As an intern at Morningstar, Inc. I look forward to each day in the office because in such a large company, each day brings new learning experiences and new opportunities to enhance my understanding of the company and expand on my personal development. Being located at the company’s headquarters in Chicago, I am one of nearly 1,500 employees who occupy the space. Some days it is easy to feel like just another employee among many, but the company has constructed a culture in which every employee feels welcome. There are numerous events to get involved with the company’s initiatives through networking events, volunteer days, holiday gathering and many more. The emphasis on company culture and inclusion has elevated my appreciation for the company exponentially and made my time at Morningstar very memorable.

My role as a Library Services Intern for the Morningstar Research Products division has transformed over my tenure. I have worn many hats and through the duration of a company restructure, I took on many responsibilities I may not have had otherwise. Currently, in my day-to-day, I support our team Sales Representative with client outreach and prospecting initiatives. I get to work closely with our clients and have become their contact when they have trouble understanding or engaging with the database we provide. When a client reaches out with a concern, I work with them to understand how they are engaging with the platform and then walk them through troubleshooting techniques to help them resolve the issue. Of course, issues are not always solved on the first try and in that event, I will raise the issue to our team tech developer who then takes on the issue.

When I am not working with clients, I am actively working to prospect new territories and their library demographics to target new clients that my Sales Representative can being reaching out to. Once we have identified enough potential clients to deem new prospects, we initiate a direct mail campaign to reach clients directly. When putting together a direct mail campaign, I am responsible for writing the copy for our outreach and selecting the existing Morningstar publications that best fit the segment we are targeting. These responsibilities have given me the opportunity to grow exponentially as a marketer and provided tangible experience solidifying my decision in my major.

The opportunity to intern with Morningstar while being a full-time student has been an extraordinary experience and one that has helped me to gage the direction, I want to take my career. As I continue to grow in this role, I have mentors within the company to support me and who have become vital pillars within my personal network. These are individuals who I have built lasting relationships with beyond my role as an intern.

A Day in the Life of a Marketing Peer Financial Advisor

Hi everyone! I’m Samantha Mallett, a senior at DePaul University studying Marketing with a concentration in Digital Marketing and I work on campus as a Marketing Peer Financial Advisor (PFA) for DePaul’s Financial Fitness Team. As one of the five sectors within the DePaul Central department, we strive to help students better manage their personal finances. Our primary focuses include: one-on-one advising for students, quarterly EDGE team presentations, and presenting to student organizations. Students come to us for help with loan repayments, building credit, budgeting, and other financial advising topics. No two days look the same for us which makes my job so exciting. Being a PFA motivates me to step outside of my comfort zone and find ways to continuously be innovative.

As the Marketing PFA, my role varies because I focus on increasing awareness of the Financial Fitness team and student organization outreach. Every day I plan out social media posts for our Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter pages (@DePaulCentral) using Excel. Once my supervisor approves those posts, I use Hootsuite to schedule posts in advance. Managing our social media content allows me to express my creativity – something that I’ve always enjoyed in the workplace. I’m constantly thinking of new ways to expand our audience to more students to influence them to use our services. Also, it’s motivated me to increase my graphic design skills by unique creating social media graphics such as this one pun for Valentine’s Day. When I’m not working on social media, I’m reaching out to student organizations for potential presentations from out teams. After presenting in one of their meetings or event, many students are motivated to schedule a one-on-one advising session with us. Some even come back for second or third appointments.

Although we’re a small team of only 6 people, we’re mighty in our impact. I’ve learned not only about creating social media content, but the needs of our DePaul students. We’re continuing St. Vincent de Paul’s mission of determining what must be done for the greater good of our students and I’m proud to be a part of this impact. I’m thankful to be the Marketing PFA and I look forward to the Financial Fitness team’s continuous growth.

If you’re wondering what it’s like being a marketing intern at Logan Consulting, you’re in the right place. From writing blogs, sending out newsletters, or optimizing social media, you’re always busy at Logan Consulting. This is a small to medium company who specializes on management technology consulting for businesses, like manufactures. You will get a full understanding of many consulting practices, content creation, business writing, and the ability to communicate with a large range of people.

The Duties
The duty of an intern is to create relevant content for emails, social media and the website. Marketing interns do a lot of writing. Blog posts are designed to target and spark the interest of their customers about relevant and relatable topics. These blogs are shared on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. On top of that, interns make and design social media images through Canva which coordinates to the topic of the blog to the theme of their social platforms, which is simply just the color royal blue with white text (See below). The content is then posted with the blog link attached. Next, monthly newsletters are made for their customers and prospects. These contain top highlights from the month, top blogs, or any current events. These newsletters have links which link back to their website so people can view our content.

Interns are responsible for interviewing with the consultants to get information to make a case study. This is so we can post on the website about past client experiences and how Logan Consulting helped them. We also interview them for blog topics and ideas, and for white papers, which are graphic, mini downloadable books. An example topic of a whitepaper is “24 Questions manufacturers should ask being Implementing a new ERP Software”. White papers are posted on the website for prospects and consumer to read them, they must leave their email and name for the free download. This is a great way for Logan Consulting to get someone’s information.

My Personal Reflection
Since working at Logan Consulting for 3 months, I have been very happy with my time here. I have had to really challenge myself in learning about this industry and how to get things done on my own. They have high expectations that you can come in, view the task lists and start getting things done. This is a great motivator for me because it has been teaching me organization, time management and how to be efficient. Being able to see your workload and to cross off completed tasks really helps me stay on track and to get ahead of the game.

I have learned how to write my first blog, manage business social media platforms, and use a CRM software to design and develop newsletters and other email campaigns. I have also learned so much about the management technology consulting industry. Learning about Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, or Customer Relations Management (CRM) software can be very dry and hard to comprehend in the beginning, but the more you are exposed to it, the better it gets and the more you learn.

At Logan Consulting, we use Microsoft Office 365 to create content and to communicate with anyone. We use Outlook to Email and to organize our day with calendars, Skype for Business to communicate with each other, and SharePoint to view our task lists and other important information. We also use Word and Excel to manage data and create documents.

My favorite part of this internship opportunity is the company culture. It’s a small business and there are usually anywhere from 5-10 people in the office at a time (the consultants travel), so you really get to know each other. Everyone I’ve met has been so helpful and caring to me while I am learning. I felt so welcomed when I was new. Everyone at Logan Consulting is very hard working. They all strive for success while also strongly valuing the important things of life other than work and this is something, I really like about interning at Logan Consulting.

Interested in learning more about what it’s like to be a marketing intern at Logan Consulting? Feel free to contact me, jtpaul286@gmail.com or click here to visit Logan Consulting’s website.