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Marketing, Partnerships & Growth Intern

Help turn awareness and outreach into measurable partnerships, referrals, leads and bookings — working directly with Crave Locally's founders on hospitality partnerships, community and creator collaborations, corporate sales, local media and trackable offline marketing.

Location
Remote / hybrid, with optional venue visits in Northern Virginia
Engagement
Internship, approx. 10–15 hours per week for 12–16 weeks
Compensation
Agreed with the intern and their university program
Posted
September 17, 2026
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About Crave Locally

Crave Locally LLC is a Northern Virginia-based agritourism discovery and booking platform helping visitors discover, compare, and book experiences at wineries, farms, breweries, restaurants, and other countryside destinations.

Crave Locally combines detailed venue information with curated, bookable experiences designed for couples, families, groups, corporate teams, and visitors to the Washington, DC region. The company works directly with local businesses to develop distinctive experiences and make planning local trips easier and more transparent.

Crave Locally is supported by a Loudoun County tourism grant and is currently expanding its venue network, bookable experiences, distribution partnerships, and customer acquisition channels across Northern Virginia and the greater DMV region.

Position

Marketing, Partnerships & Growth Intern. Remote or hybrid, with optional opportunities to participate in meetings or venue visits in Northern Virginia.

Commitment is approximately 10–15 hours per week for roughly 12–16 weeks, depending on the University of Maryland program requirements. The supervisor is Crave Locally's Co-Founder & Managing Member.

Internship objective

The internship will support Crave Locally's transition from an early-stage platform into a scalable customer acquisition and partnership network. The primary objective is to help turn awareness and outreach into measurable partnerships, referrals, leads, and bookings.

Rather than focusing primarily on posting to social media, the intern will work on practical growth initiatives and gain hands-on experience developing and executing a real-world go-to-market strategy for an early-stage tourism and technology business.

  • Tourism and hospitality partnerships
  • Community and creator partnerships
  • Corporate and group sales
  • Local media and public relations
  • Offline and referral marketing
  • Customer acquisition campaigns
  • Outreach tracking and performance analysis

1. Hospitality & tourism partnership outreach

Support outreach to businesses and organizations that can refer visitors to Crave Locally experiences: hotels and hotel concierge teams, boutique hotels and B&Bs, campgrounds and RV parks, visitor and welcome centers, tourism organizations, chambers and business associations, Airbnb/Vrbo hosts and lodging partners, and transportation and visitor-service providers.

  • Researching appropriate contacts and decision-makers
  • Maintaining prospect lists
  • Drafting personalized outreach emails and conducting follow-ups
  • Helping develop partnership proposals and coordinating introductory calls
  • Supporting pilot programs such as hotel concierge referral partnerships
  • Helping distribute tracked QR codes, referral links, rack cards, or digital materials

2. Community, association & creator partnerships

Identify and engage communities that already have trusted relationships with potential Crave Locally customers — DMV lifestyle communities, women's groups, family and parenting communities, travel and food communities, professional associations, cultural and international organizations, alumni groups, social clubs, and local creators and micro-influencers.

The intern will help identify opportunities similar to Crave Locally's existing community collaborations, where a partner promotes a specially curated experience to its audience.

  • Researching relevant communities and creators
  • Assessing audience fit and identifying contact information
  • Drafting partnership pitches
  • Developing customized experience concepts
  • Coordinating follow-ups and tracking responses and campaign results

3. Corporate & group sales lead generation

Support development of Crave Locally's growing corporate and group business — companies planning team outings, employee engagement and HR teams, executive assistants, event planners, realtors and professional-service firms, client appreciation event organizers, conference and visiting delegations, and university and alumni groups.

The goal is not simply to build lists, but to help generate qualified conversations and group booking opportunities.

  • Building targeted prospect lists and researching decision-makers
  • Drafting personalized outreach and following up with prospective clients
  • Assisting with proposals and experience recommendations
  • Tracking potential opportunities
  • Helping develop reusable materials for corporate outings and group experiences

4. Media & public relations outreach

Support Crave Locally's earned-media strategy in Northern Virginia and the DMV. Potential themes include agritourism and rural travel, Virginia wine country, local entrepreneurship, family and couple getaways, unique Northern Virginia experiences, small-business tourism, and seasonal itineraries and events.

  • Maintaining a database of journalists, publications, newsletters, bloggers, and local media outlets
  • Identifying relevant story angles and drafting tailored pitches
  • Following up with journalists
  • Identifying seasonal media opportunities
  • Monitoring coverage and mentions
  • Maintaining a calendar of editorial opportunities

5. Offline & referral marketing

Crave Locally uses trackable offline marketing to reach visitors already in the region. The objective is to understand which physical locations actually generate website visits, inquiries, and bookings.

