Lessons

Lesson Info

Planning the Customer's Journey

So we need to plan the customer journey and steve them into action. If we look at the five psychological state of a customer and we're all customers, we all participate in the by services and brands that we believe in and products. So the first is awareness. The second is consideration. Right? So we've made No, no. Wow, that's really cool. That's nice pair of jeans that I've seen on a nod. I'm considering it now, so I do a bit of digging. Then I tried on Yes, Wait, It's perfectly. It's so comfortable. So I decided to buy it. Then it serves me great. If I love it, I'm gonna be loyal. And I'm gonna be an advocate of that. The same thing with your portfolio. What we're really looking at are the 1st 3 in particular consideration. But we'll get to that. The first is awareness. So how are they going, Teoh know about your online portfolio? Well, there are a couple things so changing optimization strategy. All right, we'll dive into that in a later segment, then we've got social media marketin...

g as we know that confined you through like I already mentioned Twitter, Facebook, instagram Pinterest Tumbler. Any of these networking huge, huge way of getting your name out there and of close to email. You can email them. There's no point doing them a printed fly. Check out my website. That's that kind of work. They're already online. We've gotta keep him online. Make it easy. Click. Wow. Easy, right. Consideration in their minds. It's going to be OK. You've introduced me to your portfolio a minute. There gonna be some things that trigger whether I'm going to continue for work, whether I'm gonna buy you as a service. So first, these relevance Are you relevant to my business? Competence. Can you deliver content quality? How good is your work is the depth level of craftsmanship, all these things? And do you have potential for growth within the company? Then once they've gone through those things in their head, they're gonna think All right, I'm gonna give you a call for other an interview or maybe a job right away. Okay. So they could do that by our phone call and email through an interview, face to face or off Scott, or even the employment offer right away. So notice I brought up those three things under consideration there. Actually, the four trigger points. Okay, so therefore trigger points. The first is relevance. The design work must be suitable and applicable. Okay, that's the very first trigger. If you think about it, If I'm looking for a service, let's say you know why this popped in my head. But I'm looking for a costume company, and I've gotten on their website, but they only dio Disney costumes. But I want Marvel costumes close. It is as fast, and it's quick. Is that Okay? So relevance is the first box. You can have the prettiest things you like. Whoa. You made that out of your hands. This I'm care. We designed a mail templates. You're an illustrator. Unfortunately, that's that's how its relevance, competence, the design work must show your you're capable because you're gonna sit down in their office and you're right. Is it gonna be a figure that they're gonna charge clients? So you got to be competent and they're gonna know. Ah, that person has done the work that we need, okay? And I know there's that whole thing and a lot of your online that might be thinking as well. I don't know how yet. Well, that's when we start talking about doing volunteer work, doing things that aren't part of briefs that you might get in college or university or someone's given. You just make up your own stuff that you think would appeal to them. Content, quality, the level of crafting the depth and the thinking behind it. Okay, we need to know about we need to show that, uh and I'll go through that as well a bit later on. But essentially that that sums it up, doesn't it? Potential that includes side projects, personally interest awards. You want that could be in your about page. Tell me something about yourself. And I could get a gauge for your online and offline participation with your portfolio as well. You know, if you don't have ah on instagram account, um, versus someone that does. And I can easily check out your instagram account and that you're you're well traveled person. You're participating in the world. You're trying new things that speaks to me. Okay, so the structure off your portfolio journey according to those trigger points is pretty much this these things right here. So we've got t one which is your landing page. Essentially, it's just this isn't it? So you've got your landing page here. Number one l pay for landing page. From there, there's really two streams. We now move on on two tier two, which is your project pages. That's that's the key PP for project pages. Okay, because then you're gonna have many different ones. And then, of course, you have your sub have pages, right? So you've got sub enough s and sub nuff. They go all right. And those, of course, include one of them. Is your contact page a little messy, but essentially that that that it It's not f full on page after page of the page off the poach. Keep it simple, guys. I just want to see your work get on the page. You're projects. Are there ready? Just like Chris McClain's one. That's a good example. And you've got some nerve page because once they are convinced, make it easy for them to get in touch with you right away. Should only be a glance away. Okay, Don't bury your email in your about after your life story. You know