By Liz Mangini, Jack Foraker

Image by Suzanne Calkins

In cloud and SaaS marketing, no one wins alone. Partnerships are everywhere—and only getting more intricate as technology continues evolving. At 2A, we’re increasingly seeing cloud providers team up with three (or more) partners for co-sell motions and joint GTM efforts. 

It’s a smart play: Power-of-3 messaging and deliverables amplify reach, showcase end-to-end value, and create a unified story that sellers can rally around. It’s also crucial as organizations push AI initiatives and expand industry solutions. But three brands means three tones, three agendas, and three sets of priorities. What should be a simple, powerful story can easily become complicated and hard to follow without the right marketing support. 

Start with clarity 

At the end of the day, customers want clarity. Sellers need consistent, repeatable messaging that shows how partnerships solve real business challenges. Throw three parties together, and it’s easy to end up with three competing messages. 

The challenge we see most often with power-of-3 messaging is that each partner wants equal visibility and weight. That’s understandable, but it can easily lead to imbalance or dilution. One brand ends up driving the story while the others fade into the background. To avoid this, partners need to approach messaging with shared intent from the start:  

• What outcome are we solving for, together? 
• What does each partner contribute to that outcome?  

When this alignment happens, a unified story can start to emerge.  

Turn clarity into collaboration 

Once partners are aligned, storytelling becomes strategy. At 2A, we help cloud providers and partners do the heavy lifting at this stage. We lovingly call it “Tetris-ing” the story. Each partner comes with its own set of proof points and priorities. Our job is to pull those pieces into one cohesive value proposition that feels seamless, not stitched together. We know how to balance visibility between partners and weave together cross-departmental expertise. Once you’ve turned three brand voices into one clear message, the next step is to bring it to life. 

From collaboration to sales momentum 

With foundational messaging in place, it’s easy to spin up new assets and campaigns—things like ebooks, pitch decks, solution briefs, or sales kits. That’s the real win of power-of-3 messaging: It shortens the time between collaboration and pipeline momentum for all three partners. 

At 2A, we help partners find their shared voice so they can sell, scale, and lead together. And we can do it in pairs or triads—or hey, even a quad squad. 

By Abby Breckenridge

Image by Nicole Todd

I’ve been noticing more friends taking on fractional roles. Maybe it’s because the fractional model is catching on with businesses looking for access to skills and experience they may not be able to afford full-time. Or maybe it’s because a lot of my cohort have hit the point in our careers where we’ve racked up some real experience, and now we get to use it in more flexible ways. Either way, fractional leadership is having a moment, and for growing companies, it’s a game-changer. 

Fractional hires bring leadership without the long-term commitment 

A fractional executive is a seasoned leader who joins your team part-time—usually a few days a week or for a defined project—to bring executive-level strategy and oversight without the full-time commitment or investment. Think of them as your interim CMO, COO, or Chief of Staff who can quickly understand your business, set direction, and build momentum. 

They’re a good fit for growing B2B tech companies 

Fractional executives fill that tricky middle space: you’ve outgrown one-person-does-it-all leadership but aren’t ready for another full-time seat at the table. Or maybe you have budget for one full-time executive, but you need support that spans a few roles.  
Fractional hires can: 

• Bring outside perspective. Because they work across companies and industries, they bring playbooks with proven outcomes and fresh ideas you won’t get from inside your business’s bubble.
  
• Flex with your goals. As your needs change, their involvement can scale up or down. It’s executive leadership on demand.
  
• Bridge the gap during transitions. Whether you’re between full-time hires or expanding into new markets, fractional leaders can provide steady, experienced guidance when continuity matters most. 

We can help   

At 2A, we’ve seen the power of fractional leadership firsthand. Or another way of putting it, we’ve been doing it since before it was cool. We’ve been placing temporary teammates in strategic roles for years, and our network is only getting stronger. We can give you access to marketing and operations professionals who’ve guided companies through change, challenge, and scale. We can help you find the right fractional fit—someone who can start strong, move fast, and make things happen. 