  • Identifying brochure and rack-card placement opportunities
  • Contacting hotels, visitor centers, wineries, breweries, farms, transportation providers, and other distribution partners
  • Maintaining a database of physical distribution locations
  • Creating unique QR codes or referral links by partner or location
  • Tracking scans and referrals, and following up to replenish materials
  • Comparing performance across distribution channels

6. Outreach CRM & pipeline management

Help maintain a disciplined system for managing Crave Locally's growing partnership network across venue partners, hotels and lodging, tourism organizations, corporate and group prospects, community partners, creators, media, embassies and cultural organizations, transportation partners, and referral partners.

The intern may also review outstanding follow-ups weekly and help prepare the next round of outreach.

  • Correct contact information and outreach status
  • Date of last contact and follow-up date
  • Response and next action
  • Partnership opportunity and relevant notes

7. Campaign performance & growth analysis

An important part of the internship will be learning what actually produces results — which outreach channels perform best, which messages generate responses, which audiences show the strongest interest, common customer or partner objections, and opportunities to improve conversion.

  • Prospects identified and organizations contacted
  • Response rate and meetings scheduled
  • Partnerships established
  • Referral links or QR codes activated and website visits generated
  • Qualified group inquiries
  • Bookings attributed to partners or campaigns

Expected deliverables

By the end of the internship, the intern should have contributed to a measurable expansion of Crave Locally's customer acquisition and partnership pipeline.

  • Expanded and cleaned outreach database with qualified contacts across priority partnership categories
  • Active outreach campaigns covering selected hospitality, community, corporate, and tourism segments
  • Partnership pipeline documenting contacts, responses, meetings, opportunities, and next actions
  • Community and creator partnership pipeline with qualified organizations and proposed collaboration concepts
  • Corporate and group prospect database with active outreach to relevant decision-makers
  • Media outreach database and pitch calendar
  • Offline distribution tracker showing brochure and QR placements and resulting traffic where measurable
  • Reusable outreach materials, including email templates, one-page partnership descriptions, partner messaging, and campaign materials
  • Final growth analysis summarizing outreach results, lessons learned, strongest acquisition channels, and recommendations for the next semester

Suggested internship targets

Targets would be finalized jointly with the intern depending on the number of hours and duration of the placement. Success will be assessed primarily on the quality of outreach and movement through the pipeline, rather than simply the volume of emails sent or social-media activity.

  • Researching and qualifying 100+ new partnership or customer prospects
  • Launching outreach across 4–5 priority customer-acquisition channels
  • Generating 20+ substantive partner or prospect responses
  • Supporting 10+ introductory or sales conversations
  • Establishing several new referral or distribution partnerships
  • Generating qualified corporate and group inquiries
  • Expanding Crave Locally's trackable offline distribution network
  • Producing a clear analysis of which outreach channels should be scaled

Candidate profile

The internship would be particularly well suited to a student studying marketing, business, entrepreneurship, communications, tourism or hospitality, public relations, international business, information systems, economics, data analytics, or a related discipline.

Experience with Canva, Airtable, Google Workspace, email marketing, CRM platforms, analytics, or social media is helpful but not required.

  • Strong written communication skills
  • Confidence conducting professional outreach
  • Good research skills and strong attention to detail
  • Ability to organize and track multiple conversations
  • Interest in marketing, partnerships, entrepreneurship, tourism, or local economic development
  • Comfort working independently in a startup environment
  • Familiarity with spreadsheets, CRM systems, or databases

Learning opportunities

This internship is designed to provide substantive professional experience rather than primarily administrative work. The intern will work directly with Crave Locally's founders and will have opportunities to see how strategic decisions are made in an early-stage company.

  • Startup go-to-market strategy and customer acquisition
  • B2B partnership development and sales pipeline management
  • Tourism marketing and hospitality distribution
  • Influencer and community marketing
  • Corporate sales and public relations
  • CRM systems, marketing analytics, and conversion measurement
  • Entrepreneurship and small-business growth

Working approach

At the beginning of the internship, Crave Locally and the intern will agree on approximately three priority workstreams rather than attempting to execute every marketing channel simultaneously.

The emphasis will be on testing, learning, and measurable execution. Where appropriate, the intern may also participate in meetings with tourism organizations, local businesses, corporate clients, community partners, and other stakeholders.

  • Review outreach completed
  • Discuss responses and opportunities
  • Prioritize follow-ups
  • Review performance data
  • Address challenges or objections
  • Set priorities for the following week

About the opportunity

This role offers the opportunity to work directly on the growth of a live startup operating at the intersection of technology, tourism, hospitality, local economic development, and entrepreneurship.

The intern's work will contribute directly to Crave Locally's efforts to bring more visitors and revenue to wineries, farms, breweries, restaurants, and other locally owned businesses throughout Northern Virginia.

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