In May of 2021, I was nearing the end of my junior year at Gonzaga and struggling to land a marketing internship for the summer. Unfortunately, I had applied to over 25 companies and had no job prospects. So I decided to reach out to my old neighbors who had some friends who worked in marketing to see if they would connect me. I connected with a marketing manager at a company called Castellan Solutions, who had an open position for a marketing intern. After going through three interviews, I accepted an offer to be a digital marketing intern for 13 weeks.
Being a part of the marketing at Castellan has been one of the best experiences I can imagine. After finishing my 13 weeks during the summer, I was offered the opportunity to stay on part-time during the school year. As of right now, I have been with Castellan for nearly a year. I have been able to get experience in the various areas of digital marketing. Overall, my primary job function while an intern at Castellan Solutions was to support and assist the marketing team and others in a variety of ways. As I gained more experience, my primary job functions involved overseeing the Drift chatbots on our website, cleaning up data in SalesForce and Pardot, and creating email templates and forms in Pardot. I mainly worked under my manager with the more analytical side of things but was also able to gain experience with the creative aspects as well. I have gained experience in everything from content marketing, SEO, analytics, PPC, and email. I have also worked in platforms such as HubSpot, Pardot, Salesforce, SEMrush, Google Analytics, Drift, ZoomInfo, and 6sense.
During my time at Castellan, I was also given many opportunities to gain certifications relevant to my future digital marketing career. This has been very valuable to me, and I’m sure it will be beneficial to have on my resume as I search for jobs.
One of my most significant tasks during my internship was to assist in implementing and transitioning to a new CRM. When I first started, we were using HubSpot, but we moved to Pardot not too long after. I played a fundamental role in implementing this new system. During the couple of months it took to get running, I had many projects and tasks to assist in setting it up. I helped move all of our forms and email templates to Pardot and ensured that they converted correctly. I also cleaned up our prospect and customer lists to sort out those who had been inactive for an extended time, so we didn’t waste space moving them over. Moreover, I also organized the different types of lead sources we have and helped create a system that better categorizes them to see where prospects come from. Overall, this was a very significant part of my internship. Not only did I spend a substantial amount of time on it, but in the end, it was such a valuable learning experience.
Some of the more frequent and smaller contributions I have made involve creating email templates for our newsletters and email blasts, checking SalesForce and Pardot for sync errors, and cleaning up any blank leads we get. Occasionally, I will also create SalesForce reports for people trying to obtain specific data, such as former customer lists or prospects close to converting to an MQL. Additionally, I help pull data and make slides for our monthly marketing metrics meetings where the marketing team presents trends, KPIs, and updates to the executives in our company. While these aren’t as significant as some of the previously mentioned projects I worked on, they still contribute significantly to the organization over time and help everything run smoothly.
Ultimately, I have accomplished so much during my time with Castellan. I feel that the projects I was most involved in aided and benefitted the marketing team and were also such great learning experiences for me. There has been so much that I have worked on during my time as an intern, and I have contributed a lot of my hard work and effort to the company. One of the key things I found in this internship was pushing myself outside of my comfort zone, which enabled me to learn so much more than if I wouldn’t have. I was also able to develop key skills such as attention to detail, problem-solving, and general digital marketing practices. Overall, I have put in a lot of hard work and dedication to this company, and I have gained so much from it. I am so grateful that I was given the opportunity to work at Castellan Solutions, and I feel that I am ready to enter the workforce.
Drift Chat Bots I Created
Summary of Accomplishments at Castellan
- Corrected sync and lead source errors in Pardot & Salesforce
- Created targeted Drift chatbots to optimize customer experience on web pages
- Reviewed content pieces for grammar and consistency before release
- Researched keyword and positioning using SEMrush to improve SEO
- Assisted in the implementation of Pardot
- Forms, custom redirects, autoresponders, emails, etc.
- Salesforce data cleanup project
- Assisted in the creation of Drift bots for UK pages
- BCM (Business Continuity Management) candidate sourcing support
- Obtained numerous marketing certifications
- Gathered KPIs and metrics for marketing metrics calls with CEO
- Setup email blasts in HubSpot and Pardot
Pingback: My Personal Strengths – Brooke Baker