It’s not every day a company reaches its Silver Anniversary. We’re pleased to announce MarketStar has – and ours looks quite ORANGE! A quarter century ago Alan Hall pioneered outsourced sales and marketing services and we’re now making impact on a global scale. You better believe we’re going all-out to celebrate our growth throughout 2013.

 Earlier this month, MarketStar held a 25th Anniversary Gala in historic Peery’s Egyptian Theater in Ogden, Utah. Next door to our headquarters, the theater served as a beautiful venue for a live band and our 2013 theme, “Come Together.” With 750-plus employees in the room, we literally brought the company together, honored our past, celebrated our future and the impact we make at the integration of science and art. With more than 80% of our 6,000 employees outside of Utah, we recognized our exponential growth from the Hall family basement.

The two-hour show included executives honoring stellar teams with Treadie Awards,  and many other memorable moments, including these highlights:

Sergeant Pepper-style, our executives Aaron Hall, Brian Buck, Lee Wells, and Spencer Brown made a surprise debut appearance, bringing down the house with their own Beatles dance to the namesake “Come Together.”

We heard from our founder and his wife: “We could not be more proud of you. I think the secret sauce of MarketStar is the employees. You’re noble people.” – Jeanne Hall, wife of founder

“Dreams come true. It’s rare today for a business even to get to this wonderful moment in time. But today I want to thank everyone who took a dream and advanced it. It became reality and global enterprise…I thank Mr. Treadway for taking the baton three-fold, making this one of the bright stars in the firmament of outsourced sales and company in the entire world..” – Alan Hall, Founder and Chairman of the Board

Our CEO, Dave Treadway, gave us the vision for the future, and shared what he was doing 25 years ago: “Yippee ki-yay, MarketStar!”

“MarketStar’s all about great performances and we’re really proud of the fact that we’ve been around for 25 years, that we do create great value for our clients, and frankly, there’s no one that loves our employees or our clients more than I do…This week is my 10-year anniversary with MarketStar and I couldn’t be more proud and honored to be associated with such a great group of people.” - Dave Treadway, CEO

Don’t forget, we ate the world’s largest ORANGE asterisk cake. Specially made by a Hollywood cake designer, this orangetastic cake required 50 pounds of flour and 70 pounds of sugar! Here’s our senior executive team with the colorful culinary masterpiece.

E.J. Harris, Brian Buck, Julie Simmons, Dave Forsberg, Aaron Hall, Dave Treadway celebrate 25 years of MarketStar

Thanks again to our fabulous clients and Omnicom for being part of our story. Without you, we wouldn’t be here. And a shout out to our employees – thanks for making impact every day!

Watch our special 25th Anniversary film and see our timeline here.

Wanna see more fun event pictures? Check out our Facebook page.

Images courtesy of our talented Jeff Jensen, Chris Ripplinger, Tim Heare, and Wendy Gibbs.

How does an organization communicate its vast body of work? For MarketStar, that’s always been a tough task.

Our business model covers a large spectrum – we provide sales teams, advocacy teams, training, business intelligence, and marketing automation for some of the most respected brands in the world. We execute across all three major routes to market – retail stores, B2B partners, and directly to the consumer. We do A LOT of work for A LOT of companies. So how do you show this on one Web page?

Well, we think we nailed it with our Global Impact Map. This interactive map displays the work we do all over the world, conveying that we have more than 3,400 employees reaching out to 60 countries, speaking 40 languages.

We can always say these things, but I’m the type of marketer that believes talk is cheap. I like to see what you’ve done, see who you’ve done it for, and how far reaching your work spans. I like to see your heart and your soul, not just your creative messaging and value prop. Show me your walk, not just your talk.

So, that’s what we’ve done with our Global Impact Map. We show you the work we actually do, who we do it for, and where it’s being done – all on one page. We obviously do A LOT more than what’s shown in these hot spots, but you’ll get the idea.

To see what we do, who we do it for and where we do it, visit our map.

]]> http://www.marketstar.com/blog/retail-channel/introducing-marketstars-global-impact-map/feed/ 0 http://www.marketstar.com/blog/direct-channel/marketstar-at-dma-2012-in-las-vegas/ http://www.marketstar.com/blog/direct-channel/marketstar-at-dma-2012-in-las-vegas/#comments Tue, 23 Oct 2012 20:37:11 +0000 Manuel Rietzsch http://www.marketstar.com/blog/?p=3439
Every year, the Direct Marketing Association hosts one of the largest marketing conferences in the world. This October, nearly 10,000 marketing professionals from across the word converged on Las Vegas to learn about the latest trends in marketing directly to businesses and consumers. Of course, MarketStar was there to educate attendees on our progressive lead management offering, MarketPro. Continue reading →]]>

Every year, the Direct Marketing Association hosts one of the largest marketing conferences in the world. This October, nearly 10,000 marketing professionals from around the globe converged at Las Vegas to learn about the latest trends in marketing directly to businesses and consumers. Of course, MarketStar was there to educate attendees on our progressive lead management offering, MarketPro.

