio.
Clients are eager to see your work by looking at designs and text and forming their opinions through tangible results. Providing SERPs from pages you've worked on allows them to see progress and a clear outcome. That process can be automated with screenshots, and you can use those captures to see the evolution of the page and include it in your marketing agency portfolio.
Conclusion
Periodically feeding your portfolio with your remarkable work will immediately make prospects interested in you. And, as you've read, it shouldn't be a tedious task. Stillio can help your agency portfolio grow.