Welcome Lillian Cloud, our new intern, to the Porch!

It’s time to welcome a new team member this fall — Lillian Clould. She is a recent college graduate from Texas A&M, and is currently pursuing her master’s degree in Marketing at UT Dallas. We love our interns, and we’re so excited to introduce you to Lillian. You can read about her on our team page, and today, we’ve asked her a few questions about her perspective on marketing, so you can get to know her better. And then you can send Lillian a big Front Porch “howdy!”

What is the biggest misconception about marketing today?

I believe the biggest misconception about marketing today is that marketing is only about selling people stuff they do not need. Marketing is so much more than that now and we have such an opportunity to reach people today with marketing than ever before.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Don’t take yourself too seriously.

What is one of the biggest lessons you’ve learned so far at school?

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned so far at school is to make sure your professors know who you are. Build relationships with your professors, they can be a great resource.

What does good brand strategy look like?

I think good brand strategy starts with knowing your brand well and what direction you want your brand to go in.  At the same time, it is important to know what your brand is not.

If you could be anywhere in the world right now where would it be?

Rome!

If you could go to dinner with one person living or dead who would it be?

My great aunt Lillian who I am named after.

If you could describe yourself in three words what would they be?

Three words that describe me are passionate, loyal, and honest.

Tell us about a major milestone in your life?

A major milestone in my life was graduating college this past year and moving away from my hometown and family. I went to college in my hometown so graduating and moving to Dallas was a big change for me but I wouldn’t change it for the world.

From your perspective, how does Front Porch Marketing differentiate itself from other marketing companies?

I think that the size of Front Porch Marketing allows it to get to know their clients well and have a real connection with them. Everyone I have worked with on the team is always so willing to help and listen to me which is exactly how we treat our clients and I think that makes us special.

What is a fun fact about you?

A fun fact about me is that I love to travel and learn about history and art.

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!

Our new high school interns Abby and Anna will be joining us on the Porch this summer.

Everybody say hello to our interns from Ursuline Academy of Dallas. Every summer we host interns from this high school, and give them a little taste of what a professional marketing career might look like. They’ll be visiting clients, creating content, researching topics, preparing branding documents, learning some analytics and PR skills, and we’ll even have them write a blog post here on our blog. We are proud to support and mentor the next generation of Ursuline Academy students, as we have for the past seven years.

We asked our Ursuline interns Abby Sanders and Anna Wilson a few “get to know you” questions, so y’all could learn more about their GenZ perspective.

Ursuline Intern Abby Sanders

1. What makes you want to have a career in marketing? I have always been really creative and have a playful sense of humor. I believe that marketing may be a good way for me to be able to express these traits while pursuing a career I enjoy.

2. What is one of the biggest lessons you have learned so far in your life? During the pandemic, I learned the value of not stressing out over the small things and how much I should value the time I have with others. 

3. If you could describe yourself in three words what would they be? Friendly, Optimistic, and Hard-Working 

4. What are your goals for your time at Front Porch Marketing? I am really excited to learn about what a profession in marketing would look like and develop skills that will be helpful throughout my life. 

5. If you could go to dinner with one person living or dead, who would it be? I would choose Walt Disney because he followed his dreams and pursued his passions to become immensely successful doing what he loves. My family and I love to go to Disney World, so I would love to meet the man that made those bonding experiences possible. 

6. What is a fun fact about you? I love to travel with my family and I have been able to visit 7 different countries!

Ursuline Intern Anna Wilson

1. What makes you want to have a career in marketing? I want to have a career in marketing because I love social media and understanding people. Marketing is always growing, especially with the influence of social media. It allows people to gain so much information all in one place. I also find it fascinating the way people consume information and how one Tik Tok can immediately make someone buy a product.

2. What is one of the biggest lessons you have learned so far in your life? One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that balance is a necessity is all aspects of my life. Whether that be between school and my social life, or making time for myself, I feel the best, and do the best work when I do not overwhelm myself with one thing. 

3. If you could describe yourself in three words what would they be? In three words, I would say I am enthusiastic, caring, and determined.

