Written by: Megan Mathew, Agricultural Communication & Marketing Major I spent the summer after my junior year as the marketing and communications intern at Environmental Tillage Systems (ETS). ETS manufactures and sells the SoilWarrior, equipment that strip-tills land. They primarily sell in the Midwest, but also internationally. Since they are a small company, my internship covered many aspects of business. I created content for social media, traveled to trade-shows and events, planned events, and completed many other tasks. I was able to grow my customer relation skills by speaking to seasoned and potential customers at events and learning their perspective on agriculture and how they benefited from the SoilWarrior. I do not have a background in agriculture, so this internship forced me to dive head first into this industry. I had to learn the basics of farming and tillage, the culture and how people interact with each other, and how to market for this audience. This task was extremely daunting, but I took it slow. Day by day I would take notes on things I learned through my coworkers, twitter, and articles. This way I was able to build up my knowledge of the industry and could apply it to my work on social media and in customer relations. A challenge I faced in my learning involved the bad weather we had early summer. Because of the weather farmers were not running the SoilWarriors, so I could not see the machine that I was marketing run. Once the tradeshow and event season started in August, I had the opportunity to watch the SoilWarrior run twice a week in different states and on different kinds of farms. This allowed all the information I was accumulating to piece together and finally make sense. By the end of the summer I had a wealth of agriculture knowledge to apply to my classes and future career. Key learning experiences I had over my 14 week internship involved interacting with people in the industry. The marketing director and coordinator at ETS gave me plenty of guidance to allow me to excel in these experiences. Attending the National Strip-Till Conference educated me on different perspectives in agriculture. After talking to agronomists, business professionals, farmers, and families, I fully understood the audience I was marketing to. I also gained an appreciation for the hard work and dedication that goes into agriculture. Another part of my internship was sitting in on meetings. Although this may not seem very interesting, I learned the importance of networking and representing the company, because it could lead to beneficial partnerships. Being professional and running meetings efficiently is an acquired skill, and now I have the building blocks. Over the course of the summer I had many opportunities to learn the value of agriculture, and now I can use these skills in my future career in the agriculture industry.
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January 2020
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