It was March 2020, pre-pandemic mania, and I was on the search for an internship. During my daily run through on the Indeed app, I came across a marketing intern position for netBlazr, a Boston based ISP. I’ll admit I am no internet aficionado but I felt qualified enough and ready to learn a new industry completely foreign to me. After two interviews and a couple of weeks of waiting, I was offered the position, and I excitedly accepted it. My first day on the job was right around the corner … until it wasn’t after COVID-19 officially swept through the United States, precipitating uncertainty for me and everyone else.
The early months of quarantine were unpredictable, people were losing their jobs, and friends of mine were having their summer internships stripped away and I could only think the same thing would happen to me. However, after some back and forth with my new supervisor, it was determined that my new start date would be in early May and I would be undertaking a completely remote internship. I was both happy and skeptical about this outcome. Yes, I had an internship! But from working in my first remote position, would I still be getting the experience I expected?
When my first day rolled around, I was filled with uncertainty and excitement. The first few weeks were full of training sessions with my supervisor, Ross, and slow introductions to my new responsibilities. Our sessions covered all the basics: who and what netBlazr was as a company, education on the internet industry, learning daily tasks, and starting my attendance in our weekly sales and strategy meetings. I was thrilled to finally be starting after months stuck indoors with no work.
As I got acclimated to my new daily routine of importing customer contacts into Birdeye and updating our weekly figures every Monday, I was soon introduced to bigger and more creative projects. I had hoped that I would be given some creative freedom and independence within this internship and I got just that. I started to create my own email campaigns in Mailchimp and write weekly blog posts on subjects pertaining to our service. It was great to know I was starting to gain the marketing experience I was looking for.
After my first month with netBlazr, Ross started to train me in Adobe Illustrator. Prior to this, I knew next to nothing with the platform and I was so happy to finally be given the chance to learn it as it is a vital tool in any marketing position. I started creating graphics and icons we would then use for social media posts or email campaigns. It was a fulfilling skill to learn as my new creations were contributing to our marketing efforts. With Illustrator and my newfound internet knowledge under my wing, this opened new doors for my tasks including getting involved in creating promotional email campaigns and writing more tech-savvy B2B blog posts.
As time went on, I soon undertook more tasks surrounding analytics. I hadn’t had much experience within analytics prior to netBlazr, but now I was introduced to Google Analytics, how to interpret those numbers for our benefit, and I was able to present my findings to the entire team. I felt great being able to present my interpretations and opinions in our weekly meetings and felt rewarded for my efforts and experience.
At the end of July, I was tasked with creating wireframes for a new cutting-the-cord section to be added to the website. It took hours, days, and weeks to build my designs in Illustrator, run through edits, and build the wireframes out on WordPress but it was definitely my favorite part of my summer with netBlazr.
With summer winding down and our biggest day of the year approaching (September 1st aka move-in day) we started planning for our first virtual event as we acclimated to the new reality of shifting everything online. We came to the decision to do an all-day Instagram Q&A in which we allowed potential and current customers to ask any and all questions regarding netBlazr. Ross and I handled the questions and answered them live on our Instagram story. It was different, but definitely more fun than I could have imagined.
Now here we are, on my last day as the marketing intern for netBlazr and I look back on this summer. It was full of uncertainty and adapting to the new state of the world. I have learned more through this completely remote internship than any other I’ve had before. After working with netBlazr’s amazing marketing team I can confidently say I gained a great amount of experience which has prepared me immensely as I approach my college graduation. Thank you to everyone at netBlazr who made this internship possible and fun!
If you’re the type of person who wants to strengthen your skills in all aspects of marketing, learn more about the local side of a huge industry, and have creative independence with brand projects that really contribute to the success of the company, then you would get a lot out of an internship with netBlazr.