Internship • 5 min read

Weidmuller header
Term
May 2023 - August 2023
Title
Marketing Assistant
Responsibilities
  • Support activities within an integrated marketing campaign from design to execution.
  • Design digital and print promotional products, aligning with brand identity and marketing objectives.
  • Coordinate with external agencies and vendors on creative content creation (digital/print).
OVERVIEW

What is Weidmüller?

"...Connectivity is the key, whether it involves power, signals and data, demands and solutions or theory and practice. Industrial Connectivity needs connections. And that’s precisely what we stand for."

Weidmüller is a manufacturing and electronics company headquartered in Germany. The company is a manufacturer of industrial automation, interconnection, and interface solutions that are used to support customers around the world in the industrial environment of power.
WHAT I DID

My Role

For my co-op term, I joined the Marketing team at the main Canada office in Ontario. As a part of the marketing team, I worked as a Marketing Assistant alongside the Marketing Coordinator and Web and Graphic Designer. My main responsibilities consisted of researching web and other sources of campaign data and industry marketing material to provide insights for improvement, supporting activities within an integrated marketing campaign from design to execution, providing creative input for various marketing products, and supporting marketing events (webinars, trade shows, etc).

Design

With my experience and skills in design, one of my main tasks consisted of designing a variety of products for different marketing campaigns. This included custom emails coded using HTML, digital and print graphics, and designs for physical promotional products. For these physical products, I also designed 3D mockups to get a better visualization of how the final product would look. Check them out below!
Animated gif for a "PROtop" marketing campaign
4 fold brochure mockup
A tabletop product guide mockup.
paper bag 3d mockup
One of the mockups I designed that...
weidmuller paper bag
...came to life!

Research

I also assisted in performing research in a variety of areas, including current design trends, competitor analysis, and lead management. This research was done to find areas where we could potentially improve and keep up-to-date with current trends to better market Weidmüller's products.

Impact

Social Media Interactions

During my time at Weidmüller, the social media campaigns and brand marketing I led, aided in increasing overall interactions!
LinkedIn social media post
A LinkedIn post I created for a "PROtop" marketing campaign
Email marketing
A custom marketing email template I worked on in HTML & CSS

Presentation

In the middle of the term, employees all over Canada flew in to our main office for a mid-year kickoff where teams hosted different workshops and I was given the opportunity to help organize my own part in the marketing workshop. As my experience in social media developed throughout the term, I was tasked with preparing a "Dos and Don'ts of Social Media" presentation to explain proper social media etiquette and how to correctly share the company's social media posts.
By preparing this presentation, I ensured that all employees are on track with the company guidelines for social media etiquette and understand the importance of social media to further spread brand awareness.

Challenges

Being my first term working in-person and in marketing, I did face a few challenges.

Unfamiliar Office Culture and Picking It Up Quickly

Going from a co-op term to the next and going to different companies, means relearning the company's culture and technology. With this being my first term back in-person, I had to learn how to adjust to it as I was more used to working remote. This included not only getting used to commuting, but also learning how to start conversations with my co-workers and adapting to the overall culture of the workplace.

Asking for Feedback and Questions

At the beginning of the work term, I sometimes struggled with asking for feedback and questions, especially with my designs. However, one thing I found is that since the term was in-person, it was easy to get feedback at anytime. This was a great opportunity for me to connect with more people at the office and try to grow outside my comfort zone, so I can build my confidence!
WHAT I LEARNED

Key Takeaways

Management Shadowing

During the work term, I was given the opportunity to shadow two employees from the management team, the Product Support Manager and the Inside Sales Lead to gain a perspective of different roles and how the different teams operate. Through this experience, I got a closer look into the business and the parts that different teams play to contribute to the business's success. I was also given a lot of useful advice for my professional career!

Communication is Key, Always Ask for Feedback!

For a lot of the designs I worked on, review was always needed, especially in making sure that any technical product information was right or that the design aligns with brand identity and marketing guidelines. When collaborating on projects as well, I learned that it's always important to ask why and when a project needs to be done, and always follow up with your teammates, so that everyone is on the same page.

In the beginning I was also shy to ask for feedback on my designs and it would take me time to build up the confidence to do so. Eventually I learned that feedback is always about the design itself and not the designer, so I shouldn't be nervous about receiving any critiques or asking "dumb" questions. Things shouldn't be assumed. Co-op is a learning experience after all, so being able to receive feedback is an important aspect as it contributes to my growth as a working professional and designer. Being able to make conversations with anyone at anytime also helped to build my confidence in communicating professionally.

Design Principles in Professional Marketing

Through designing for a B2B business, I learned about the specific design principles that need to be applied to ensure products are marketed well. This includes using contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity (or CRAP for short 😅). These principles are not only useful in marketing as they could also be applied in other areas such as information design.

Connecting Digital Marketing to UX Design

Although my work term was solely focused on marketing, I was able to apply my design skills in certain aspects. An important step of the marketing process was doing research and understanding the target audience we're marketing to, similar to UX design where empathizing with the user is an important step. Marketing aims more at making products desirable so that customers will purchase them, but I found myself applying my design skills and defining my design process, while exploring other fields.
Weidmuller group photo
The Weidmüller Ontario team!
For my first co-op term in-person, I'm really thankful for this experience and to my Marketing Supervisor and the Graphic Designer for guiding me throughout the term. I was provided with so many great experiences to learn and grow in the professional field, as well as develop my design process further and skills as a designer.

Let's get in touch!

Thanks for checking out my page! If you'd like to connect or just share some book recs, my inbox is always open.
© 2024 Therina Castor