By Abby Breckenridge

Image by Emily Zheng

As the owner of a creative agency, I’ve always believed in pricing based on value, not effort. Or to put it another way, pricing marketing assets by the hour feels backwards. Why should a client pay more because something took longer? I’d pay more to have it done today. That’s the difference between effort and outcome. 

The same logic applies to ebooks—longer is not better. In B2B marketing, ebooks can play an important role: they explain complex ideas, answer objections, and help generate leads. But if you can convince your prospect to move down the funnel in four pages, then there’s clearly no need for six. The goal is clarity and impact, not length. 

Here’s why a shorter ebook might be exactly what your demand generation campaign needs.  

Shrinking attention spans 

Your buyers don’t have the time, or patience, for bloated ebooks. Between inbox overload, back-to-back meetings, and constant digital noise, the odds of someone finishing a 12-page ebook are slim. Most people skim. Many never make it past the intro. The reality is that readers are busy and distracted, and value per page matters far more than page count. A concise ebook that delivers value early is far more likely to be read, remembered, and shared. 

Perceived complexity 

Longer ebooks don’t just test attention, they can also make your topic feel harder than it really is. When readers see too many pages, they assume the subject requires a steep learning curve or that your solution is complicated to use. A shorter, well-structured ebook sends the opposite signal: this is approachable, clear, and worth their time. 

Thought leadership in the age of AI 

AI can generate thousands of words at lightning speed, but it can’t generate authentic perspective. This is where true thought leadership comes in. B2B buyers don’t need long-winded rundowns; they want sharp, differentiated insights. The best ebooks highlight your expertise, connect the dots, take a position, and say something original. A four-page ebook that sparks a lightbulb moment will always outperform a 15-page summary that says what everyone else is saying.  

Of course, not every ebook should be short. There’s a place for longer assets that dive deep into technical specs, step-by-step how-tos, or detailed guides for do-it-yourself readers. Those meaty resources are valuable when your audience is ready to roll up their sleeves. But for demand generation and thought leadership, shorter content almost always wins. 

Build less and say more 

A tight, well-structured ebook isn’t easy to write. It takes a sharp team of marketers and product experts to distill complex ideas into a clear story. Next time you’re tempted to throw more pages at your marketing challenge, ask if they’re truly adding value. And before you start generating content, make sure you have the right team in place to define a differentiated story. Need a hand? We’re here to help. 

By Andrea Swangard, Suzanne Calkins

Image by Nicole Todd

When the AWS Financial Services team released the latest edition of its Banking on the Cloud report, it wasn’t just business as usual. It was one of the first assets to showcase a newly launched brand identity. For us, it was a chance to bring structure and creative clarity to a high-visibility moment of change. 

We’ve designed the report for multiple years in a row, each time adjusting to new content, teams, and visual requirements. This year, the biggest shift came not from the updated content, but from the new look and feel. AWS had recently rolled out its new brand identity, and even internal teams were still interpreting how those changes would translate into real-world assets. 

We approached this ambiguity as a design opportunity. 

Planning for change, not reacting to it 

Before diving into full design, we held a few preliminary meetings with the AWS team to discuss the main brand updates and we provided design samples for how it might be interpreted when applied to the report. Our visual exploration started with simplified style frames that showcased new color options, layouts, and data visualization treatments. 

This helped us gauge how far the client was ready to push visually, and where they preferred to tread lightly. By showing high-contrast examples early on, we helped uncover key preferences, gather feedback, and clarify how new visual elements like color, layout, and illustration should be used in practice. The outcome was two big advantages: the AWS team gained clarity on how to apply their updated brand system, and we had the direction we needed to start designing with purpose. 

Working ahead with a flexible structure 

Because content was still in progress, we created a modular structure using sample copy and trend themes. This allowed us to define visual hierarchy, layout rhythm, and stylistic range without waiting for every word to be finalized. 