4. What are your goals for your time at Front Porch Marketing? My main goal at FPM is getting exposure to the marketing world. Seeing as marketing is not a class in high school, I want to learn as much as possible through real world experiences. 

5. If you could go to dinner with one person living or dead, who would it be? I would go to dinner with my grandma to hear her advice and understand her life from my current, older perspective.

6. What is a fun fact about you? One fun fact about me is that I love cows and think they are really funny!

Two Rockin’ Additions to the Front Porch Team!

This week, we’re welcoming Andrew Porter, our newest intern rocker, to the team!

1. What makes you want to have a career in marketing, Andrew Porter?

I’ve grown up watching my mom create this awesome company from the ground up and achieve so much in little time. It really motivates me to be successful seeing her achieve her dream and work so hard to obtain it. I want to be able to do what I want in the future as well and achieve my dream. Marketing has a special place in my heart and really does interest me in my future career endeavors.

2. What is one of the biggest lessons you’ve learned so far in your life?

There are many obstacles in life, but you end up gaining more from these obstacles than you have lost, if you choose to conquer the obstacles.

3. If you could describe Andrew Porter in three words, what would they be?

The three words I’d use to describe myself would be hardworking, funny, and committed.

4. What are your goals for your time at Front Porch Marketing?

I really want to get my foot in the door with this marketing internship, and get some real life business experience for the future. I have 5 specific goals that I’d like to conquer while at Front Porch:

1) I will be able to professional handle myself according to the certain business or personal situation that is present. And learn from those that have more experience than I do.

2) I will be able to communicate with clients and strangers effectively for the benefit of me and others.

3) I will be able to effectively navigate the internet accordingly while also being proficient in Microsoft 365.

4) I will be able to successfully balance the many activities that go on in my everyday life with my multiple jobs, hanging with friends, and sleeping.

5) I will be able to build a basic understanding of marketing principles to assist clients in attaining their long-time goals.

5. If you could go to dinner with one person living or dead who would it be?

One person I’d definitely want to go to dinner with would be Chris Farley. He is my favorite comedian and is literally so funny. I’d love to see him in person do his Matt Foley: Van Down by the River skit from SNL.

6. What is a fun fact about you?

I am currently the Vice President of Recruitment of the Interfraternity Council (IFC) at Rollins College and the Brotherhood Chair of SAE.

Setting up and running a successful marketing internship program is an important step to the future success of both your company and the next generation of marketers. Bottom line: what’s in it for you as a company is the creation of a skilled employee pipeline. You’ve taught them, you’ve trained them, and they know your business. All of those attributes will most likely make these interns your best next employees.

How to start your internship program? Start small with the intention of hiring one intern for one semester. With a 5-6 month window for the internship, you can more easily structure what the intern will do during their tenure with you. Be sure to ask your intern what they want to learn, and what they would like to get out of the internship. Also, take the time to coordinate with their college if need be, so that they receive college credit for their internship if that is an option. And most importantly, pay your intern a fair hourly wage for their contribution to your business.

Marketing Internship 101 – Training.

Begin an intern’s employment with introductions and training. Have a blog and/or website? Add them to the team and write an introductory post so clients, customers and the general public can get to know your talented intern. This also gives the marketing intern a link that they can include on the LinkedIn profile, legitimatizing their career before they graduate. In turn, introduce the intern to each person in the company, and ask them to explain what they do and how it fits into the big picture.

Ideally you’ll want your marketing intern to spend some quality time shadowing different people in your company to get the full picture of marketing: PR, copywriting, design, social media, analytics, etc. Encourage the rest of your company to be supportive of your intern in their language and actions. Make sure their first experience in marketing is a positive one!

Interns learn by doing, so show them how to do it.

Then, help your intern get comfortable on the platforms you use to do business, whether that’s WordPress, Google Analytics, Buffer, or any of the social media platforms. For a marketing internship, shadow days can help with this learning. After initial shadow days, interns can be given compartmentalized parts of jobs to complete: image search on a stock site, compiling social media stats monthly on an Excel spreadsheet, and even writing blog posts on topics that they are learning in school. The more you teach them, the more they can run with something and help you!