you don't want to be doing that Okay, so t one landing page. Let's get into that. So I've listed for you the full trigger points, didn't I? So the 1st 1 is relevance. You achieve that within the first second moment, it opens up in front of them. It's going to trigger the relevance, right? So refer back to personal analysis 0.3. What are you after? Right? Because, of course, hopefully you're applying for work that you're you care about again. There's always a tyre around, isn't there? So have work that's relevant to you and to them, to to the project pages. And what What that's ticking off is your competence and quality content. So if I'm strolling through yet, I want to hire you to make ah, my up you x you I designs. Cool. You've done some. I'm gonna click one. Wow, you're doing the same style of infographics that I want to achieve you just showing that you that you know that you're competent for my next project and you've shown me so much depth. Okay? And we're gonna talk about definite in a bit, but show your best work, photograph your work. Don't just make it flopped and caption these are the things that are going to make these triggers have green lights in their heads because it's going to be as fast is that? And of course, we have the subject of pages. The show, your potential. Uh, I have my blawg as, ah, as a subject of page. So when you're on the landing page, it's got my about, ah, bio rather my services and it's got my blood. My blood is a huge part of what I do and who I am in terms of creative writing, right? Notice. Kris McLean also has, ah, photography, and it links to his Tumblr page. Uh, I have other friends that do things that are totally wild, like they they're into kite surfing and motorbike riding and all sorts. So I have them a separate, having the separate tabs have a tumbler if you want. Have something there that shows who you are because on and then you've got your about page to that, that's is a bit of your bio. Tell us who are you? That's where you can. It shows about the potential. Okay, so you want to take that box off and many people have blocks these days. I think that the statistic was 77% of people that are on Internet use block are there for four blocks for blocking. And then, of course, T four is the contact and may contacting them. Super easy. Show your email and social media channels. I show it at a glance at the top right soon in the land. It's like the top, right? Um, you don't have to do that, but at least have a contact page. Have a contact form. Have your email there in case the form doesn't work for some reason, and it's super easy for them to get in touch. Now we're gonna go through some portfolio platform options, and then we're going to select the right one according to your end goal. So I know that many of you are asking about print portfolios. This is what I think about print portfolios. It's great for print designers who are demonstrating printing techniques and texture. Okay, so that would be great and useful. But there's a step missing here. You need to be in front of them before you get in front of them. You need to show them your work through your online portfolio, don't you? Usually? Usually that's the case. So there are a lot of disadvantages to having a print portfolio. And the reason why I say a disadvantage. Because even if you do have one, even if you do have one in your in front of them have seen a lot of your work. OK, but let me let me point out some some very technical issues here. You're limited to the face to face exposure. There's no control of light levels now. I have had interviews where I've been in some dungeons, the print. If I had a printed portfolio, go on impact gone. Whereas if I have a laptop IPad showing my online portfolio in greater depth, it's a win win. I can control the light levels I could go through quickly, and it shows that I'm participating in universal best practices. Yeah, digital age and all that. So pre portfolios, I found, can also be very expensive. I remember when I designed my 1st 1 It costs me like 85 bucks for a book one unit, 85 bucks and I printed, like three of those so and a lot of like can we keep your book in like I'd rather you not. I kind of full unless you hire me right now and you give me the contract. But it could be very expensive, as most of you know, and updating. That's a whole other kettle of fish right there. Are you putting it in slaves? Well, if you are, does it look a bit tacky? Could bay. There are a lot of issues there with print portfolio, so I'm not against it. And toilet has its place and definitely a great leave behind. Hey, if you're rolling in the dollar, then print as many as you want. Bring it to the interviews. Great. But most of the times it can be a challenge. Pdf portfolio benefit. It's free. You can create one from your computer and then send it out. However, if you don't compress it properly, you can lose quality and it can bounce back. If you don't know the size limit could be to make it could be 20. All right, so there's a bit of a downside there. We've printed books are pdf portfolios, Which leaves us personal portfolio websites. Okay, that's what we're talking about here because the benefits are huge. Some of them are options to suit any financial circumstance. Free ones? Yes. As well as expensive ones and everything in between. Quick and easy to set up it is. And I'll show you how. Maximum exposure. You're online shop flexible. CMS and Dave a touch on this on the previous segment. Just how easy you