Our message of filling the void between marketing and sales teams resonated with the attendees. MarketStar takes leads created through the hard work of marketing teams and manages them on their behalf to deliver a larger number of quality leads to sales. This benefits both sides. Leads created by marketing are actually progressing towards a sales-ready stage, increasing the contribution of marketing to the bottom line. Sales benefits by receiving a larger quantity of leads that are actually sales-ready while gaining better insights into each prospect’s history, making follow up conversations more relevant.

Standing out among many other exhibitors at a show like DMA is difficult but our over-sized lead management maze game table drew in many curious marketers. Our tagline, “Managing your leads is not a game,” explained our serious expertise in lead management. The game table now lives at headquarters, in front of the Deer Valley conference room (6th floor) where employees and clients can play and learn about our lead management services.

Feel free to email Ryan Call if you have any questions about our lead management services. He can be reached at rcall(at)marketstar.com.

MarketStar is a unique and diverse service provider which, from a Marketer’s perspective, can be both a blessing and a curse.

If your company sells a specific set of widgets, your job as a marketer is to learn as much about what differentiates your widgets from the competition and who gets the most value from those widgets and then create strategies that engage the targeted audiences with the appropriate messages. If only it were so easy!

As MarketStar has evolved over 25 years, our products have been adapted to provide real business solutions to individuals in both sales and marketing organizations, across three very diverse and often siloed sales channels (retail, partner & direct). Within each channel we offer expertise that can be integrated holistically or tailored to fit a customer’s unique sales or marketing challenge. It’s well known within client circles that if it has anything to do with direct selling, in-store advocacy or channel development, it doesn’t matter what you call it or how you slice it – MarketStar can do it.

With the challenge of how do you market such a broad and ever expanding acumen of products and expertise, we’re excited to launch an update to marketstar.com. It’s not a huge overhaul of the user experience, but a smart evolution of our site to better segment our diverse and tailored solutions to discerning audiences who work in very specific channels.

You’ll notice right from your first interaction with the site that we’re making every effort to deliver channel specific content to make the user experience more relevant. From the integration of our channel ecosystems, which visually articulate our services across all three channels to our simplified solution groupings based on our core solution offerings, we hope users find the changes to the site more intuitive, more engaging and most importantly, more relevant. As with anything we do our marketing efforts are aimed at being both artistic and scientific, we’ll continue to improve both the relevance of the content and the user experience.

As you explore the new site, if you have any feedback that may make the new website more intuitive to the user experience. feel free to contact me at agunn@marketstar.com or leave a comment on the blog. Happy exploring!

Outsourced Sales Leader Launches Digital Solutions

MarketStar is pleased to introduce its Digital Solutions portfolio, offering competitive services for clients to be better, faster, and smarter in the market. The Digital Solutions services cover four areas: Marketing Automation, Sales Force Automation, Infrastructure and Data Services, and Reporting and Analytics.

With a 25-year history as trusted outsourced sales and marketing partner and more than a decade of offering cutting-edge data tools, this portfolio brings strategic sales to heightened levels. “We’re a multi-channel sales company that optimizes technology and data to improve our client’s sales efficiency, versus a traditional development or technology agency that attempts to adapt their solutions to a sales application,” explains Dave Forsberg, MarketStar Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing.

“Our people, technology, and insights make us unique,” adds Jay Williams, MarketStar Vice President of Digital Solutions. “Many agencies can provide data services, but there are few who can do it with the scale of people that are required to manage a turn-key solution.”

Evolving to Meet Market Needs

Digital Services make a complex data environment more efficient, responding to market needs and an ever-evolving consumer cycle.

“Purchase decisions and purchase behavior are different than they used to be. People are no longer relying on one interaction with a sales person for making their decision,” said Forsberg. “We provide meaningful data management products and solutions to take data and provide meaningful insight.”

Take selling to small businesses, for example. With ranging needs and different stages, varying from garage-based start-up to medium-sized operation, how do you effectively engage with such varying needs?