Once content was ready, we were able to move quickly, thanks to the flexible structure we had set up early on. With clear direction already in place, additional designers were able to jump in to meet a tight timeline without missing a beat. 

Building trust through creative clarity 

One of the most valuable aspects of this multi-year relationship is the trust we’ve developed with the client team. That trust comes from delivering polished design and helping the client navigate ambiguity, anticipate challenges, and make strategic choices that support their brand. 

From rethinking the asset’s cover to aligning visuals with evolving content themes, we brought flexibility without chaos and structure without rigidity. This latest edition of the Banking on the Cloud report shows that design-only engagements can be highly collaborative, and when grounded in the right process, they can move fast without feeling rushed. 

If you’re navigating a brand update and need help translating it into real work, we’d love to help. 

By Erin McCaul, Kimberly Mass

Image by Rachel Adams

If you’ve ever opened your desk drawer debating between a granola bar now, a sandwich in an hour, or dinner out after work, you already understand product demos.  

Sometimes your audience needs just a taste: a 20-second clip that sizzles with product UI animations and new features. Other times, they need the full plate: a five-minute walkthrough showcasing not just how your product works, but why it matters. And occasionally, it’s time to go all out—a keynote-level catered meal, beautifully presented, built to wow analysts, prospects, and partners alike. 

At 2A, we love product demos because they’re flexible. They can be as quick and snackable as trail mix, or as polished and satisfying as the fanciest sit-down dinner. The best part? Demos can be tailored to fit your goals—whether that’s enabling sales teams, standing out in a Gartner submission, or inspiring customers to give your product a try. 

What sets us apart is how we partner with clients. We don’t just execute on a script—we collaborate to understand the product, refine the story, shape the visuals, and make sure the demo delivers the right impact. And because our entire team is in-house, you get efficiency, consistency, and tech-savvy storytelling without the risk of things getting lost in translation. 

Whether you’re hungry for a snack, a meal, or the whole feast, 2A can cook up the demo you need. Yes, chef! 

By Abby Breckenridge

Image by Jenni Lydell

“What are you doing right?”  

It’s what my friend and fellow business owner asked me a few weeks back after I explained that our recruiting and staffing practice had taken off over the last year. In simple terms, I realized it’s because we’re kind. As a small player in an industry where scale often overshadows individuals, we’ve backed into a differentiator that I love.  

By kind I mean we know all our team members that are embedded in other companies, and we check in with them regularly. We offer good benefits, paid time off, and morale boosters. We negotiate on their behalf for raises when they’re due, and we research and cover training to boost them along their path.  

Lucky for us, we’re noticing a trend—clients are recognizing the gap left by larger staffing firms, where contract employees feel more like a line item than a human. Our recruiting and staffing clients, the ones that work daily with the skilled (and human) folks that we employ and place in roles with them, want to be sure their team is well taken care of. And they’re not finding that at the global staffing firms where procurement algorithms select talent agencies for their low margins. Increasingly, they are turning to boutique agencies that prioritize well-being and meaningful connection. 

As a human, I’m thrilled that what we’re doing right is treating our team with kindness. As a business owner, I’m also thrilled.  When employees thrive, clients benefit from stability and engagement, and agencies stand out for the right reasons. In a competitive industry, kindness isn’t just good—it’s strategic. 

By Carolyn Lange, Erin McCaul, Felip Ballesteros

Image by Nicole Todd

For some folks, the concept of remote video case studies conjures early-pandemic memories of pixelated webcams and talking heads in spare bedrooms. But today’s remote videos are a different story. With planning, direction, and editing, they can look sharp, feel personal, and bring customer voices forward in a way that matches the channels people actually use.

Think of them as the right tool for the right job. You wouldn’t hire a film crew to record a podcast snippet, and you wouldn’t use a remote video for a keynote opener. Each format has its place. And for authentic stories that need to move fast and travel far, remote is built for the moment. Here’s why:

More reach for your story 

A customer win captured in video gets more traction than one tucked inside a PDF. Remote videos extend the life of your written case studies, with attention-grabbing snippets for social or the ability to embed in campaign pages.