can turn stuff are on and off. Can't do that with your prince and pace, can you? You tear it out, Um, and establish a personal, ah brand presence through through that online portfolio. This advantages If the Internet stops, then, of course, that there goes that. Yeah. Then we will revert back to print. Dummy. Okay. I love this quote by Antoine de Saint Exupery. He says that perfection is achieved Not when there is nothing more to add. But when there is nothing left to take away simplicity, simplicity is K there so question everything. What is the role of that particular design element? Does it add value, contribute to your goals and complement your style of work? If not, leave it out. Is there adequate negative space? A lot of the times, it's so much and we try and cram everything in so that the portfolio platform options are the following. We're gonna go through some free options and shape one's small, ongoing fee ones, which I'm sure some of you know about an expensive options if you want to go down that path now, this is bonus material for those that are survey Peter. I want to go into detail on this, especially since this is very much universal knowledge. But be hands dot net. You got to be on that car. Flight dot com, Chicago collective dot com, dribble dot com and the loop that come that I. You has been incredibly useful for May, whether you're in Australia or not. So just quickly note that down. But again, these are bonus material. So I'm gonna tackle any three of these be hands. Who are they? What do they provide? They are arguably one of the most well known creative community online, and, uh, they provide such a beautiful experience to to look at work, to research the work of others. And it's owned by Adobe. So, you know they're doing something right, and, uh, there's activity fades. That's comments participation. You can have their those groups in the different collections and more besides being free, you need to be on it because it's beautifully designed, easy to use, intuitive and all those things. It's powerful in its search tool, with many filtering criteria. It has a job list for creative and freelance jobs, and also the innovative platform distributes worked other online galleries. If you decide to do that, such as Linked In, he's a Snap of the landing page there, Okay, really easy. Use fun. I've clicked one of the projects. It opens up like that. You've got the name of the person. They're in some details, some stats. And when I click that person, he's got his portfolio there. Okay, if nothing else, lead them to your free online portfolio. Okay, I suggest you get on all of them. All of them. Okay, Once you've got your work, it's a matter of just shocking it on that platform, whacking it on this one. And when it's up, it's up forever. It's about exposure. Maximum exposure. Okay, Car float. Ah, they originally launched in 97 they have over two million images and 150,000 on mawr. New projects published every month from people. Eva. Besides being free, you should be on it because there are no membership requirements in vital application processes, and it's easy to use as well. They have a job board, and they also have a very useful A salary guides section, which is great for you when you're negotiating. This is how it looks like when you get on there, and then when I scroll down, there's some work. Click one of them, quite simply to be hands. You've got a bit of a captioning there. Some starts when I click on the person that's working there that's worked on that project rather again. Their work is there, but I found that they don't have as much captioning for their bio and things like that. Check it out. Cargo collective. Okay, these guys, they offer their members members a stunning way to create freestanding personal websites with their own girl. But there is a bit of a catch you have to be invited to join or apply for an account, so it's got two questions it's tell me about, show me your work and and tell me a bit about yourself on the application form super easy, but don't be daunted. So so try and try it out anyway. The site is divided into two parts, which is a public website and also the backside, which connects you to fellow cargo members. The benefits off Cargo Collective is that it's exclude. Exclusivity, filters out the great from the good. They're obviously not just gonna accept anyone, but that's a good thing because it really takes those that are really committed and serious about the field. Um, and really pulls you together. The front pages like an art gallery so you can just scroll and you can scroll for days. Ah, and it's free, but it's limited to 12 projects with three pages and 100 megs of storage. Upgrading is available with plenty of additions at a small cost. That's how it looks there when you land on it, that's going down. Looks like that. Okay, now some shape platform options. WordPress websites Okay, 20% of the Web runs on WordPress now, so every time you're on a website, there's a 20% chance that it's ah, backed by CMS that's built on WordPress and Google describe it as an online open resource resource website Creation Tall written in PHP. In non Gigi terms, they say it's probably the easiest and most powerful blogging and Web site content management system. CMS in existence today. Here's where I'm gonna lead you to full checking out WordPress templates and websites there. Ah, if you go to fame forest dot net slash category slash wordpress They have almost 5000 WordPress themes and professional