Our Marketingteam was reinforced with the enthusiastic & dynamic Alanna. Thanks to her six-week internship, she gained some precious Digital Marketing experience. Discover who she is & what she liked about her internship. Read her introduction in this blog post.
How did I start working here?
Having recently graduated with a Master of Communications Sciences: Digital Media and Society from KU Leuven in September, I was looking for a new, exciting challenge to broaden my industry knowledge and strengthen my skill set in an international context.
After conducting some research online, I discovered an internship opportunity offered by Devoteam G Cloud in Brussels. I had never heard of the company before but I was immediately drawn in by the quirky manner in which the internship was presented on LinkedIn – the company was looking for a marketing sous-chef (AKA intern) to support its marketing chefs in making Fourcast marketing cuisine!
I immediately applied, had an interview with the Digital Marketer, Charlotte, and started working as a Marketing Intern at the beginning of November.
What was the best part of my internship ?
The best part of my internship was having the opportunity to apply the knowledge and skills I had learned throughout my university degrees in an international business setting. From working on many intercultural teams during my Erasmus and Master’s degree in Leuven, I had previously reaped the undeniable benefits of and had recognised the countless opportunities for personal and professional growth of doing so. I was excited to do the same during my internship.
The Diverse team
In my experience, Fourcast by Devoteam is a culturally diverse and inclusive organisation and with this comes unique perspectives and wide-ranging experiences. I think this leads to increased employee creativity, fosters out-of-the-box thinking and drives innovation within the organisation.
I really enjoyed our virtual team meetings every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It was a lovely way to get to know the team in this way and have some fun together.
In my initial interview with Charlotte, she asked me what exactly I would like to work on during my internship. I explained that I wanted to work on a campaign through from start to finish and that’s exactly what I did. But for several projects!
What knowledge and skills did I gain and how will I apply them in the future?
As a student, gaining work experience is super valuable. For me, it was important to learn some transferable skills that all potential employers look for. During my internship I worked on several campaigns.
Let’s recap the campaigns I’ve been working on:
1. ‘Chromebooks in Healthcare’ campaign
I was assigned to work on the ‘Chromebooks in Healthcare’ integrated-marketing campaign for one of our partners. This involved:
- Creating landing pages via Hubspot for a contest and optimising these pages for the search engine
- Creating landing pages for our upcoming online event on ‘Chromebooks in Healthcare’.
- Creating a contest from A to Z for a healthcare organisation to win a batch of Chromebooks
- Conducting content marketing by writing blog posts to support the campaign
- Curating and creating engaging digital content for social media platforms, i.e. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
- Designing appealing visuals for the web pages, online ads and blog posts associated with the campaign via Canva
- Setting up paid social media, e.g. paid LinkedIn ads
Although a primarily digital campaign, I also conducted some direct marketing by sending potential leads customised cookie boxes to create awareness about the contest and online event (and to put a smile on their faces, of course!).
It was a wonderful opportunity for me to understand the process of how a high-value digital marketing campaign works and tackle it head on.
I became more familiar with important marketing tools such as Hubspot and LinkedIn. These campaigns developed transferable skills that will be very beneficial to me in my next marketing role.
2. End-of-year holiday gift
I was also in charge of the end-of-year holiday gift that would be distributed to some customers, partners and employees (200 people in total, phew!). With the marketing team we brainstormed on ideas.
I was in charge of managing the project. We decided to create a ‘DIY Night at the Movies’, including everything needed to create the perfect at-home movie experience! Think retro popcorn machine, jars of popcorn kernels and sugar, vintage popcorn boxes!
I was in charge of ordering all the items, designing (on Canva) the ‘thank you’ card and a 12-page digital ‘Ultimate Fourcaster Movie Guide’ booklet that would feature as a QR code on this card and packing and labelling the boxes one-by-one.
This project required significant organisational, time management, team-work and strong communication skills and I believe mine were particularly strengthened during this assignment.
Plus, I was extremely happy with the final result and hope our customers, partners and team members enjoy their special gifts.
3. Creating and curating digital content
I further improved my copywriting skills throughout the entire internship – writing copy for everything from blog posts to customer stories. In fact, a customer story that I wrote for the Fourcast by Devoteam website won 3rd place in one of our partner’s customer story competitions. Go team!
Would I recommend this internship to a friend? The answer is yes!!!
You will learn a lot about all different types of marketing (not just digital!) and will be given the freedom and responsibility to work on your own projects from start to finish. I learned about what exactly is involved in being a Google Cloud Premier Platform.
It’s a great company to work if you are enthusiastic, motivated and eager to learn a lot, fast!
So, I would advise everyone to take the opportunity to do an internship. There is much to gain from it on both a professional and personal level.