Set them free and watch them succeed!

Once your intern has mastered some tasks, give them something that they can own: a specific client report, a research project, a white paper, or an organizational project. They could also own a role like proofreading or coordinating employee content for blog posts. Your intern could then teach everyone what they’ve learned at the end of the project.

When you help the next generation of marketing students gain access to a “real” job by offering them an internship, you are paying it forward for everyone that helped you in your early career. And at the end of the internship, you’ll most likely have a successful full-time employee ready to hire. At Front Porch Marketing, we regularly hire one or more college student interns all year long, and add high school student interns from Ursuline Academy of Dallas. We love working with interns and highly recommend adding them to your staff.

Broadening your skill set is the key to success. That is what I have learned as an intern and college student so far. Success in your career depends on being skilled in more than one discipline. Graphic Design is something that I hold very dear to my heart, so I started college thinking this would be my path. My father is a graphic designer. Thus I have a personal connection to it and I’ve been practicing it for over four years.

Start With Something You Love and Broaden Your Skill Set for Success From There

Since I was a kid I would always look up to my father’s work as an artist. He graduated from UNT with a degree in Graphic Design and immediately got picked up by a respectable design firm. Throughout my life I would observe his work, how he brainstormed, his rough sketches, and then the final product.

Some of his work includes the live theater company called Kitchen Dog Theater and the Green Light to Greatness logo for The University of North Texas, that you can still see today on busses. He’s even done work for BNSF, the largest freight railroad network in North America! As a kid growing up I really looked up to him and thought he had the coolest job in the world. Being able to permanently leave your mark on the world and potentially change a company’s look sounded amazing. So, I decided at a very early age that I wanted to be a Graphic Designer.

• 

• 

Learn a New Skill Wherever You Can

I started by taking every art class I could from elementary to high school. When I reached high school, I decided it was time to start learning Graphic Design. I started by taking Graphic Design I, and Graphic Design II. Once I got confident enough in my skills I joined the school newspaper The Sidekick, and worked for them providing writers with illustrations.

During this time, I also did a lot of work with Reese Bonneau, a local artist. I designed his album covers on Spotify and created multiple T-shirts for him to sell on his website. Now he has over 3K monthly listeners on Spotify! Through him I met other local artists and designed even more album covers. I like to help musicians and small companies just starting out. It allows me to get more experience, learn new things and grow.

• 

• 

You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

Once I started college at The University of North Texas, I decided to major in Graphic Design like my father. It was a really tough program, but I was growing so much as an artist. But after one semester though, I decided that even though I love graphic design, I wanted to expand my skillset to a more business-oriented role. Being exposed to Marketing and Business caused me to pivot in my aspirations. I decided to switch my major from Graphic Design to Marketing. One of the most important things I learned in college: trying a bit of everything, meeting all kinds of people related to your industry, and taking new classes can help you discover your true path!

Now, my goal is to become a Marketing Manager for a big tech company. Currently, I still doing Graphic Design on the side. In addition to being an intern at Front Porch Marketing, I’m also the Graphic Designer and Social Media Manager for a start up Manga publishing company. Their mission is to provide a platform for up-and-coming manga artists and writers. We’re growing little by little every day and I think we’re off to a great start considering we started in January during a pandemic.

• 

It’s OK to Change Your Mind and Try Something New

Even though I originally went to UNT to become a Graphic Designer, I have broader marketing and business goals now. I still love and practice it on the side when I can. But my focus is learning more about marketing and getting as much experience as I can with all aspects of marketing before I graduate.

There are so many different disciplines involved in marketing and I’m learning so much working as an intern at Front Porch Marketing. Every time I get an assignment I learn something new and grow in my confidence. Although I’m very focused on learning the digital aspect of marketing, I want to have a broad understanding of all the different branches, especially in the business management of marketing. I would love to learn how to create effective ads, do SEO, and email marketing. So I really look forward to growing with this company, as well as learning more at school this fall!