After a fun and insightful summer with Front Porch Marketing, my internship has come to an end. Front Porch has taught me what it’s like to apply my advertising and marketing skills I acquired in college to real-life scenarios and clients.

Leading up to my first day at FPM, I was very nervous and did not know what to expect. But the team welcomed me with open arms and allowed me to see my full potential. I learned various skills and traits this summer in a low-stress and educational environment that I look forward to using for the rest of my career.

The Best Part of My Internship

My favorite part of my internship was working with one of our clients, Faith Family Academy. Our goal was to increase enrollment for the 2023 school year. We were doing a lot of promoting events and advertising on many different platforms. I got to see what it was like to strategically advertise to a certain target audience in a real life situation.

I learned so much about ad placement and design that I never would have thought to use before. Ultimately, this hands-on experience has taught me things I could never learn in a classroom. Most of all it taught me how to act accordingly in a professional setting.

Internships Are a Valuable Experience

The things I learned this summer I will never take for granted. I was lucky enough to expand my knowledge on marketing. They taught me with hands-on experience and a team that wanted me to succeed. I’ll apply this knowledge to my future. And I will use the experience I have acquired to drive a successful career for myself.  So I cannot thank the people I have worked with enough this summer at my internship. Plus I look forward to keeping in touch with them as I start my professional career, after my senior year at Texas Tech University!

Looking For More Than a Beach Read? Try One of These Marketing Books.

Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Messages So Customers Will Listen

Written by Donald Miller, this book is the perfect guide to strengthen your relationships and loyalty to your consumers. This book draws on the seven universal powers of storytelling. It teaches you how to craft a brand story to gain a competitive advantage in a crowded marketplace.

Building a StoryBrand is the marketing book that will transfigure the way you sell your brand. And the value it brings. It is for leaders who are wondering how to create a clear and consistent brand message. This book is the perfect read for helping you reach your audiences.

Contagious, Why Things Catch On

This book written by Jonah Berger explains the science behind how word-of-mouth and social transmission work. Berger reveals six principles of how ideas and products catch on, appealing to business leaders, politicians, health officials, and anyone trying to sell an idea or product. The book was a New York Times bestseller. It was also awarded the best marketing book in 2014 by the American Marketing Association.

For scientific and analytical thinkers, this is the best marketing book to help you understand the science behind the human brain and natural human tendencies when marketing your brand.

Hacking Growth: How Today’s Fastest-Growing Companies Drive Breakout Success

Looking to rapidly grow your brand? Hacking Growth by Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown is perfect for you. This read touches on the marketing strategy called Growth Hacking. It originated in Silicon Valley and refers to the rapid growth of a company. This book provides you with all the necessities and tools. Your teams can use it to maximize growth, customer base, and market share in a reasoned and deliberate way.

Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind

Are you overwhelming your customers with information? Are they skeptical of the over-consumption of media? Then this marketing book written by Al Ries and Jack Trout is perfect for you. The goal of this book is to keep your brand’s strengths and weaknesses in mind, and use this information to strategically position your company in the customer’s minds.

Whether you are new to the market or seasoned, this book provides you with the information to put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Make an educated approach to align your brand with your customer’s needs.

Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends and Friends Into Customers

Seth Godin reveals his alternative marketing strategy of advertising goods and services only after getting advance consent. People do not respond positively when their lives are “interrupted” by unwanted advertisements.

This book shows brands how to effectively use permission marketing and the wide success it has had on various companies. If you are looking for a way to passively market your brand in a manner that consumers will find subtle and professional, this is the perfect book to read.

What are AI Influencers in marketing?

AI influencers are virtual personalities managed by brands or agencies. They are created using computer graphics and machine-learning algorithms to appeal to a brand’s audience. These influencers serve the same purpose as other real influencers. But they are designed to reinforce a brand’s particular marketing objectives. AI Influencers can wear a retailer’s clothing or visit their store — all virtually. They can express their thoughts about the benefits of products. They can help elevate a brand’s social media.

AI influencers have already worked for brands from Red Bull to Tinder, since 2016. They interact with consumers using conversation, photos and videos. Often hyper-realistic, they create attention-getting, stylish interactions with the products they represent.

What are some benefits of AI Influencers?

AI influencers work 24/7, whereas real humans cannot keep up this pace. This keeps active engagement rates high, and is beneficial to consumers engaging globally in multiple time zones. With round-the-clock content creation, these spokespeople can quickly build a large global following.

Often, they can create content specifically tailored to answer their audiences’ questions. Further, they can engage with thousands of consumers in a personalized way — without the conventional challenges of doing all of this as a real person. AI influencers, and their accompanying data, can also guide brands to find new or specific audiences. They can introduce new products, create more engaging content, and help optimize campaigns. 

How do they help brands specifically?

Everything listed above is incredibly beneficial to growing a brand. But did you know AI influencers can also track consumer engagement so you don’t have to? These influencers can sum up analytical data from a brand’s work with them. That’s influencer and data are rolled into one. This makes it easy to view analytics and make decisions going forward.

From social media engagement to sales reports, an AI influencer can become an important part of helping brands build business. This data is valuable in offering ideas on which demographic to reach. It is valuable to know when to reach them, and how to reach them as well. Brands like Calvin Klein, Samsung, and Prada have all worked with AI influencers. These brands have incorporated influencers on social media platforms with success.

In the future, look for innovative new uses as AI influencers evolve. They’ll continue to talk with consumers and build value for brands in platforms beyond social media.