Most B-Schools have internships as a mandatory part of their graduate and postgraduate courses. The aim of such internships is to allow the students to apply the things that they have learned in the classroom in a practical industry setup. Students are expected to take up an internship to grab professional skills in a supervised learning environment.
Most students are usually excited about their first internship, and it is essential to realize that this is going to be a vital mention for their resume when they go job-hunting. That is why every intern should give their best to make sure that his or her work justifies the certificate that they are going to achieve at the end of the tenure.
While this itself may seem challenging to most students, a healthcare marketing internship is a particularly challenging type of marketing internship. As rewarding as it is, this requires a separate skill set. In this article, we shall dwell upon the various essential skills of a healthcare marketing intern.
Befriend Numbers, Graphs and Everything with Figures
As a marketing professional, your future job will need you to analyze data and arrive at results based on the figures.
Healthcare-related data is extremely confidential, and it is near-impossible for anyone outside the industry to have access to them. As a healthcare marketing intern, you will get exclusive access to such data.
To make the best of this opportunity, try to make yourself comfortable with figures and graphs. That way, you can understand how your supervisors resolve the issues in a given data set to arrive at a productive solution.
Basic Coding Knowledge
These days, with the concept of ‘work from home’ being more and more popular, it is easy to land oneself a virtual healthcare marketing media internship. However, with immense competition in the field, surviving and acing, it is not so simple.
An efficient way of making a mark for yourself would be by having a basic idea on HyperText Markup Language (HTML) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).
Most health websites are based on the foundation of HTML and CSS. By having an understanding of these, you will be in a position to guide your web designer to make changes to the website’s fonts, colors, and graphics to suit the tone of your marketing campaign.
If you are sure about your skills, you can take up the task of designing a dedicated website for the marketing campaign you are interning for.
Take Initiative
Throughout the health marketing internship, it is essential to remind yourself that the reason you took this internship was to gain knowledge. While you will be monitored or have a guide to report to, it is a good practice to start taking the initiative. Take the initiative to ask and participate in activities.
If you feel that there is some task you can do (with or without guidance), step up and ask to be given the task. Do not wait to be approached. The marketing industry is a highly competitive one, and proactive people always have an edge.
Understanding the Industry Jargon
As a fresher or intern, you may not be familiar with the different marketing terminologies. An easy way of establishing your understanding of the core marketing concepts would be by talking in the industry language. This will help you communicate with employees of the organization and fit in better.
Before you turn up for your internship, spend some time reading up on the jargon. Most search details are readily available on the internet. Ideally, you should be familiar with mobile marketing, SEO, and digital marketing which you can learn from Local SEO Agencies websites, the difference between B2B and B2C, and other things of this type.
Multitasking is the Key
Understandably, you see yourself as a healthcare marketing professional in the near future, and that is why you took up an internship in this field. However, you must realize that employers prefer versatile marketers. A marketer who can step up in the role of a mathematician, designer, writer, or copywriter is preferred over others.
In the course of your internship, try to pick up skills from other departments as well. Go out of the way and introduce yourself to as many employees of the organization as you can. Try to identify the ones who are willing to teach and (if the organization permits) put on longer hours to pick up on some extra skills.
Time Management Skills
With internal assessments, assignments, semester exams, and a lot more, as a student, you have a basic idea of the concepts of time management. As an intern, the challenge lies in the fact that you do not have a syllabus to tell you what the deadlines are.
Any healthcare, retail, or instagram marketing agency will encourage its interns to be given space. You then must identify deadlines, prioritize tasks, and plan your workday accordingly. Interns who are proficient in time management tend to report better performance metrics as compared to their peers.
Grab the Basics of Photoshop, Final Cut and Illustrator
While the extra skills that you wish to pick up are entirely on your discretion, the basics of graphic designing are an absolute must. While this is something that you can teach yourself (with due help from the resources available over the internet), try to put them to use during your healthcare marketing internship.
That way, your future employer will trust the credibility of your graphic designing knowledge. The world of marketing is extremely versatile, and it does take a while to get used to the fast-paced professional world.
As an intern, the best part is the fact that the employer will be compassionate towards the fact that you are yet to settle in. In most cases, you will be given a conducive environment where you can learn.
The only thing to do on your part is to be willing to learn. Remember, that no work is beneath you, and the more skills you learn, the closer you are to a successful career.
As you set out on your journey to the world of marketing through this healthcare marketing internship, do proper research on the skills, work hard, and you are sure to succeed.
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Amenorhu kwaku is an author, internet marketer, and entrepreneur. He is the founder of SuccessValley, a network community for students and aspiring entrepreneurs. He is also the founder of Republik City News and Whoop, a news portal and a business directory.
