Candidates with work experience are always ahead of those without experience when job hunting. Whether you have a formal education or not, having experience in your preferred field can always benefit you. 

The same goes for digital marketing, too. Having experience to showcase in your portfolio will always favour your career. But if you are a beginner fresh out of college, only with theoretical knowledge of digital marketing, how do you gain experience? The answer is internship programs. This article will take you through the ABCs of a digital marketing internship.

What is a Digital Marketing Internship

Digital marketing offers endless opportunities in various fields, and landing a career in your area of specialisation often requires skills and experience. Digital marketing internships are a great way to gain experience in your area of specialization. 

Internships are short training periods spent in a company to gain practical experience. Internships help you put your theoretical knowledge into practice, improve your skills, and get exposure to the working culture.

You can do a digital marketing internship in your specialization. As interns, you will gain experience in running and managing social media campaigns, conducting research and market analysis, auditing, link building, etc. You can also work alongside the digital marketing team and learn from experienced professionals. 

Paid and unpaid internships are available. Paid internships are a great option because you get paid even with a small amount for your work. However, if you get an unpaid internship offer from a big company, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to go for it. Also, after the internship, some companies offer a full-time position based on your internship performance.

Essential Skills for Digital Marketing Interns

Before starting an internship, you should learn the basics of digital marketing. There are a handful of skills that you need to possess before starting an internship position. Some of these skills can be acquired by learning about digital marketing from various sources. As it is an internship, you will not be required to have extensive knowledge in the area. With practice and experience, you can hone your skills. Some of the basic skills that a digital marketing intern should have are given below.

  • The most necessary skill for a digital marketing intern is a basic understanding of digital marketing. You can learn the basics by enrolling in a short term course or with self-learning. If you are a self learner, you can make use of books, online tutorials, blogs, and podcasts to get an indepth knowledge. There are online communities on social media where people discuss the latest trends and tools within the industry.
  • A digital marketing intern must possess basic technical skills. Various tools and platforms are involved in marketing digitally. For the smooth functioning of various areas in digital marketing, these tools are necessary. Hence, a digital marketing intern must be aware of the various tools used in their area of specification. With the integration of AI in digital marketing, there are many benefits like the ease of measuring the effectiveness of digital marketing campaigns, analysing target audiences, etc. Hence, an understanding of technical skills is necessary.
  • Data analysis is an important part of digital marketing. After conducting an online marketing campaign, you need to analyse the results to understand its success rate. You must also conduct thorough research to find the target audience. Hence, researching and data analysis are some of the skills that you must acquire.
  • To create engaging campaigns, you need a creative mindset. To develop creative marketing strategies that capture the attention of the audience and improve their engagement, digital marketers need to think creatively and come up with out-of-the-box ideas.

Different Types of Digital Marketing Internships

Digital marketing has different areas of specialisation. An internship in these specific areas, such as SEO, Social Media, and Performance Marketing, helps develop skills and knowledge in these areas. Experienced professionals will guide an intern to enhance their understanding of digital marketing strategies for driving desired results. While choosing the specialisation for the internship, along with considering your career goals and interests, research the market trends and opportunities for growth. Given below are details on a few specialisations in digital marketing:

SEO Internship

The prime responsibility of an SEO intern is to enhance the company website’s performance by employing various SEO strategies. An SEO intern will work alongside the digital marketing team and optimize the website to drive organic traffic and improve its visibility in search engine result pages. Strategies like keyword research, on-page SEO, off-page SEO, technical SEO, link building, etc., are used for Search Engine Optmization.

Required Skills

  • Basic understanding of SEO tools, such as Google Analytics, SEMrush, Ahrefs, or Moz.
  • Research skills to identify relevant keywords.
  • Strong analytical skills to analyse and develop strategies.
  • Basic understanding of CSS and HTML.
  • Ability to create and optimise quality content for the website.
  • Understanding of the link-building technique.
  • Ability to effectively communicate with the team members and the clients.

