Interning with Distinction

16-year old Josh joined us for a week’s experience to find out if a career in digital marketing is for him.

I’m currently studying Business at Derby College, The Roundhouse, with a specific interest in marketing and digital marketing so I was looking for somewhere I could learn on the job practical skills to enhance my learning.

For my one-week internship I worked in the marketing department of Distinction. It was great. It was a lot more hands on then I thought it would be which made it so much better. I’ve always enjoyed marketing even down to the supposedly “boring” statistical analysis parts.

I chose to do my internship at Distinction as it’s a digital marketing agency that has great reviews for their work, working with large and well-known clients.

I learned so much from the team in pretty much every area of what goes on here at Distinction. From frontend developers to backend developers and even client management and retainment but mostly it was marketing. I completed three certificates in Google Analytics (Google Analytics for beginners, Advanced Analytics and Power Users Analytics). This will help me substantially in my college course. After completing the courses, I got hands on experience with Google Analytics by completing a report on Distinction’s website for who uses the site where and when.

While at Distinction I also learned about the ins and outs of social media planning for a business. Completing my own research on the best times and what days to post on a social network to gain more publicity and interest for a business. I also composed some tweets and other social posts for Distinction which has helped me a lot. While writing posts I had to research specific hashtags so we joined the right conversation and when and where to use them to avoid too many or not enough. All this learning was only in two days!

On the third day I learned about web traffic statistics by using the platform A1WebStats which gives you more insight into who’s visiting your website, which pages and when. I integrated this into my report on Google Analytics and compiled a more detailed report about who checks the Distinction site regularly.

I learnt that using Google Analytics and A1WebStats together creates a powerful business development tool as you can identify potential clients plus any competitors that are visiting your website regularly.

Using this insight you can research the companies online via LinkedIn and team pages on corporate websites to see if you can identify key decision makers in a business. You can then reach out to these contacts by following them from your company Twitter account in hope of a reciprocal follow so your content appears on their Twitter feed which raises brand awareness. LinkedIn can be used in a similar way but I learnt that you need to exercise caution here as hard selling on LinkedIn doesn’t go down well.

I also completed a list on who checks out the careers section of the Distinction website and listed them once I found them on LinkedIn. This helped me to discover their qualifications and whether they would be suited for a job at Distinction.

On Thursday I researched the best location for a new office using all sorts of data. I undertook several SWOT analyses about the area being considered by comparing crime rate, average office rent, average income and even how the universities in different places ranked for marketing and computer science to our offices in Nottingham and London. I also highlighted local competition and what services they offered.

The work I have done has been very complex and challenging but this made it interesting and engaging. The way I have learned has been great and I’ve enjoyed this experience. I would recommend Distinction to anyone seeking marketing work experience.

I would also recommend it to anyone looking to work with a marketing agency as I’ve seen how much work and care the team puts into the sites they build and to all the marketing activities they complete.

So, in conclusion my week at Distinction has been great. I don’t think I could have found anywhere else nearly as good. I think my week has reinforced what I want to do with my future career. Digital marketing is the way – it’s a growing industry. I intend to use everything I learnt at Distinction in my future career endeavors. My range of knowledge has greatly increased over this past week. I’d just like to thank the team for all their help and for all the knowledge I have learned from them during this week.

We’re always on the look out for talented and enthusiastic interns to come and learn with us. If you’d like some work experience with us then get in touch at hello@distinction.co.uk.