Hello everyone! My name is April Zeng ‘23, and I’m a rising senior majoring in psychology. This summer through the CCPA Whitehead Program, I had the privilege to intern on the product marketing team at Chartbeat. Chartbeat is a content analytics platform that helps content teams at media companies increase reader engagement and build loyal audiences.
Going into this summer, I was excited to learn more about product marketing and the technology industry. While my previous UX/UI past projects/internships had given me experience in designing a product, I didn’t know anything about how to successfully market a product. This internship with Chartbeat provided me the perfect opportunity to bridge my knowledge gap and learn about marketing strategies needed to drive demand for and adoption of products. I was also curious to see how my psychology background could be applied to help a business more effectively market these products.
It turns out my psychology background prepared me well as a product marketing intern. It helped me better empathize and understand buyer needs and effectively communicate the value of our products. It was particularly useful for my capstone project, in which I created buyer personas for a Chartbeat product that is currently undergoing alpha testing. I was able to synthesize insights from user interviews and market research in order to accurately represent our target buyers’ needs, wants, and pain points.
Besides creating buyer personas, I also learned a lot about various product marketing concepts and then applied what I learned to hands-on projects. I helped research product features of competitors, co-wrote a blog post about the importance of real time data, and helped write an internal newsletter that provided information about changes in the competitive landscape as well as trends in the media technology industry. During my last week I even participated in our company-wide hackathon, where we worked in teams to create projects based on the theme of increasing Chartbeat’s ROI. I enjoyed how these various projects involved a mix of strategy, creativity, analysis, and cross functional collaboration.
Overall, I really enjoyed my time at Chartbeat this summer and the type of work I did as a product marketing intern, but the thing I miss the most is definitely the people. Even though I was working remotely, both people on my team as well as peers on other teams made me feel welcomed and supported from the first day. They happily answered all my questions and provided me with valuable advice during our one-on-one meetings or virtual “coffee chats.”
I am so grateful for this valuable experience that was made possible by the Whitehead Program and look forward to using the skills I learned this summer for future job opportunities.