WordPress templates. Everything is reviewed by designers as well. So check that out. If you want to do that. Um, the landing page looks like this. They're part of a company called in Vado Group. So here you've got the, uh thing forest tab. You can search if you want. I've gone in, clicked would press, and then you can filter which ones. There's even creative categories as once with photography, there's ones for corporate their themes, right? They are what they are. How about there's no need for you to really redefined the wheel If they're coded a site, you can plug and play that's responsive, and that meets, you know, it's a matter of you matching which experience you want them to have. Okay, so when you scroll down again, the whole bunch. I've clicked one of them. It leads me to this 58 box. I mean, that's that's pretty good. And I am talking about if you don't have the money fine. Hope on obey Hansen. Lead employees to that. If you do have a bit of money to spend, get a custom one with your domain, your girl, and at least have this. I'm talking about those barriers that you may have had. We want to eliminate all of them. I don't know. Code. I don't know much. You x that nature. Okay, this is what it's full of. These guys have done all the hard yachts and crafted a template built for your needs. Then scroll down a bit about that. Then I've clicked a sample of it. So they allow you to experience each one cool stuff. Scroll down, click one of them. It expands into this. That may work for you for your work or for your user experience. Okay. It may not keep searching. You might want to do that. Small, ongoing free options many of you know about squarespace. It is brilliant. These guys are the masters off the user experience for portfolios. That's what they do. Crop dot com is very good as well. And carbon made dot com is up there to some people. It Ah, it worked out for them. Really? Well, portfolio box dot net is also good, but I'm just gonna focus your attention to the top two because that's what I would choose if I was going to pay for a small, ongoing fi option. My personal website is a WordPress website. Just so you know. Ah, Chris McClain's is a squarespace website. Okay, so let's dive into that a bit more squarespace. Their mission is to provide crave tools that help anyone give a voice to their ideas. From designers to engineers to anyone that's creating really, um, and allows the next them to create the next generation of web and mobile experiences. Anyone putting a website together for the first time? That's what you should go landing Page looks like this. Choose your template. They've got loads. You can have a look in your own time. I'm sure you've already been on this website. If you haven't, then I just a quick snapshot here of clicked Juan have in you. Yeah. So you can take a look at that. So crap that comes also really cool. I love what these guys do. They have an awesome demo video that you should watch on. Their website summarizes the the ah offering that they have. But they're a credit industry job board and portfolio hosting website used by the most talented candidates at all experience levels and the Globe's most respected creative brands. A lot of people, a lot of brand source from crop, uh, to feel a design need or creative need. They have a bit of a track record. Actually, they've got a couple rock stars in their rock star designers. So the landing page looks like this straight up. You got credit job board? Really simple. Scroll down. Click that demo and watch that when you get to it sums up everything. This is a quick summary as well. When you keep scrolling down that bottle, these things look at these Dropbox sinking. Ah, you know, social in S e O Toole's Google Analytics. Ready mobile reading. Already all of this responsiveness domain name you're gonna pay for something it's worth are do it with guys that have really taking the time to do that. Of course, anything that is 100% made from scratch is going to be the most expensive. You know, these are some of the reasons a portfolio website that's coded and tested and built at the beginning from nothing will, of course, cost you more, so it's gonna be the most expensive option. If you don't find any that you want, then you will need to go down this route. You will need, though, to design or have someone design every single component of the website and provide all the assets, usually PSD, format to send that off to your to a Web developer or build it yourself if you know how to do that. So, in essence, be prepared to invest not only your money but your time and what out. What I want you guys to have is to kick start right away. I don't want you to wait for that. If you want to do that, feel free to do so. But it's important to just at least have a free online one be hand. So whatever Wordpress. I made mine in two days, so you know, all I had to do was was think about the the words and making sure that the pictures were photographed. So of course, this leads us to the domain name hosting in Redirection. So here are two that I use for both my how to get a job is a designer website and also my portfolio. I'm on go daddy dot com and crazy domains dot com and they simply ah, where you go to create your domain name. Have your domain name as your name, if you can grab it. Uh, if not, then make it obvious for the employer, you know? Is it Ah, annabelle. So name or is it annabelle surname design? Just make it really relevant and clear. Okay, Yeah, in that ram, because we had