Duties of an SEO intern

An SEO intern will be closely associated with the marketing and content teams, and they will be tasked with various duties, including,

  • Conduct keyword research and optimise the website content by including relevant keywords.
  • Developing strategies for link-building and gaining high-quality backlinks.
  • Optimising the website content by adding and optimising images with alt tags, adding meta tags, and meta descriptions.
  • Examine the website to identify broken links, outdated content, duplicate content, etc. and resolve the issues to enhance the website’s performance.
  • Stay updated on the latest trends, tools, and techniques.
  • Conduct competitor analysis to understand and stay updated on the latest trends.

Social Media Internship

A social media intern works with the social media team and assists them in managing the company’s social media platforms. The social media team creates content for the social media platforms and also creates effective campaigns to build an online presence and reach the target audience.

Required Skills

  • Knowledge of various social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and YouTube.
  • Verbal and written communication skills.
  • Basic understanding of Photoshop, Canva, or other designing and editing tools.
  • Have a creative mindset and be able to come up with out-of-the-box strategies.
  • Ability to multitask, work on various projects simultaneously and work effectively to meet deadlines.
  • Familiarise yourself with various social media analytics tools, such as Google Analytics and Sprout Social, to understand the effectiveness of social media campaigns.

Duties of a Social Media Intern

  • Stay updated on the latest social media trends and keep an eye on the competitors.
  • Develop creative content for the social media platforms.
  • Measure the success of social media campaigns using various analytics tools and form effective strategies to improve the performance.
  • Understand the audience to create targeted ads and content strategies.
  • Maintain a relationship with the audience by responding to their comments and queries on social media platforms.

Performance Marketing Internship

A performance marketing intern works alongside the digital advertising team to create and optimise campaigns on various digital platforms. They assist in developing creative ads to improve engagement and conversion rates. Moreover, they analyse the campaign’s performance to track its success.

Required Skills

  • A basic understanding of digital advertising platforms such as Facebook Ads, Google Ads, etc.
  • Basic understanding of concepts like SEM and PPC.
  • A creative mindset is needed to develop powerful and engaging ad copies.
  • Verbal and written communication skills are needed to communicate strategies effectively with the team.
  • Ability to effectively analyse the data.
  • Ability to manage multiple tasks simultaneously.
  • Problem-solving skills to come up with solutions to tackle issues with campaigns.

Duties of a Performance Marketing Intern

  • Assist with creating and managing ads across various digital platforms.
  • Analyse the performance of the campaign to rate its effectiveness and find areas for improvement.
  • Write creative ad copies to improve conversion rates.
  • Manage the budget allocated for advertising to ensure that the budget is spent efficiently.
  • Do competitor analysis to understand the latest trends and strategies.

Applying for a Digital Marketing Internship

After acquiring the necessary skills and knowledge, you now need to find internship opportunities in Calicut. There are job portals where you can find plenty of digital marketing internship opportunities. Some popular online job portals are Indeed, LinkedIn, Naukri, and Internshala. Try the filter options to search for internship opportunities in Calicut. On LinkedIn, create a profile showcasing your skills and expertise. You can connect with industry experts on this platform and follow company pages to get notified of internship opportunities. Most companies list vacancies on their company website. Search for digital marketing agencies and search career pages on their website to find opportunities.

To land an internship at your dream company, you must be extra careful about your application. Several others would have also applied for the same role, so you need a strong application to stand out. Ideally, an internship application must include a resume, portfolio, and cover letter. Preparing a portfolio with your work samples can be beneficial to demonstrate your skills. Follow these instructions to create an application that effectively showcases your qualifications and enthusiasm for the digital marketing internship position.

What to Include in Your Resume and Cover Letter

When preparing a resume, make sure you tailor it for the specific role that you are applying for. Add the relevant skills required for the specific position. A resume should have the following information:

Contact information – Include your name, phone number, email id, and if necessary, add a link to your website or LinkedIn profile.

Career objective – Add a short statement about your career objectives. This should be tailored to the role you are applying for.

Education – When adding your educational details, start from the most recent institution. Include your year of completion, and if you have had any special achievements or have been part of a project relevant to the applying role, you can add that in this section under the respective institution.

Experience – If you have any work experience, including internships or volunteer work, add that along with highlighting your responsibilities in the role and achievements, if any.

