Here's What I Know

Made in America - A MarketScale Original Series, provides an intimate look at companies across the United States manufacturing at home, integrating with their local communities and changing the shape of the American economy. We are proud to be named a Platinum Award Winner for the series, by the AVA Digital Awards.

The AVA Digital Awards panel of judges honored Made in America with a Platinum Award in Video Production, naming the series the winner for Long Form Video < 3 Minutes, Video Series.

AVA Digital Awards’ mission is to provide “an international competition that recognizes excellence by creative professionals responsible for the planning, concept, direction, design and production of digital communication,” and the Platinum-level represents the highest level of annual honorees.

The awards aim to “honor the evolving ways and means that we engage our audiences through the creative convergence of digital arts, technology and information.
“Made in America” tell the stories of B2B companies still making the marketplace in the U.S. home, and the series has featured episodes highlighting businesses from Lexington, Kentucky to Nazareth, Pennsylvania.
To view every episode of “Made in America” and the rest of MarketScale’s original series, watch here.
Interested in creating your own original series?

It's one of the most cliche phrases in marketing, yet undeniably true. Content is king. But as more mediums add to the vastness of content - how as a marketer do you create content to stay relevant?
The biggest challenge every business faces is in fact staying relevant to their market. On the first episode of Market Makers we speak with Letitia Donovan, Global Marketing Director at Red Lion, to talk how content engages and educates customers, and solves problems. "People are buying an experience, and want you to solve their problems," says Donovan. Content can help do just that.

Sales and marketing ultimately cannot exist without each other but often they are siloed and inherently selfish to their own goals that don’t necessarily align. But in today it is more crucial than ever before that the strategies of both are aligned and compliment each other. An even more importantly, that the two areas collaborate – extensively.

On this episode of Market Makers we talk with Gina Sansivero, VP of Marketing and Corporate Communications at Atlas IED. The idea that sales and marketing should be one is not a new idea, companies with aligned sales and marketing functions generated 208% more revenue from their marketing efforts.

"I truly believe that a huge part of marketing is sales enablement. Without that concept, without that understanding, a large part of what we do, is sales enablement, then how do you enable a sales organization without really aligning yourselves in goals and strategy and keeping those lines of communication open?" said Sansivero.

Conversational robots, zero click search results, new content mediums and more data than ever before. Are these the components of a marketers playbook in 2020?
In business there is a constant need for change and disruption. And there is no time in which the opportunity and immediacy for change is more relevant than an approaching new year. On this episode of Market Makers we talk with David Venus about the primary concepts and strategies that will dominate marketing in 2020 and how to prepare.

"You are constantly planning, that really is the core of marketing. You are constantly planning, and you have to be willing to pivot. If something is not working, don't stay the course. Find a way to make a change for the positive or the better of that campaign to push numbers in the right direction," says Venus.
And what will make that happen in 2020 is different than what we've seen previously:

Purpose-driven data.
Zero click search results. And SEO.
Conversational marketing.
Content. And more content.

Listen to this episode of Market Makers as you prepare your marketing strategy for 2020.

On this episode of “Here’s what I Know” we sat down with MarketScale Business development manager, Nick Bruce, to discuss the power of Storytelling in B2B. Bruce and Tyler Kern break down why it’s important to leverage Visual Storytelling when communicating to your customers and why it’s not OK for B2B companies to not be doing so.

Any good marketer will tell you that the creation of good quality content is crucial to achieve success in today’s world. But what type of content is most effective? In Nick Bruce’s opinion, Visual Storytelling is the most powerful form of content because its ability to connect with consumers on an emotional level.

We have more data at our disposal than ever that allows us to make to make logical business decisions. But, every day emotional decisions are still made. Why is that? Take a listen to this podcast to gain some insight on this subject.

2019 is the year companies make the shift from traditional advertising to content marketing, and it's already showing. Winning companies, no matter their size and industry, are focusing on owning their channels by leveraging content and moving away from "renting" their channel with paid advertising.

"What happens when you don’t renew in that quarter, you don’t renew in that year? The ad goes down, your traffic goes back to what it was, your exposure is down to nothing," said Tim Maitland, Vice President of Business Development at MarketScale. He joined us on MarketScale Thought Leaders to break down the power that content has to not only elevate your brand, but empower the people on the front lines: your sales team.

Receiving information about a company through articles rather than advertisements has become the standard for executives and business owners across the country; even brands like Coca Cola have realized this and even shifted focus to content creation from television advertisements. Maitland adds that, just like in politics, putting your ear to the ground and delivering honest publicity that relates to your target audience is what's winning and what will continue to win in 2019.

Branding is more than just a logo in 2019. It's the way that customers recognize and experience your business. With social media being the easiest and most cost effective way to reach any audience, branding your business on those platforms is crucial. What's the best example to turn to for successful, engaging branding? Celebrity twitter might have the answer.

"With Drake or Kanye or some of these celebrities in music, they treat their brand a certain way and really branded themselves to get successful," said Nick Minor, Business Development Manager at MarketScale. "Not only are they doing music but they’re doing movies, being sponsored by Apple Music, that’s a big one. This is something that businesses can do as well, leveraging what they’re doing to get more business."

Minor, having previously worked on branding initiaitves with the Calgary Flames' AAA affiliate, joined us on this episode of MarketScale Thought Leaders to give his personal insight on why looking at the way that celebrities represent themselves as a brand, constantly differentiating themselves from other celebrities, is a technique that business need to adopt to stand out. B2B marketers have consistently cited brand awareness as their top goal over the last 5 years, and Minor is here to get you closer to that goal.

Every day, industry professionals get up and go to work striving to become the expert in their respective field. But not every industry professional goes out of there way on a daily basis to actively learn about or interact with industry leaders and events. You may ask; isn't the daily grind enough to stay thoughtful on and engaged with your industry? Brandon Pfluger, Business Development Manager at MarketScale, doesn't think so.

"Seeking is about finding things out and keeping up to date and being eager to learn something new to fine tune your skillset," Pfluger said. "Developing yourself as an individual in a company is an important piece, but making sense of things and then sharing that out in your own words and your own thoughts is really where a lot of your development comes from."

Thought leaders like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Warren Buffet manage to find the time to read everyday with some of the busiest schedules in the country. But it's more than just reading or informing yourself; these individuals spread that education through the world by speaking at industry events, writing blogs, and creating podcasts. Pfluger joins us on MarketScale Thought Leaders to detail why thought leadership and creating content of your own is the best way to stand out, fit in and rise up within your industry.

There has never been more data available to businesspeople than today. However, with so much availability, it can overwhelm decision makers.

MarketScale Business Development Manager Jennifer Tran believes that those who overcome this data paralysis will be positioned to advance their business. Trusting the statistics can provide insight that even the most experienced professionals might have otherwise missed.

“We can create content all day and every day, but they’ve got to really rely on that data to see ‘OK, this is what’s working really well so we should continue to make that kind of content,” Tran said.

Numbers tell a story, and using it to come to a rational conclusion will continue to put businesses in a better position to succeed. Learning which key metrics to measure and what those numbers are saying is critical to gaining an edge, even if at first it can seem too daunting to absorb.