With Demand Spring being my first ever formal corporate internship, I was understandably a mixed bag of emotions, with nervousness and excitement at the top! Would I be able to meet the expectations of the incredibly intelligent people that worked there already? Would I be able to keep up with the fast-paced environment? What would I have the ability to learn and create throughout my time here? And I can say without a doubt that the people and work at Demand Spring quickly quelled my nerves and immersed me into the challenging yet rewarding work.
Working as part of a student-run marketing consultancy as a first-year student at Queen’s University, I felt relatively confident in my baseline marketing knowledge. But going into June and starting my work with Demand Spring, I quickly began to realize how different the world of B2B marketing and marketing technology/automation was from the B2C-centric world I had been exposed to. Luckily, not only was Robyn Mia, my Marketing Manager at the time, incredibly supportive of my learning and gave me the appropriate resources and opportunities to practice and implement my developing skills, but every aspect of the company’s culture was conducive to my growth. I met with several Marketing Technology Consultants on a regular basis including Jack Laushway and Terricia Foster who were an incredible aid in my marketing technology knowledge growth. I learned the ropes of Adobe Marketo very quickly through their mentorship and built up my marketing technology and strategy skills through the Marketo Optimization service line sprint campaign, as well as internal rebranding implementation project. These are just a couple of the many areas I worked on throughout the summer.
But leadership and culture starts at the top, and I can’t be more thankful for what Mark Emond has done to foster a culture of excellence and community in a remote environment. From taking the initial first chance on me by hiring me, to meeting with me 1-on-1 and making me feel heard even as an intern, to pushing me to think deeper about internal marketing problems. I will be eternally grateful for how he has helped me explore the world of B2B marketing and grow as a business-oriented individual holistically.
As the summer of 2021 ended, I didn’t quite feel like I was ready to leave Demand Spring yet, and Mark seemed to be of the same mindset. I continued to work part-time for the next five-and-a-half months on impactful projects more related to the external marketing communications of Demand Spring with the new Marketing Manager, Jacqui Bresee, who took over for Robyn as she went on maternity leave. Everyone on the team, with a special shoutout to Jacqui, was incredibly supportive of my responsibilities and obligations as a student while still providing me with instances to work on challenging and meaningful projects. I was able to implement new Drift initiatives on our website leading to new business, work on various multi-channel marketing sprints for our service lines, and analyze the analytics of our email marketing campaigns for more in-depth insights amongst other projects.
It really is unfortunate that my time at Demand Spring has had to come to an end because of the increasingly demanding nature of my school work. But if I didn’t make it obvious already, I want to thank all of the people at Demand Spring who have made my time here so special. I will continue to keep in contact with everyone here and I am excited to see the growth Demand Spring is going through. Anyone who has the opportunity to cross paths with Demand Spring should count themselves as incredibly lucky and fortunate, and I know I’m not the only one who knows this.
