Hi! My name is Kwally and I graduated from the University of Strathclyde this summer with a degree in International Business with Marketing. I found out about the Saltire Scholars programme through my friend, who became a Brand Ambassador after her internship last year.
As a final year marketing student, I was looking for a summer internship to gain practical marketing experience whilst graduating. I was attracted to the programme due to the wide variety of internships available, and the possibility of being able to work abroad. I attended an information session for Marketing students, and after hearing from a previous scholar, I knew this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up and applied straight away!
After passing the application, and assessment centre stage, I entered the candidate pool. One company in particular stood out to me. They aligned with my values, were in an industry I wanted to explore further, and the job description was centred around an area of marketing I had a keen interest in. I interviewed for the role and was offered a 12 week placement at Hyble as a Customer Lifecycle Marketing Intern!
Hyble is a B2B marketing technology company with a platform designed exclusively for the drinks industry. My role was centred around 4 projects. The two main projects that shaped my day-to-day responsibilities were Campaign Execution and Data Reporting.
Campaign Execution: As a Customer Lifecycle Intern I was, of course, focused on engaging and retaining our users. Throughout my internship, I worked closely with our Customer Success team (who work directly with our accounts). The team would inform me of upcoming brand activations, and I would create the appropriate comms to inform and engage our users. As Hyble has a small marketing team, I had the opportunity to take control of all comms for the EMEA and APAC regions, executing comms for 33 campaigns!
Data Reporting: As a Marketer, it is important to track how your comms are performing. I used Hubspot to track our Email Health Score daily- which is based on open rates, click through rates, bounces, and unsubscribes. To ensure our score remained high, I did A/B testing with personalised subject lines, and send times. I kept track of all comms performance in Notion, building out a playbook to identify what resonates across different brands and markets.
My other two projects were Product Tool Optimisation (where I explored how our PX tool could be optimised to drive stronger engagement) and Case Study Development (where I developed two case studies showcasing successful campaigns, my favourite being a promotion for Summer Spritzes).
Because there are so many different aspects of Marketing to cover at university, I didn’t have much knowledge on Email Marketing apart from one lecture. However, this lecture did cover A/B testing and different types of email automations, which has come in handy! Additionally, this year I had a Brand Management module sponsored by Tennent’s, which I was also able to utilise. Although I am not in a Brand Management role, the assignment gave me an introduction into the drinks industry and helped me to understand the thought process of our clients during activations.
Reflecting on my 12 weeks at Hyble, I would like to share two key highlights. Firstly, I created a workflow in Hubspot to assign time zones to users who didn’t have one- which was over 16,000. Ever received a marketing email at 2am when you’re fast asleep? This isn’t a problem for our users anymore! Now they receive all communications at an appropriate time during the working day. Secondly, I had the opportunity to host our weekly company meeting (the Hyble Huddle) with one of my colleagues to share the process and outcome of our Summer Spritz Campaign. This was really nerve-wracking, but it was also exciting to share what I had been working on with other teams.
Overall, my internship has been an incredible opportunity to grow professionally and develop new skills, particularly in lifecycle marketing and data-driven decision making. For those struggling with confidence in themselves, or their abilities, being a Saltire Scholar is the perfect opportunity to push yourself out of your comfort zone. At university I was terrified of presenting, but after hosting the company meeting and sharing updates with the team on our weekly calls, I know what I am capable of! Being a scholar is a great way to build professional relationships by learning from your colleagues, who are always happy to share their years worth of industry experience, and you are able to connect with other scholars too!
I would encourage every university student to apply for the Saltire Scholars programme- and to show how much I believe in what it has to offer, I have become a Brand Ambassador. Even if you don’t want to go into a career within your subject area, you are free to apply for any internship available (unless stated otherwise)! My advice to future scholars would be to seize every opportunity that comes your way - even if it sounds scary! The truth is that things are never as nerve wracking as you think they will be. Best of luck!!!
