Interning at The Dukes

Over the last five weeks I have had the absolute pleasure of interning at The Dukes as a Marketing and Communications assistant. The role had me in the office twice a week, Wednesday and Friday, for a total of eight hours weekly learning about the marketing world (and why Twilight is apparently amazing). 

As an English Literature student, I had no idea about anything in marketing. Sure, I knew about the general concept; trying to entice people to buy something, but I didn’t know anything about the ins and outs. Fortunately, the lovely marketing team, spearheaded by the sweetest manager ever Gabi, were more than happy to take me under their wing and help guide me through.

In my first week I learned what the marketing funnel was, the basic structure for marketing anything: reach, act, convert and lastly retain. The steps to ensure a customer would (hopefully) keep coming back. I also learned the Content Strategy Development which included diagnosis which is why the company is doing it, discovery which was who it’s for and design which was how it’s  done. Within a week I had already learned two key models that every marketing professional should know. Do I have them memorised? Not quite. But do I know them? Absolutely and I think it’s the effort that counts. 

Over the next few weeks I moved onto Meta Ads, the new bane of my existence. The amazing Erin, was my teacher and together we attempted to figure out why Meta made everything as difficult as physically possible. I learned about traffic ads to build awareness and to tell us who our main demographic would be, as well as A/B testing which is using the same ad which has been edited in small ways such as subject lines or headers. 

After a suitable amount of time suffering I was ready. Nicole loaded up Loomly and I got to the fun part (it’s all quite fun but this is my favourite): social media posts! As a chronic doomscroller, I actually knew what I was doing here… kinda. A social media post needs to be engaging but also informative but not too long that it’s boring but also needs to have the necessary information. It really shouldn’t be as difficult as it is but curating an actually good post takes time, effort and a bit of a creative flair. My first ever post, if my memory is to be believed, was the ‘Georgie Jones and the world spins anyways’ new show announcement. It was actually quite nervewracking, knowing this wasn’t just some dumb spam post and was actually for someone’s livelihood. But after some advice and reassurances it wasn’t so bad after all.

Of course social media posts weren't all. I was given the chance to fight with Adobe premier whilst editing a trailer for The Box, as well as organising headshots on the leaflet for ‘Love like Salt.’ And I even got a little tour round the Front Of House and the Box Office with Karen to learn about Spektrik - the best booking system ever. I'm not even joking, it's actually so easy. 

All this to say that throughout these five weeks at The Dukes, I have been welcomed, mentored, joked with and taught so much. I can’t thank not just the marketing team, but everyone here at The Dukes enough. The entire team works so tirelessly to give every actor, comedian, volunteer and customer an unforgettable experience and I am so proud to say for a (far too short) few weeks I was part of such a team and it has been my absolute pleasure. 

One thing I’m not sure the team knows is as part of this placement I was actually asked to rank my most wanted opportunity. The Dukes was at the very top of my list and interning here has only solidified that this was my best choice. So much thanks to Gabi,Nicole, Erin, Karen, Chris, Emma, Carley and so many more for making my time here absolutely brilliant.  

Thanks everyone. Especially Edward and Jacob :)