a question from Magic Coyote. We had a couple people voting on it, but they were curious about that. Naming yourself versus creating like a company name for your freelancer. So any other advice you have for that? It seems like a lot of people are curious if they should use their name or come up with a creative way to do a very good question. I get I've gotten that a lot from my talks as Well, the simple answer is, what are you doing when you create a name that's an entity, right? You're making yourself bigger than just one person, aren't you? In a sense, you are, for example. Ah, Why didn't I just have my blawg as Ram Castillo? Blawg rather than giant thinkers dot com will simply I wanted more people involved, you know? And oftentimes, if you have a If you have a name versus an entity name, it can also be confusing. So, for example Ah, bubble gum, pops, don't come. What do you do? I'm a design. I didn't You know how funny that I just I never got that off. Bubble gum tops dot com. It's true. However, yeah, I think there's also ah, scenario where someone brought to my attention where he was getting hired more so because he was an entity versus him as himself. So then the question that I asked him was, What what's getting you the most jobs? He said my my entity website because he had to, and I said, focus on that. So he was acting like a small company serving all the small companies. Okay, so you can test it out. But at the end of the day, you know what's bringing clarity? First of all, relevance. Okay, that's that's ultimately that. The main answer that's gonna really make you go. You should. I call myself, You know, Sony's brother, you know, tonight whatever it's like. Well, they're big entities. But are you making it difficult for me to find out what you're about? Always go back, go back to relevance. Okay. So choose the platform that best suits your end goal. Fulling points will further guide your decision, so get your pen and pad out. You might want Teoh write this down. Is your online portfolio website mobile Responsive? A simple yes or no. Does it have a user friendly curating system? Can I take work in and out easily, or is it gonna take me forever to figure out? Does it have a large real estate for viewing images? Are they tiny? Give it to me. Show me your brilliance. Make sure it's big. Does it have easy color palette? Customization. You're not stuck on hot pink. What you decided to do? Does it have will position social media sharing integration? Make sure you are not making that headache. Make sure it's already integrated. Do you have space for your logo in the top head are or your name? That's essentially what? What we want them to say. And can a 10 year old use it? This simple question alone will assess the quality off the functionality part. Literally. Find the year old, get them to see it in front of your computer and use your portfolio website. Do it. Get a 10 year old and I'm telling you, five year old doing crazy things these days with APS and stuff. So that has been a true test in my process. Uh, don't let the view of work hard to see your pieces. I touched on this a little bit because as soon as they land on your page how you need to have your key portfolio and thumbnails ready and waiting, Remember, goes back to the relevance. So do not pick a template or design a website where your bio is the first thing I say it. I have to scroll down like two times to see your work. When they click one, make sure those project images are large enough to see on the screen and be appreciated. If there's words I need to read, let me be able to read them. Okay? Embrace it down with Scroll. There's this whole thing about above the 600 pixel fold. You know what? Ever since we had, you know, first knock er what were you doing? Scrawling. It's intuitive. Embrace it. And I'm sure you're seeing the trend these days, right? The very responsive dude. It's girls school stroll. Oh, it expands, Then it collapses. It's easy for people to scroll. Okay, Don't feel you have to cram everything at the top. Like, uh OK, that doesn't look so good Now it is what it is. It's not gonna be good. It's gonna be a great experience either. So the less clicks the viewer has the bed up to make the better. And you'll get plenty more views by just ah, wow, that's cool. Let them go through. Luck is, if you're going through the free portfolio sites like a gallery, you know? So the lessons from this segment are the following. We've defined your portfolio okay? Or at least noted down how to define it. We've defined who you are speaking to the employer, the creative director. And if this doesn't apply to you, you'll get the idea, don't you? Who is the person that's making the decisions? Let's find out about them. What appeals to them? And the number three mapped out your desire to use experience slash customer journey. I really just thought this work of art here. Landing page, project pages, sub nine pages. Don't make it any more complicated. Day put heaps of stuff like your cooking lessons that you do for the neighborhood or whatever. Like as well as you make it. You know, maybe have that is a separate book. Number four identified portfolio platform options and selected the rightful follow platform according to your goal. Okay, They're gonna be many circumstances, but hopefully we've tackled some of them money time, all these limitations. Okay. And now we're ready to feel your online poll Follow with the right ingredients, which will tackle, and on the next segment