While some elements of marketing are highly strategic and complex, a lot of it is simply work that needs to get done. When you bring on marketing interns, you get the benefit of getting some of the basics handled while also helping someone gain experience and further their career in marketing.
Sure, your SEO keyphrase research, ads management, website design, and content marketing needs to be done by a pro, but there is plenty that a marketing intern can do to help your team execute on both digital marketing and digital PR. Here are 10 project ideas that you can assign your intern.
1. Create a digital media list
Without pricey PR software, it’s hard to create a high quality media list. But that’s only true for traditional media. When it comes to digital PR, you absolutely can build a media list in simpler—and more affordable—ways.
Once you know your target outlets, it’s easy to find contact information using sites like Hunter.io and Prowly.
Pro tip: Give your marketing intern a starting point by showing them some example publications, podcasts, and communities that would be a perfect fit for your company. Then give them criteria for more outlets to add.
2. Pitch podcasts for executives or founders
It’s very likely that your target audience listens to podcasts, whether your company is B2C or B2B. Consider all of the people in your company who could be a guest on these podcasts. Maybe a manager, executive, or founder.
Make a creative brief with the types of podcasts that would be a fit, and ask your marketing intern to generate a list of 100 perfect podcasts.
Pro tip: Ask your intern to add booking and contact information, which can usually be found somewhere on the website.
3. Email potential co-marketing partners
Have you run out of ideas for who to feature on your next webinar?
Or...maybe your company isn’t regularly running visibility partnerships because you never have time to approach potential partners.
Either way, an intern can absolutely help you craft a list of ideal co-marketing partners and reach out to them via email or social media.
Pro tip: Have a more senior marketer draft the outreach template and make sure that the “ask” is clear and simple.
4. Write an advice roundup article
The great thing about advice roundups is that they practically write themselves. An intern with a keen eye for editing can wrangle expert advice into a cohesive article.
You can use a website like HARO to come up with a concept and collect advice from experts. This works equally well for B2B and B2C topics.
Pro tip: Sometimes HARO opens you up to a deluge of responses from people who aren’t truly experts (these people just want backlinks). If you’re not getting quality responses, train your intern in email pitching target experts to ask them for a quote. Make sure to draft or approve the email pitch template.
5. Pitch guest posts
Writing guest posts offers a lot of different benefits:
- Getting in front of new audiences
- Collecting backlinks to your best SEO content
- Creating relationships with marketers at non-competing companies in your industry
Train your marketing intern to become a PR assistant by teaching them the art of pitching. Show them how to come up with a list of ideal blogs to guest post on, how to find contact information, and how to pitch editors and content managers.
Pro tip: Write for company blogs in your industry, not spammy guest posting websites with very small readerships.
6. Turn blog content into social media posts
We’ve all heard that repurposing content is a smart thing to do, but how many marketers have time to do this? The truth is that every piece of marketing content could get repurposed even more.
Your marketing intern can easily create on-brand social media content when they are using already published blog posts as inspiration.
Pro tip: Start with one channel at a time when training a new intern. For example, have them turn blog posts into Instagram captions or Tweets. Help them master one channel before moving on to another.
7. Turn podcast interviews into blog posts (even if you don’t have a podcast)
Many companies that publish podcasts will turn these episodes into a blog post, or multiple blog posts. But not every company produces a podcast.
Luckily, that isn’t a problem. You can find podcasts that your target audience listens to or has been a guest on. Find relevant podcast episodes, and have an intern transcribe the podcast and turn the ideas into new content.
Pro tip: Make sure to teach your intern about proper attribution. They can even include blockquotes from the podcast in their blog post.
8. Communicate with participants of a virtual event
In some ways, running a virtual conference is easier than an in-person one. At the very least, you’re not having to organize venues, ground transportation, or food.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t a ton of moving parts.
While event management does require skill and experience, there are small communication tasks your intern can help with, like inviting participants to sign up for the portal where they will upload their talk and find assets.
Pro tip: Don’t make your intern in charge of every type of communication. Break it down to one small thing at a time (such as reminding participants where they can find social media assets to share the event the week before you go live).
9. Make a list of micro-influencers
Finding micro-influencers is a ton of work. You want to look for people that don’t have a massive following, but do get massive engagement. You also need to make sure these people’s followers represent your target audience, and that their content doesn’t go against your brand ideals. It can take hours to produce even a small list of perfect-fit micro-influencers.
When you train your intern in various clues and criteria, they can help generate an awesome list of micro-influencers for you to reach out to regarding product reviews or sponsored content.
Pro tip: Create a list of positive criteria and negative (no go) criteria, so your intern isn’t adding lots of the wrong people to your list. This will make the review process a lot faster for you.
10. Create infographics with easy design tools
Infographics are notoriously time consuming to create. After all, some of them are about a mile long in pixel length (just kidding).
While you might not have your interns designing branded materials like logos and social media headers, they can help with graphics for Pinterest and your blog.
Infographics increase your chances of getting backlinks for a blog post, which make them even more worth creating.
To save time, approve the copy for the infographic before it gets designed.
Pro tip: For this project, ditch Canva in favor of a tool that is specifically created for infographics, such as Venngage, so interns can create infographics with less time and frustration.
Your marketing interns can help your marketing team get work done faster. But for their efforts to be effective, you need to systematize your processes and train them well. Use these project ideas to boost your marketing and your interns’ careers.
About the Author
Dayana Mayfield is a digital PR strategist who helps small businesses train their interns and assistants in digital PR. Download her SEO PR Checklist, and connect with her on LinkedIn.
