Emily Steele interviews Umaimah Sharwani, founder of Paro, a food brand specializing in South Asian flavors. Umaimah shares her journey of creating Paro out of homesickness for her mother's cooking and her experience scaling digitally native brands. We cover various aspects of building a food brand, including the importance of being retail-ready.

Emily Steele interviews Leslie Bailey, co-founder and CEO of Indy Maven and Maven Space. Leslie shares her entrepreneurial journey, discussing the challenges and rewards of starting both a digital media brand and a coworking space. We dive into the importance of finding community and support outside one's immediate circle and being willing to make mistakes and pivot when necessary.

Emily Steele interviews Alisha Espey, the Program & Events Director at the Downtown Davenport Partnership. We dove into one of the area’s biggest festivals, Alternating Currents and all the details that go into drawing big crowds and executing on powerful partnerships across the city. Alisha discusses how she and her team create awareness and leverage local expertise for community-driven events.

Emily Steele chats with Casey Harrison, CEO and founder of Polished Strategic Communications located in Indianapolis, Indiana. Casey shares her journey to founding her own communications agency and touches on the incredible clients she’s gotten a chance to work with like Women's Equity Brunch, Central Indiana Corporate Partnership, Business Equity for Indy and Indy Crew.

Learn what beauty influencer marketing is and find out what makes a beauty influencer campaign successful. Plus, discover the impact of current industry trends.

Learn what the most important metrics and KPIs are for influencer marketing reporting and understand how to make sense of them to understand performance.

Retail merchandising isn’t just an in-store activity in today’s social media-driven world. Learn how to adapt your strategy to include influencers.

Emily Steele chats with Erica Jacobs, the marketing director at Nightingale, a thriving ice cream sandwich company based in Richmond, Virginia, with a growing national presence. They delve deep into the unique aspects of marketing a frozen product with seasonal fluctuations and explore the innovative partnerships Nightingale has forged with influencers and other brands.

In this week’s Local Marketing School episode, Emily Steele interviews Jennifer Magley, a dynamic speaker, author, and Chief Brand Officer at The Basketball League and Basketball Super League. Jennifer shares insights from her experiences as an emcee and host, emphasizing the value of surprising and delighting audiences.

Learn how content moderation helps brands maximize the impact of their user-generated content campaigns by establishing a consistent and authentic brand image.

Micro-influencers benefit from a more authentic online presence that helps them establish more engaged audiences. Learn how that benefits your brand promotions!

Agencies support micro influencer campaigns by helping them find partners, create a strategic plan, and manage the campaign. Here’s everything you need to know.

Influencer marketing KPIs help you gauge how successful your influencer campaign is. Learn what KPIs are important to consider and how to measure them!

Emily chats with Kelly Bennett, brand strategist and advisor at With Kelly Bennett and host of the Emerging Brands Podcast. Kelly Bennett is a brand strategist and advisor launching CPG food & beverage brands. We chat through ways to position your brand for success in terms of packaging and branding as well as how to prioritize storytelling and the purpose when marketing your brand.

An influencer brief outlines all of the important information creative partners need for a successful campaign. Start with our free template to create your own!

In this week's discussion, Emily chats with Brandon Puszkiewicz, a program manager for the Indiana Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and Scott Soltys-Curry, creator of the Indianapolis Coffee Guide. Brandon and Scott share insights on the power of community, the importance of being connected to your collaboration, and how small ideas can lead to large-scale positive change.

In this week's discussion, Emily chats with Sara Croft, the Co-Founder and CEO of Five Four, a growth agency for early-stage founders and founder-led businesses. Sara offers insights on experimentation, community-led growth, and preparing clients for fundraising, product launches, and revenue growth.

Is influencer marketing dying? Definitely not. But with audiences craving authenticity, micro and local influencers now rule social media platforms like Instagram.

Learn what the most common types of user generated content are and see successful examples for each type to learn what sets good UGC apart from the rest.