If youâve made it here, hopefully itâs crystal clear that UX writing freelance clients want to work with experts, and your portfolio pieces are sales pages.
Thatâs right â your UX writing portfolio pieces arenât just to show off what you got; theyâre to sell potential clients that you can solve their problems and have a track-record of doing so.
Because potential clients want to work with people who have direct experience solving their problems, we need to create niche-specific portfolio pieces to have the biggest impact.
A niche-specific work sample shows a potential client you intimately understand and have experience in their industry. A generic work sample shows them you know UX writing, and a technical CEO or CTO doesnât really know how to evaluate âgoodâ UX writing beyond how itâs relevant to their own problems.
So how do you create a niche-specific portfolio piece? Weâve been building toward this, and youâve actually already done most of the work here.
By looking at your messaging canvas, weâre gonna piece together 3 portfolio pieces thatâll have a high impact on your potential clients.
If you havenât defined your target client or defined your messaging, go back to those lessons â theyâre foundational to what weâre about to do here.
Where to start if youâre coming from a UX writing job
If you have existing UX writing experience from a full-time job with corresponding portfolio pieces outside your freelance niche, donât scrap them. While they wonât be hyper-relevant to your target client, theyâll still add credibility since theyâre from ârealâ experience with ârealâ companies.
That said, I recommend adding 3 additional niche-specific portfolio pieces, so you get the best of both worlds
Where to start if youâre brand new to UX writing
If youâre brand new to UX writing, I got you. Weâre gonna walk step-by-step how to create a niche-specific portfolio piece from scratch, even if you have no experience. Just keep reading.
Letâs get started đ
You need to have at least 3 niche-specific portfolio pieces. You can have more, but 3 is the minimum.
The key is to make these portfolio pieces hyper-relevant to problems your target client is facing. And to do that, weâre gonna whip out our handy messaging canvas.
Hereâs an example:
In our messaging canvas, we already used our target client profile to map out what our target client needs and how they feel about it.
Using your messaging canvas, hereâs what weâre gonna do:
- Identify the âResultsâ youâre going to solve
- Map that to âProductsâ you sell
- Find 3 companies that fits your target client profile
- Identify 1 opportunity per company to use your âProductsâ to achieve the âResultsâ
- Use those opportunities to create your own projects
Letâs walk through itâŚ
1. Identify the âResultsâ youâre going to solve
This is the first step, and probably the easiest.
Pull out your messaging canvas, and look at the 3 results you listed in your âResultsâ square.
Iâm going to walk you through this step-by-step with a fintech example. So here are the 3 results for that example:
So, weâre going to develop UX writing projects where we:
- Increase sign-ups
- Increase conversion
- Increase retention
Easy, right?
2. Map that to âProductsâ you sell
So, in our fintech example, we know each one of our projects will either increase sign-ups, increase conversion, or increase retention.
Now, weâre gonna look at our âProductsâ square and map what we sell to the results we can help our target clients achieve.
For the fintech example, hereâs the âResultsâ together the âProductsâ:
And we can map âResultsâ to âProductsâ like this to form portfolio project ideas:
- Increase sign-ups x Sign-up flows
- Increase conversion x Websites
- Increase retention x New product experiences
If you need to make revisions to your messaging canvas to make this work, go for it â this is all written in (digital) pencil, not ink âşď¸
3. Find 3 companies that fits your target client profile
Now we know what our 3 projects will cover. The next step is to source those projects that weâre gonna do on our own.
Go back to your target client profile, and note the size of the company your target client works at and where theyâre located.
For the fintech example, thatâs seed stage startups in major US cities.
Then, you can either ask Google for companies in that space, or head to LinkedIn and do some digging. Crunchbase is also a good resource to find these companies.
For example, by Googling âseed stage fintech startups,â I found this list of recently funded seed stage fintech startups on Crunchbase:
Now, not each of these companies will work out perfectly. So make sure to explore 5+ companies, and then narrow it down to the 3 that are the best fits.
4. Identify 1 opportunity per company to use your âProductsâ to achieve the âResultsâ
Go on each of these companies' websites. Sign up for the products (and take screenshots every step of the way.) Play around with the product (and take screenshots every step of the way.)
Evaluate opportunities to achieve the âResultsâ with your âProducts.â
For the fintech example, by signing up for Retirableâs product, I identified their sign-up flow could use a lot of help. I could help increase sign-ups by improving their sign-up flow, one of our identified portfolio project ideas.
Do this until you find 3 solid projects to pursue.
Once you do, you have a choice:
- You can run solo, and do the projects on your own
- You can reach out to your target clients at these companies and offer to do the project for free in collaboration with them
The first option will go faster, but itâll still be theoretical, which isnât bad, but itâs not as good as working with the company.
If you go with the second option, it might take longer, but itâs a win-win. The company gets free work, and you get a real-life case study with a real result. It could even lead to paid work afterward.
5. Use those opportunities to create your own projects
No matter if you chose option one or two, itâs time to do the project.
If youâre working with the company, thereâs a chance youâll get access to resources and Figma files, which will be a big help.
If youâre flying solo, this is where those screenshots come in. Youâll need to capture the entire experience.
Hereâs the high-level process to create your portfolio project from scratch:
- Take a million screenshots, capturing the experience
- Put the screenshots in Figma, so theyâre somewhere safe
- Understand the problem the product and flow are solving, what goals the product is trying to accomplish with the flow, and who the user of the product is (and write it all down)
- Conduct a content audit of the flow, so you gain an understanding of what content to keep, what content to edit, what content to cut, and what content to add
- Conduct a competitive analysis with 2 â 3 of the productâs competitors to learn from whatâs working for them and capitalize on where theyâre weak
- Form a hypothesis for your approach and define what youâre tackling (a good hypothesis formula is, âBy [what youâre improving], I will [effect youâre going after], improving [result youâre after.]
- Go back to the screenshots you put in Figma and rewrite them equipped with your content audit and competitive analysis. To rewrite screenshots in Figma, put boxes over the existing copy and make them the color of the screen background. Then, put a text box over that box, and match the font.
If youâre flying solo, there are two additional steps:
- Find 10 people. Show 5 people the before flow and 5 people your revised flow. Ask them if theyâd convert. Then, do some math, and figure out which flow is higher converting (psst⌠this is an A/B test.)
- Summarize the whole process in a simple, overview-based UX writing case study (more on that coming soon)
As you solve the problem, make sure youâre utilizing your âFeatures,â so your âResultsâ deliver your âValueâ from your messaging canvas. Thatâll tie it all together and put the cherry on top đ
Thatâs it!
The next step is to create a polished portfolio piece for each of your three projects.
Happy UX writing đ
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