For this week’s #StudentExperience blog, we sat down and talked with Ksenia Venevtseva, a second year graduate student studying marketing intelligence at Towson University. For the past two semesters, she has been providing digital marketing support for the Continuing & Professional Studies (CPS). Here’s what she had to say about her experience.

Ksenia began working with the Center for Professional studies through a project for a marketing class (MKTG 781 Interactive Marketing Project). She evaluated CPS’s digital marketing strategy and made justified recommendations for the website, blog, SEO (search engine optimization), and social media outlets. She also set measurable goals and developed a detailed implementation plan. She then executed her plan and provided meaningful results. Besides gaining practical knowledge in Digital Marketing, Ksenia also learned how to make decisions based on the available data and how to manage a project in a real time setting. “Constant progress evaluation and using metrics as a support for justifications helped my project moving in the right direction,” said Ksenia.

Currently, after completing the Digital Marketing Strategy project for her class, Ksenia continues her work at CPS. “Digital marketing is an ongoing process and it requires constant online presence, communication with the audience, posting new content, and adjusting already existing material,” noted Ksenia.When asked about advice for other students looking to gain experience in digital marketing, Ksenia said, “You certainly need some basic theoretical knowledge first. I would say that the majority of the digital marketing skills I had before starting this internship came from the Interactive Marketing class (MKTG 710) that I took at TU. However, if you did not take a specific course to prepare you for this field, there are a lot of free resources that you can use to gain that initial knowledge.” She also believes if you come across something you don’t know, do some research and don’t be afraid to ask questions from more experienced colleagues.

Ksenia is planning for her future by maximizing both theoretical and practical skills while finishing her master’s program to help get a full-time job after graduation.

FUN STUFF ABOUT KSENIA

  • What are two apps you can’t live without? Google Maps—I like to travel and explore new places I always check the traffic before driving even if I know the route. Pandora—my favorite app for music.
  • If your life was a movie, what would the theme song be? Best Day of My Life by American Authors
  • What would your superhero power be? Superhuman Intelligence and Omnilingualism (ability to speak any language fluently)
  • What is a fun fact most people don’t know about you? I am originally from Russia. I went to an art school when I was a child, so I like drawing and photography. This skill is actually helpful in the marketing sense as visual component of digital marketing is very important for gaining impressions from the audience.