Skills – Highlight your soft skills as well as technical skills. Skills like communication, creativity, time management, etc., are considered soft skills, and your technical knowledge, including the understanding of digital marketing or social media tools, comes under technical skills.

Certificate – Any certificates that you have acquired related to digital marketing.

Projects – Include the details of any projects related to digital marketing that you have been a part of.

How to write a cover letter for a digital marketing internship

A cover letter should be written in a professional tone. It should have an introduction, body and conclusion. The introduction should follow a proper salutation. The introduction should include a short introduction of yourself and then mention how you found out about the vacancy. 

The body should highlight your interest in the role and how your skills and experiences align with the digital marketing internship position. You can also add examples of how you used your digital marketing skills in various situations related to the role you are applying. 

Finally, conclude your letter with a conclusion where you restate your interest in the role and enthusiasm for connecting and further discussing your relevant skills and experience. Provide your contact information and end the letter with a greeting.

Preparing for the Internship Interview

An internship interview aims to learn about you and test your skills related to the role. Here are some common digital marketing interview questions and how to respond to them.

  • Tell us about yourself.

This is a common interview starter question asked to learn about the candidate. As a response, briefly introduce yourself and describe your educational background, experiences, and career goals.

  • What is digital marketing?
    Promoting your brand, products, and services on digital platforms using digital tools and technologies is known as digital marketing. Internet, social media, and other online platforms are used for marketing and connecting with your audience.
  • What are some digital marketing tools?
    Respond to this question by listing the names of the digital marketing tools you are familiar with and explain what each tool is used for. Here are a few examples of digital marketing tools:

Ahrefs – SEO tool used for keyword research, Competitor and backlink analysis, and site audit.
Google Analytics – to track your website performance.
SEMrush – used for keyword research, competitor analysis, site audit and managing social media.
Mailchimp – this is a tool mainly used for email marketing.
Hootsuite – a popular tool for social media management, including scheduling and publishing posts.

This is just a brief description of each tool. There are several other tools for digital marketing. Research and understand what each tool is used for, and add more points.

  • Why do you want to pursue a career in digital marketing?
    You can answer this question by stating why you are interested in digital marketing and your future career goals. Here is a sample answer: “I am excited about a career in digital marketing because it will allow me to combine my creative potential with data-driven strategies to create innovative campaigns that help businesses grow. Digital marketing is also an ever-evolving field, offering continuous learning and growth opportunities”.
     
  • What are SEO and SEM and their main difference?
    SEO, the abbreviated form of search engine optimization, is the process of optimising websites to help them rank better in search engine result pages (SERP) and drive organic traffic by improving their visibility. SEO involves factors like keywords, backlinks, quality content, etc. SEM or Search Engine Marketing, is a digital marketing concept that improves your website visibility in search engine result pages. The main difference between the two is that while SEO focuses on organic traffic, SEM involves using paid advertisements to attract website traffic.

These are a few sample interview questions and sample answers, you can research more on digital marketing and come up with additional points to these responses. Before attending the interview, research the company and its services. Also, study properly about the role you are applying for. These are some basic preparations that you can do ahead of an interview. If you are applying for a social media intern position, be prepared to write ad copy if asked. 

Aviv’s Digital Marketing Internship Programme

Aviv Digital is one of the popular Digital Marketing institutes in Kerala. An aspiring digital marketer can join the internship program offered by Aviv Digital in Calicut. Aviv Digital is the sister company of Acodez, the popular IT Services and Digital Marketing Company in Kerala. Joining Aviv’s Digital Marketing internship program allows you to work for Acodez alongside experienced professionals in Digital Marketing. The program highlights are as follows:

  • Practical training in SEO, social media, and performance marketing under the guidance of industry experts.
  • Work on real projects under the mentorship of experts.
  • Get trained in fundamental digital marketing concepts and techniques.
  • Opportunity to get placed in a career in reputed companies.

Apply now to our internship program to start your digital marketing career. Fill out our application form before the spots fill up.

Aviv Digital is one of the leading Digital marketing course in calicut. We offer a wide variety of globally recognized certification programs that include SEO, SEM, SMM, Email Marketing and Inbound Marketing courses. For more details, Contact us at: +91 8156998844