It’s Only the Beginning!
Written by #WakeEntrepreneur, Elizabeth Price
Having just begun my fourth week as a Marketing Intern with sunscreen start-up SnappyScreen, I feel excited, motivated, and determined. These past few weeks have been filled with numerous projects, meetings, research, and even an amazing webinar! I am currently working remotely from my hometown Miami, FL, but am regularly communicating/meeting with numerous team members online throughout the day — I am extremely enthusiastic to see what the next 4 weeks will have to offer.
As my internship continues to unfold, I am eager to continue to learn new skills, be assigned to new projects, and add value back to the company by applying what I have learned. During these 8 weeks, I expect to gain insight into what it takes to work for, manage, and grow a start-up into a strong and successful business. As someone who has always held a strong interest in the world of entrepreneurship, I could not be more excited about this opportunity to apply what I have learned in my entrepreneurship classes to a real-world setting.
Based on my experience so far, I can confidently confirm that time is money and when working for a smaller company like SnappyScreen, every team member is critical – even interns.
My tasks thus far have revolved around social media marketing and growing the brand’s online presence on various platforms. As a marketing intern, I have found it interesting to navigate how to market a brand through the accounts/profiles of complete strangers with limited control of the content that is created and posted. As I continue to recruit new influencers and work on developing new ideas for SnappyScreen’s social accounts, I will be sourcing a lot of my creativity, organization, and communication skills in order to successfully complete these projects. By crafting spreadsheets and working with other team members, I was able to strategically reach out to high priority accounts and acquire about 30 influencers to participate in our summer kick-off campaign: #FirstDayOfSummer. With the goal of driving sales and increasing overall brand awareness, I was thrilled to see the results.
While managing the growth of SnappyScreen’s social media platforms, I have also focused my time on creating a list of potential wholesale retailers from all across the country to carry SnappyScreen’s new luxury sunscreen: SunStyles. In the same way that I was recruiting influencers that fit the brand’s image, I was assigned with finding potential retailers that would align well with the SunStyles brand. When researching vendors in the South Florida area, for example, it was critical to find boutiques and stores whose brand mantra aligned with SunStyles’ – I am confident that this ability to match a product to a vendor will serve me well in the future. Reaching out to each retail location with the intention of gathering buyer contact information required a lot of professionalism and strong communication skills. Once locations were approved and I shared my spreadsheet with my supervisor, I was tasked with designing a “mail chimp” to be emailed to each vendor with information about our product – taking the lead on this design was both exciting and engaging.
With each day as a SnappyScreen intern, I hope to continuously add value to the company. My intentions for the summer are to not only gain experience and learn new skills but to complete my internship knowing that I was able to significantly contribute to the SnappyScreen brand.