an-intern-at-h22

An Intern at H22

His name is Kieran and he’s studying for a masters in Marketing at Nottingham Trent University. In this blog Kieran talks about some of what he’s been doing here. This is what Kieran has to say…

Marketing? Isn’t that just adverts?

“When most people think of marketing they think adverts, slogans, sales tactics, and a whole host of other things that make up only a small fraction of what marketing is. I think people have been watching too much Mad Men. Yes, some of marketing is advertising but less and less as time goes on and digital channels play a bigger role in life. Marketing is so much more than ‘just adverts’.

A big chunk of marketing relates to how a company perceives itself, how it wants the world to perceive it, and how the world actually perceives it. It’s about giving day-to-day activities meaning, structure, and direction. And this is what I have been doing with H22 since I started in August.

Marketing strategy

“Armed with fresh knowledge from my marketing modules and 2-month placement working for a marketing agency in Antwerp, I had some ideas of what I could do straight away.

Every business needs a value proposition. It sort of sets the context of the business, the competitive environment, and what customers want. So this was something I did almost immediately. By having a value proposition, a company can refer to it and measure their activities against it, allowing for reliability in product delivery and communication with customers: it allows consistent delivery of value.

I also did what is called a marketing audit, which looks at every aspect of the business – number of employees, digital presence, skills and resources, current strategies, and so on. I compiled this information and made some recommendations based on what I thought could be done differently for a better outcome. For example, newsletters now have a theme, which provides more opportunity for engagement.

Vison, mission, and values

“A little while into my placement, H22 took part in a government scheme called Growth Accelerator. A lot of the stuff they talk about is marketing and the guy was chuffed that we’d come up with a value proposition already: this was something he tells everyone to do. Kudos to me on that one! However, what I’d forgotten about, which he reminded us of, was vision, mission, and values.

As a company, these three things give you a solid grounding from which to conduct yourself. The vision is a statement of where you see yourself going and where you want to be. The mission is how you are going to get there. And values are the guiding principles with which you act upon. For example, one of the values that H22 holds is that everyone is a human being and deserves to be treated like one.

It’s not all marketing

“While I’m fundamentally here to gain marketing experience, there is also much more going on. Personally, I get to apply some skills and knowledge I’ve learned about in a mainly theoretical situation. In some senses, I’m having a say in how H22 is shaped and moulded as a company – which is pretty fun. Plus I get to see how things work in the real world and what life in a job really looks like.

I’m also using my own expertise to help H22 develop and move forward.

While H22 benefits from this, they have provided me with this opportunity to grow and learn. It is a two-way street. I get experience, they get the benefits of my knowledge.

I’ve got just over a month left now and I’m going to be doing some more marketing strategy for H22 in the hope that I contribute a lasting benefit to the development of the company. Watch this space!”

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