“Data through applications helps you automate your communication with customers and partners,” answers Williams. “Our main value prop is to help clients succeed in the complexity.”

From market analysts who provide meaningful data insight to digital communities, portals, social media plug-ins and lead nurturing for retail and enterprise environments, Digital Services cost-effectively covers a wide range of business needs.

“We’re consistently lowering the cost per interaction and contact with leads for our clients,” said Forsberg. “With an enabling platform, we prioritize time and messaging for sales reps.”

We’re pleased to announce MarketStar Corporation was recognized as third for Retail Marketing in the 2012 PROMO 100 agency rankings compiled by Chief Marketer magazine. MarketStar was also recognized as No. 5 for In-Store Retail and ninth overall in the list of top 100 promotional agencies nationwide.

“Our focus has always been advocating for brands, connecting with their customers and accelerating their sales. It’s an honor to be named top 10 in three categories of PROMO 100,” said MarketStar CEO, Dave Treadway. “We thank Chief Marketer Magazine for recognizing the impact we make at retail with top-of-the-line product training, assisted selling, promotional marketing, and market research.”

Chief Marketer annually ranks the top 100 agencies in the promotion industry based on their marketing specialties and U.S. net revenue. They highlight standout firms in the following categories: Event/Experiential, Interactive, Promotional Products, Retail (in-store), Sweepstakes, and Social.

Promo 100 shares the percentage of growth for the top 100 companies during the past two years, recognizing MarketStar’s 27% leap from 2009 to 2011.

Chief Marketer will feature full editorial coverage of the 2012 PROMO 100 in its August/September issue. Find out more about the Promo 100 rankings by checking out the Chief Marketer site.

Orange you glad Pantone is celebrating such a fun, bright color this year? We sure are.

As stated on their website, Pantone has been a world-renowned authority on color for nearly 50 years, inspiring design professionals with products, services and leading technology for the colorful exploration and expression of creativity. Pantone’s official 2012 color of the year, Tangerine Tango, juices well with MarketStar’s culture.

Described on Pantone’s color blog, Tangerine Tango “marries the vivaciousness and adrenalin rush of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow, to form a high-visibility, magnetic hue that emanates heat and energy.”

We’re all about orange, aren’t hue? Orange is a big part of our MarketStar identity. Our orange logo asterisk symbolizes the energy, passion, and vibrance of our corporate culture.

“Orange is tenacious,” said MarketStar COO Aaron Hall. “I love that word and it’s something I feel should describe every one of our employees. They’re out there taking care of our clients.”

This year we launched our employee program, Orange Nation, as a way to recognize the accomplishments of our people. Living the Orange way means making an IMPACT for our clients with our solutions to increase sales potential.

Bring on the citrus!

Congratulations to our Chief Information Officer, Julie Simmons, who was honored today by Utah Business magazine as one of this year’s “30 Women to Watch.” Our senior executive was awarded this afternoon with other Utah women business leaders in a special luncheon at the Grand America hotel in Salt Lake City.

The Utah Business magazine May 2012 issue features impressive women business leaders and women entrepreneurs in the Beehive State, and Simmons shines with the best and brightest of Utah women. We’re proud of all Simmons does to contribute – leading technology strategy for MarketStar, launching education events and programs for the Women Tech Council, and inspiring girls to be the next generation of business women.

Our CIO Beyond the Business Bio: Did You Know?

• Simmons’ true passion is helping young women find careers they love. She co-founded a website called www.lookilulu.com that profiles inspiring business women.
• Simmons leads the education committee for the Women Tech Council and launched a teen tech scholarship program and WTC Student award at the university level.
• At one point while going to college, Simmons commuted 100 miles a day to her full-time secretarial job down a mountain canyon in treacherous Utah winters.
• When her daughter was young, Simmons sent postcards from international business trips to her daughter’s elementary school classroom, teaching the children about world geography and to see possibilities.

Best Wishes for a Wonderful Holiday Season!

MarketStar Founder and Chairman Alan Hall, a self-declared “serial entrepreneur,” has proven himself as a visionary and business leader. Sharing decades of successful business experience, he now writes a weekly business column for the Deseret News. His first article, Entrepreneurs, business owners have role to play in fixing economy, highlights make-it-or-break-it traits for budding business owners.

Earlier this year, Utah Business Magazine honored him on their cover as one of Utah’s 100 Most Influential People. He earned such recognition for stimulating economic development through founding MarketStar and spreading philanthropic with his angel investing company, Mercato Partners, as well as his nonprofit organization, Grow Utah Ventures.