Pathways to Marketing- Placement Week
Hi Everyone! As you may have read here, this past June, I took part in the Pathways to Marketing Scheme run by the University of Exeter’s CareerZone. After a marvellous end to a fun, exciting, and thorough training week, I was ready to dive head first into my placement as Marketing Assistant at 3WhiteHats.
Shortly before the Training Week in Exeter, each Pathways Student got sent a list of organisations/companies to pick from for the placement week. I ended up choosing to undergo my placement with 3WhiteHats, a Digital Marketing & SEO Agency based in Falmouth, London, and New Zealand.
Since the programme takes place during the end of term, most people will be able to easily commute from their student houses/ accommodation. (There are also remote-working opportunities as well though, they’ve got every avenue covered!)
I’m a Penryn student, so I live in Falmouth and I soon found out that the company’s sea-view office is about a 30 second walk from the term-time house I lived in this year. (Talk about an easy commute to work eh!) It all fell perfectly into place.
Day 1– Blogger Outreach & Research
The first day was really exciting and as soon as I walked in I was already learning so much! I spent the day researching and sending out outreach emails to bloggers for one of the company’s clients. As the day went on, I started to become more familiar with the different tools used for outreach and started to really enjoy it!
Day 2– Blogger Outreach & Research, Content Calendars
Day two was another full day of finishing off my work for the blogger outreach task and then creating a content calendar with suggested key-phrases and titles for upcoming blog deadlines. I first had to research and plan to come up with appropriate and relevant titles relative to the date on the calendar, and then refer to the Client Profile Keyword Planner chart to suggest some good key-phrases to boost SEO presence.
Day 3– Blog Posts
Day three was all about working my creativity. The task for today was to work on a couple of blog posts for a jewellery company in the UK. I had a lot of fun with this task because I got to write a few blog posts putting together looks inspired by some of the products online. For example, I did one blog post about picking the perfect jewellery for a vintage wedding. I really enjoy writing, and I get excited about fashion so it was a fun opportunity for me to get creative.
Day 4– Blog Posts, In-House Blog Content Planning/ SEO & Keyphrase Research
Day four started with more blog writing, and going through 3WhiteHats’ personal Blog Content Calendar. This was followed by a really fun team BBQ down on the office’s private beach at the bottom of the building. The sun was shining, some of the team went out on the company paddle boards, and we even got to play with the Director’s adorable dog called Truffle!
I finished off the day with a thorough run-through of the technical aspects of SEO with the technical team. I learned all about what goes into Google Analytics, Keyphrase Planner/ Google Adwords, and many of the other insightful tools that the team uses on a daily basis to monitor clients’ SEO performances.
Day 5– Keyphrase Planning/ Blog Titles
Day five came around really quickly, I’ll tell you that! I finished off my last day with 3WhiteHats with the in-house content calendar, running through the company’s Social Media Plan, and doing a bit more research for blogger outreach for another client. Fridays are always a team lunch day at 3WhiteHats, so I got to join in for lunch prepared by everyone on the private beach and talk a bit with all the wonderful people I had gotten to know over the week! What a sweet way to end a memorable week!
I had the best time in my placement week with 3WhiteHats- everyone on the team was so warm, welcoming, friendly, and eager to show me the ropes and teach me as much as they could.
One of my biggest worries going into the working world is losing that work-life balance we as students and young-adults are accustomed to following, and it was so nice to work in a place that understands that this balance still holds important throughout life regardless.
With flexi-time in the morning, to paddling boarding at lunch and team barbecues on Friday afternoon, I got the reassurance that work can most definitely still be equally fun as it is productive!
If you would like to know a bit more about 3WhiteHats and the fabulous work they are doing here are the links to their Instagram, Facebook, twitter, and LinkedIn pages.
For some more insight into what I got up to during my training week, click here, and be sure to follow @exeterunilife for more updates from our students on campus.
-Nicolette