You Get What You Pay ForIs Your Marketing Intern Really Worth the “Savings”?

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Here’s the challenge many businesses are facing:

Over the years, marketing has switched from being very advertising-heavy…

…to a multi-faceted mix of online and offline, inbound and outbound marketing techniques.

Website

TV/ Radio

Direct Mail

Phone Book

News Ads

Web Video

Social Media

Email

SEO

This mix includes technologies like:

To be successful with these technologies, you need a good bit of TIME, EFFORT, and INTIMATE FAMILIARITY,

….which a lot of business owners don’t.

There are marketing firms that create and execute the full suite of online and offline strategies required for today’s digital marketing…

But many business owners (especially small business owners) see the costs of this kind of marketing and panic.

They compare that cost with the cost of hiring a college student as an intern.

$$$$$$

“Kids these days know so much more about all these technologies and

websites anyway,”

they say.

“Surely they can do everything that I need

for my marketing.”

And they compare the cost of the intern with the cost of the marketing firm, and congratulate themselves on their “savings”.

Yes, an intern will cost you less per hour, but there are plenty of hidden costs in that smaller paycheck…

Here’s what you’re really paying for:

$$$$$$

1. Their learning curve and inexperience.

Why are interns so inexpensive?

Oh yeah, because they don’t have the marketing and work experience that a full-time employee would bring to the table.

Interns still have a lot to learn about:

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Even if your intern is pursuing a marketing degree, they are still learning about marketing – hence why they haven’t been awarded the degree yet.

In addition, most programs are still teaching and training students in traditional marketing. If you want to do a modern, digital marketing strategy, your intern is most likely going to learn about it while working for you, not at school.

To Learn About Marketing

At the very least, they’ll need to take time to research the kind of marketing you want to do, as well as find the tools they can use to get their job done.

That’s going to be time on the clock, too.

(What, you expect them to do research for you on their time off? You’re not paying them that much.)

Many of the lessons that interns will learn during their first internship are about how to be an employee.

These are college students who have primarily done school for the majority of their lives. As their first boss, you are more than likely going to have to take time just to train them on how to work.

To Learn About WorkInterns may still have to learn things like:

• How to dress appropriately for work

• How to interact properly with customers/clients

• Basic business etiquette (such as calling in sick, not sending an email)

• How to answer the business phone

• How to fax• and more

Oftentimes, internships are a good opportunity for students to try something new – to “try on” a career, so to speak. It may be that they’re interested in your industry but aren’t sure if it’s a good fit for them, so they’ll do an internship to find out.

This means you could train an intern for months and even years, only for them to leave for a different career, industry, or company. They may even leave just because they graduate and want to start somewhere new.

Oh, well. You weren’t paying them that much, after all.

To Learn About Life in General

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2. Their mistakes.

One of the common justifications for entrusting your entire marketing to an intern is because they are more familiar with the technologies and techniques used in digital marketing.

It’s true: Many of today’s college students are very familiar with things like social media, email, and video.

This does not make them naturally gifted at using these techniques for marketing.

See, most interns are used to using these technologies for personal reasons. That’s their Facebook or Twitter profile, their Gmail account, their videos they made when they were goofing around with their friends.

But what’s okay on a personal account is not always acceptable on a business account – and interns may not put enough safeguards in to make sure the business and personal stay separate.

Oops…

(Heck, there are adults who don’t put in enough safeguards!)

For many potential customers, your marketing is how they will first interact with your business.

Do you want this first interaction to be a mistake? An intern’s mistake?

When you work with a marketer, you entrust your business’s reputations to them. Are you sure that an intern is up to the task?

• An inappropriate status update• A typo-filled email sent out to your top prospects• A poorly shot and poorly edited video that was shot on someone’s phone

3. Being their 2nd

or 3rd priority in life.

Sorry, but it’s true.

When you hire a college intern, their job is going to come second to their education.

Too bad. They’re in college, and doing whatever it takes to get that college degree is the number one priority in their lives.

But I pay them!

Many students need money in order to cover college expenses, but that doesn’t mean that the short-term reward of a paycheck means more than the long-term benefits of that college degree.

Plus, colleges and universities may not always have working-student friendly policies, and they can flex their muscles to ensure that students prioritize them over their employment.

Besides, from the perspective of the interns, the colleges, and the law, your internship is a learning opportunity, which means you’re there to educate them.

Which means that education, not working, is their number one priority.

Even if your intern is dedicated to your business and wants to do everything they possibly can for the job, most students quickly get overwhelmed by trying to juggle the various demands of school, the job, and the basics they need to live (such as food, sleep, and friends).

And guess which ball will most likely get dropped early? Yeah, the internship.

4. Less availability.

Between class schedules that are all over the place and extracurricular demands that will vary widely from week to week (such as major projects, tests, or school events), college students have very inconvenient schedules.

That’s often why you’ll see interns only working 10-20 hours a week. It is not that they are lazy –it’s that they cannot work much more time!

Need them to work late to put the finishing touches on a project? Too bad. They have class (or homework, or a second job).

And remember how school is always going to be their number one priority?

Well, if their schoolwork suddenly spikes or they have a bunch of projects or tests coming up, expect to be asked for time off. Again, education is – and rightfully should be – their priority.

It also means you cannot demand extra hours if there is a lot of marketing that needs to get done.

5. Limiting your growth.

At most, you’ll have 2-3 years to work with them when they’re still in college.

If you want to keep them after that, you’ll have to bring them on full-time, which means paying a full-time salary…

A major obstacle to using college interns to do all of your marketing is that it is, at best, a stop-gap measure.

Most internships last for only a semester or a summer –after that, you’ll probably have to bring them in for a part-time job.

But the reason you’re using an intern in the first place is to save on that kind of money!

So, at best, you’ve got 4 months to 3 years with any intern. Once that time’s up, you’ve got to find another intern.

That means you have to start completely over with the training, the inexperience, the mistakes, etc.

Then there’s the fact that for those 4 months to 3 years, you’re getting at most half of the marketing you could be getting.

You’re probably getting even less: half of the time marketing and half of the quality.

And then once that intern leaves, you have to start over again with a new intern.

Worse, if you keep moving from intern to intern, you could end up with fractured marketing, as each intern works to their different strengths and experiences.

Good marketing finds new potential customers and drives them to your door or website. In other words, marketing helps your business grow.

How much do you think it can help if you’re getting subpar marketing and having to start and stop every few months?

So yes, you’re saving in short-term costs. But how much are you losing in long-term business growth?

Now let’s tally up these hidden costs of using an intern for your whole marketing.

Your time to train them in marketing and in business, to wait for them, to adjust when they need to focus on school first. Then there’s the time you take to do it all again for the next intern.

How many potential customers will you lose or miss out on because your intern made a mistake or didn’t take full advantage of a marketing channel?

By using interns to do all of your marketing, you could end up with limited or disjointed marketing, which will hurt your business’s growth.

Your time

Lost opportunities

Your growth

Then why would you take a shortcut on anything,MUCH LESS YOUR MARKETING?

So here’s our question:

If you put your heart, sweat, and soul into your business,

If you obsess over every little detail,

If you are truly driven to provide customers the best products and services,

(And don’t worry about leaving students high and dry. Marketers like us have our own internships to offer, after all!)

Marketing is supposed to be an investment in your business.

Get the most bang for your buck by working with real, professional marketers who can create the kind of marketing you need.

Is this a good time to tell you that we have website?

www.splashomnimedia.com