10 ways a summer intern can help with your marketing

1st, Apr 2022

College is almost out so this is the time to be looking for summer interns if you haven’t already done so. Students want experience in their chosen profession. Businesses need assistance at a reasonable cost. Internships serve both these purposes and more. Marketing interns are particularly useful because they can help with both administrative and creative tasks that are essential to effectively promoting your firm. Below are some suggestions for how a marketing intern can assist you, but explore other options depending on your hire’s education, work experience, strengths and weaknesses and your firm’s needs.

Internship concept with notebook1. Update your contact list. People change jobs regularly or information is entered incorrectly and we never notice. If your data is wrong, it’s useless because your marketing won’t reach those individuals. Interns can take care of tasks like researching bounced emails and gaps in your data. They can also compare your social media and email contacts to find individuals that are missing from either list.

2. Create and send an email newsletter. A great way to stay top of mind with contacts is to send out an email newsletter every month. An intern may be able to help with creating an email template if you don’t have one, gathering materials that could be included in the newsletter, formatting the newsletter, and/or sending the finished product to your contacts and then reporting the results to you.

3. Post to social media. An intern shouldn’t decide what should be posted on your behalf but may offer suggestions. In addition, they can assist with the mechanics of scheduling posts, finding accompanying images, recording video, designing ads and monitoring and reporting on the results of your social media marketing.

4. Send social media invitations. If you’re not good about sending invitations to new connections, an intern may help. Further, an intern can assist with inviting your personal contacts to follow your business page on social media. In most cases, you want to have a separate presence for your business, but it means making an extra effort to get people to follow your business rather than your personal page.

5. Identify speaking and writing opportunities. It’s time-consuming to pitch yourself as a speaker or get an article published. An intern can research organizations and publications where you may want to appear; find out the requirements; and prepare, send and follow up on your proposals.

6. Write/proofread marketing copy. It can be useful to have a fresh perspective on the promotional materials you prepare. If your intern is a good writer, have them draft copy, provide feedback on your materials or proofread.

7. Get reviews from happy clients and referral sources. Reviews carry a lot of weight. Even when prospects have been referred to you, they will still google you and check reviews. If you don’t regularly ask for reviews, have an intern help send out requests for a review on Google and/or your social media pages.

8. Run marketing reports. Marketing involves significant trial and error. An intern can run social media, email, phone, google website and advertising reports to help determine what activities and campaigns are working better than others so you can make adjustments.

9. Design marketing materials. If you are fortunate to have an intern with graphic art and design abilities, make effective use of it. They can help spruce up your ads, flyers, invitations, PowerPoint presentations, social media posts, blog posts, website and other materials.

10. Update your website. It’s easy to forget to update your website, but it looks bad when a prospect visits the site and sees that all the “News” and activities are a few years old. Interns can review the site and add information on anything that has occurred in the intervening period, such as articles, speaking engagements, press, awards, community involvement, etc. In addition, the copyright information on the site should be updated.

This is not a complete list but provides suggestions for how you can leverage your marketing intern to promote your firm. Remember to give your intern adequate training and supervision so you both get substantial value out of this experience.

If you need assistance with your marketing, including training interns or other staff, contact us. We offer social media and email marketing training as well as writing and consulting services.

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