“It’s marketing through people instead of at them,” says Emily Steele, CEO and Co-founder of Hummingbirds. In this episode of Innovation and the Digital Enterprise we talk with Emily about how Hummingbirds is leveraging hyperlocal content creators to drive brand awareness and sales.

Emily shares her journey from running a local marketing agency to founding Hummingbirds, emphasizing the power of word-of-mouth marketing and community-driven content. She explains Hummingbirds’ unique approach of fostering relationships between local businesses and hyperlocal content creators, who serve as community-scale advocates for the brand.

We discuss how in our oversaturated digital marketing landscape, Hummingbirds delivers meaningful, authentic, relationship-driven results. We close our conversation chatting about Emily’s future goals and plans for growth, and the challenge of scaling while maintaining that authenticity.

(01:28) Emily Steele on the beginnings of Hummingbirds
(02:36) The power of local influence
(08:12) Scaling, Community Building and Exploring new verticals
(11:51) The Hummingbirds community
(16:52) Emily's journey to entrepreneurship
(18:13) Building a successful brand and Achieving rapid growth
(20:36) Strategies for success
(24:38) Measuring impact and ROI
(27:44) Exciting opportunities ahead
(30:29) Fun facts about Hummingbirds

Emily Steele is the CEO and Co-founder of Hummingbirds, a SaaS company helping brands connect to local customers through digital word-of-mouth marketing. Before launching Hummingbirds, Emily proved a passionate advocate for local Des Moines businesses as the owner of Love Local. She has a Bachelor's in business administration, from Drake University, and studied at Richmond, the American International University in London. When she’s not championing local business, she helps organize The Water Ride, an annual bike ride that raises funds for clean water efforts in Ghana.

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