The LEVY Experience - An Intern's Perspective

At LEVY, we specialize in strategizing, creating, executing, and automating. As an intern this summer, LEVY has also added one more capability to its range of services: Educating.

Prior to becoming an intern at LEVY, I was unfamiliar with business-to-business (B2B) marketing firms.  In many ways, LEVY has educated me on how B2B marketing firms operate.  Working in a B2B marketing firm for the first time has been fascinating.

Previously, I worked in Mercyhurst University’s Marketing Department, which has a business-to-consumer (B2C) focus.  One way I have found that B2B and the B2C environments are extremely different from one another is the use of social media. 

In a B2B marketing firm, I have learned to essentially manage the social media presence of the firm’s clients.  LEVY clients have many similarities among them despite being in different businesses, and they have different objectives for using social media and other marketing tools. 

Everyone at LEVY has educated me on how to use social media effectively to create and distribute content through the platforms that they use, including HubSpot, Hootsuite, and ContentCal.  At Mercyhurst, I had managed social media for the University only, since it has just one “client.”  At LEVY, however, there have been many different opportunities to learn about many different companies’ use of software and social media platforms.

Managing Different Companies

Within a B2B marketing firm, there are many different types of accounts to manage.  First, there are small, family-owned companies such as a manufacturer of carbide and steel tooling for customers nationwide.  From a social media standpoint, we had to focus on machinery-based posts and content. 

Then, there are large public companies that sell globally and have similar objectives to smaller ones but have a larger number of followers due to their market penetration.  Because the companies have different reaches, it was very challenging to develop and curate useful content.

Learning from LEVY

The most important experience that I have gained, however, is learning how LEVY manages clients’ social media programs, as well as their own such efforts.  As noted earlier, we use platforms such as HubSpot, Hootsuite, and ContentCal to plan and execute our own posts, and those of our clients. 

Throughout my time at LEVY, I have been able to apply my classroom learning at Mercyhurst and the practical knowledge I have gained from this internship to create a LEVY social media calendar for the entire summer.  Within this calendar, I came up with the ideas and captions for the posts, working with everyone on the LEVY team in order to effectively hone my skills as a social media content creator. 

This learning experience has been valuable because I was able to develop skills for marketing to B2B audiences, complementing the skills I have acquired at Mercyhurst for marketing to B2C audiences. 

The main campaign that I helped to create is called “Two Concepts Working Together.”  Specifically, LEVY team members and I highlighted how two seemingly opposing concepts should be able to work together in order to create a successful marketing plan. 

Those concepts include Inbound and Outbound Marketing, Digital & Print Marketing, and Marketing & Sales.  As a team, we came up with many posts related to these concepts, including “Marketing Coin Toss,” “Two Disciplines. One Mindset,” “Two Peas in a Pod,” and “It Takes Two to Tango.”  These campaigns were posted on all LEVY social platforms that they have and educated me on using social media effectively in a B2B environment. 

Curated content – the process of using other’s websites, articles, or blog posts to educated target audiences -- is a key element of B2B social media programs because it helps establish thought leadership. 

At LEVY, I have learned to find effective curated content based on what our clients are marketing and how they do business with their customers.  Content subjects have ranged from being a successful entrepreneur to how a B2B company can use social media effectively in the summer.  Sources that we have used for curated content include Forbes, Jeff Bullas, Entrepreneur, Marketing Land, and manufacturing.net. 

LEVY: More Than Social Media

At LEVY, we also provide other services to clients, including website creation and design.  In that area, I contributed to creating a website for a client that has developed a business management software solution.

I also learned about Marketing Automation (MA), the process of clients using electronic newsletters, e-mails and their websites to strengthen or develop relationships with customers and prospects, offering them calls to action that accelerate the sales cycle.  MA software is the “glue” that bonds multiple marketing campaigns across various channels, including e-mail, social, and digital. 

Because of my time at LEVY, I have been able to learn how MA, social media, and website design and functionality work together to help our clients develop relationships with customers and prospects that accelerate the sales cycle and create a degree of loyalty that results in repeated sales over long periods of time.

LEVY has provided me with many opportunities to apply my classroom knowledge to real-world marketing challenges.  I am grateful to the LEVY team for helping me learn many things that will help me succeed as I launch my career after graduating from college in Spring 2020.