When taking on your first “real” project as an intern, a lot of thoughts go through your mind, “Am I ready for this? Where do I start? I hope I don’t blow this,” but none can beat the rush you get when you realize it’s time to prove your worth. It can be scary taking on a project with such a high value to our company when you have never done anything like it before. It’s like being thrown into an ocean, not knowing how to swim, and having to fend for yourself. Well, with no arm floaties, I had to learn on my own.
I soon found out that meetings are critical to the success of a project. It’s so easy to get the right group of talented people together, each from different departments, sit down and come up with tactical options on how to complete a project in the allotted timeframe and within the budget. My one-man project quickly turned into a group effort. Unlike class up at school, I was able to delegate tasks to each department at hand that specialized in that particular work. The creative ideas went to our creative department, the press release and announcements to our PR department and the website specifications to our interactive/online team. With follow-up meetings, I was able to put together a great marketing plan for the project. What would have been a semester-long project in school was put together in a little over a week.
The implementation of the marketing plan would not have happened had the plan not been approved with oversight from the CEO, President, account executive and head of the research department. This was a little intimidating to say the least. Facing a panel of four of your superiors and pitching a marketing plan that was little more than an idea a week ago was not an easy thing to do. All in all, I thought the presentation went over fairly well. Of course, for being the first “real” project I have put together, there were a couple tweaks here and there. But the project got approved. (That’s gotta’ mean something right?) Overall, it has been a great learning experience putting together a “real” full-blown marketing plan. Now comes the execution…