by Andrew Overheid, 3rd year IB student, currently interning at OnLogic.
My name is Andrew Overheid, and today I want to talk about how I became a digital marketer at OnLogic. I am 24 years old, and I am a student at International Business at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. This Bachelor in Business Administration gave me the foundation I needed to pursue the career that I had always dreamed of, and in this blog I will take you through the steps I took to follow this path.
Where my passion for Digital Marketing started?
In my second year of IB, I started to grasp the meaning of Digital Marketing. In that time, companies started to invest more and more into digital marketing. For us students, this was strongly evident on social media for example. Besides that, YouTube was a big platform for me that showed how much companies started to invest in digital marketing. As a fresh business student, this got me curious about the techniques behind online advertising. Since the textbooks at that time had more information about classical advertising (TV advertisements, newspapers and magazines), I decided to explore on my own. I learned about Social Media marketing, SEO, SEA, and all the skills that digital marketers should have.
Other courses at IB helped me to explore this. For example, International Marketing Communications in my second year gave me the freedom to do research for a marketing plan, where I could involve as much digital marketing as I wanted. Then at my Integrated Project 5, which was a research project, I did research for an Ice Saloon about how to increase sales with a low-investment digital marketing plan. Here I started to see the possibilities of using digital marketing as a tool for any type of business at a relative cheaper cost than traditional marketing.
Eventually I decided to do my minor in Branding & Marketing Trends, which is a very B2C oriented minor. But it was at my study abroad at the ESIC Business & Marketing School where I truly started to understand what digital marketing entails. After some intense digital marketing courses, I learned about Analytics, Digital Customer Journey’s, Bidding Strategies for Digital Advertising, and so much more. It was at this point of my academic career that I knew that I wanted to be a digital marketer.
"If you truly have passion for something, you are able to learn more and more."
Digital Marketing in practice
With all my knowledge and passion for digital marketing, I decided to have digital marketing as the core element for my internship in my final year at IB THUAS. A little context: during a guest lecture at the Branding Minor, I made a very interesting context with Laurens Elderman, an ex student of IB THUAS who ended up as a digital marketer at OnLogic. When I was searching for my internship, I decided to get in touch with Laurens, since his presentation about digital marketing inspired me a lot at that time. After exchanging details and talking a lot, I had an interview at OnLogic, about a potential internship as a digital marketer there. Anyone who knows me that I passed this interview (as I like to brag a lot about my awesome internship at this unique company).
During this internship, I reviewed all the knowledge I had about digital marketing, and discovered that I actually did not know that much about it. There was a huge difference between theory from the books and internet, and actually doing things. My advantage here is that at IB THUAS, you get to do a lot of practical assignments. My other advantage: working a company culture where learning is encouraged and helps is always around the corner when needed.
Even though Digital Marketing turned out to be a complex and essential organ of a company, I decided to soak up every bit of information I could during my internship there, so I could prove that I have what it takes to be a digital marketer. The bottom line here is that if you truly have passion for something, you are able to learn more and more. But having this very supportive Company Culture definitely helps as well.
"Don’t stop at what the courses try to teach you, and become an expert of the things that you love."
Some takeaways from a digital marketer to IB Students
Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to teach a social media class to the PR Students of IB. With my experience in Digital Marketing and my general interest in Social Media for brands, I was able to carry my passion to some very enthusiastic people who were happy to learn. It got me thinking, that it is important to have some peers in your academic surroundings that help you to get motivated and help you to realize what your passions are. That person might not always be around the corner. So what I basically want to tell to anyone who is in IB right now, is to follow your passions.
At IB, you have the opportunity to get this huge foundation in your first two years where you get to know all the areas of a business. This is the time for you to find out what you like and don’t like about business. Use this time to find your passions, and what you truly want to achieve in life as a business person. Another takeaway is that you can always learn. Even if the books don’t give you the knowledge that you are seeking, you still live in a world where almost anything is accessible on the internet.
Don’t stop at what the courses try to teach you, and become an expert of the things that you love. Lastly, I want to make sure that whatever you do in life, try to find a company that is right for you. Try to find a company where you can achieve where you want to be. When you are in that part of your life to look for an internship or a job, it is okay to be picky. In the end, you have to be happy with what you do to get the most out of yourself.
This was my take on being an IB Student and finding my true passion in business. I’m always open for any questions, so you can always find me on LinkedIn.
