What is it like Interning at a Marketing Agency?

By Clarissa Gunadharma, Marketing Intern at Heinz Marketing

In all honesty, when I read the list of company sponsors available to me through the University of Washington Sales Program, Heinz Marketing caught my eye because I wondered “How did the directors get in contact with my favorite condiment company?!”  Little did I know, it would be the marketing agency (no relation to the catsup company) where I would have the best experience as a Sales/Marketing Intern.

Here is a little insight on my 6-month experience virtually interning for Heinz Marketing.

Starting Out

Although I had interned for companies before (also virtually), working at a smaller marketing firm was entirely different to my previous experiences. In my first few weeks, I realized I needed to really hone in on marketing acronyms and terms like Buyer’s Journey, ABM, Demand Generation, MQLs if I was to complete and understand my deliverables. Reviewing Heinz Marketing’s Predictable Pipeline approach was key to understanding how work aligns with the client projects and what we’re really here to do. I won’t lie, there were definitely times where I made mistakes and had to clarify things multiple times before getting started but I was lucky to have such a supportive team in this learning process.

Here is what a typical week looked like for me (while I was a full-time student):

• Monday: 1:1 meetings with the team, BDR activities on LinkedIn to find new leads 
• Tuesday: Client Meeting, Copywriting/Blogposts, Client Work
• Thursday: Virtual Happy Hour, Sales Pipeline Radio Podcast Review 
• Friday: Meeting Syncs, Client Work (Audits, Surveys etc.)

What I Learned

The exposure I received from the variety of projects I had gave me a foundation for the marketing career I want to pursue post-grad. If it wasn’t for this role, I would’ve never been able to test my skills in copywriting, blogpost management, survey building, and sales enablement. A key takeaway I’ve had is to effectively utilize tools and technologies like LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Salesforce, Outreach, Qualtrics etc. to streamline and align sales and marketing strategies. I know for a fact that the skills I’ve learned using these tools will be transferable to any marketing or sales role I have in the future. Although I’ve learned about all of these platforms on a surface-level, it’s been a much more valuable experience to learn by doing in such an all-encompassing role. 

This internship gave me the opportunity to combine my creativity and communication skills to deliver quality work for different clients and engagement teams here at Heinz Marketing. One of the perks of working at a smaller company is that I was able to meet all our consultants and managers 1:1 which really eased my transition into the company. I never realized how important company culture was and I am ever so grateful I had the support of the entire team to make me feel comfortable reaching out at any given point!

It’s crazy to think I met Brenna Lofquist (the most supportive mentor/boss/supervisor) at a career fair over 8 months ago, and now here we are six months into my internship chatting about everything from the best dinner recipes we’ve tried to must-sees for a Senior Spring Break trip in Nashville. 

All in all, if you’re on the fence about interning for an agency: DO IT.

My one piece of advice is that it doesn’t hurt to try something new, especially if you’re unsure of what path you want to follow in the future. That is what interning in college is for!