Polished, not overproduced 

Remote video delivers professional quality without the need for a studio. What you get is storytelling that feels approachable and credible. It’s exactly the tone most audiences expect in their social feeds today—casual enough to fit in amongst a sea of workplace hot takes, and polished enough to shine.

Easier to get the right voices 

Coordinating travel and multi-day schedules for leaders or customers can stall a story for months. Remote recording removes those barriers, so you can include folks across time zones without disrupting the workday. The result is a broader set of voices and perspectives, captured without logistical headaches. 

More value for time and budget 

Remote production eliminates airfare, hotels, and days away from the office. Instead of tying up resources, you get high-quality storytelling that respects people’s time and saves budget, leaving more room for additional campaigns or assets.

Faster campaign turnaround 

Without the need for location scouting or pre-production setup, remote videos move from idea to final cut quickly. That speed means your content can keep pace with campaign timelines and market moments while they’re still relevant.

Flexible and evergreen 

Case study video doesn’t have to be one-and-done. Remote formats make it simple to refresh graphics, swap in updated B-roll, or adjust messaging without a full reshoot.

It’s time to revisit remote

It’s a smart, polished way to amplify customer voices fast, authentically, and in the formats people are actually consuming.

Our remote video team—writers, editors, designers, and videographers included—makes “remote” look anything but DIY. Ready to roll? Let’s talk. 

By Jack Foraker, Michelle Najarian

Image by Nicole Todd

When it comes to tailoring marketing materials for specific industries (think healthcare, manufacturing, or financial services), there’s a quick-fix trap many teams use: find and replace. Swap “customer” for “patient.” Change “supply chain” to “retail.” Call it a day. 

There’s just one problem: your audience can tell when you’re not quite speaking their language. 

The results of this find-and-replace approach are serviceable, but we’ve seen them fall flat in the market—where every B2B product seems to be talking to everyone. Industry audiences expect more than cosmetic changes. They want tools and tech that make them better at their job. A healthcare CMO isn’t looking for a generic promise of efficiency; they want to know how your solution helps providers save time with electronic records or streamlined patient interactions. A financial services audience might be less interested in speeding up internal processes and more interested in how you maintain regulatory compliance. Without that level of specificity, your content risks sounding broad, like it’s for everyone. And when it’s for everyone, it’s forgettable. 

Try building a better burger 

The better approach is to create scalable assets that can flex across industries without losing its human edge. We think of it as building a hamburger: the buns are always the same, but the fillings and condiments can be easily swapped out to suit specific preferences. Extra cheese? Veggie burger? Just like different eaters have distinct tastes and dietary needs, different industries have unique expectations, priorities, and challenges. 

In practical terms, this means the structure of your datasheet, ebook, or webinar can remain consistent across industries, while the middle layers—the use cases, proof points, customer stories, and more—can be tailored for each vertical. 

• Bun: Intro that sets the scene and defines the customer’s challenge
• Burger: Use cases and proof point specific to the industry
• Toppings: Real-world customer success stories
• Bun: Conclusion that distills the value of your product 

This repeatability gives marketers the best of both worlds: efficiency in production and authenticity in messaging. Instead of rushing to retrofit broad assets at the last minute, you’ve got a strategic messaging plan that scales and resonates. 

Assets that adapt to every audience 

It pays to speak the industry lingo. We’ve seen this firsthand. By interviewing subject matter experts, tailoring messaging to sub-personas, and recognizing how different verticals prioritize outcomes, audiences can better see themselves in the marketing. 

We’ve seen clients get a lot of mileage out of our industry-ready approach, and the messaging and positioning frameworks (MPFs) behind it, for this exact reason. An MPF ensures each message reflects the right challenges, vocabulary, and value drivers for the audience, while scalable assets can be created quickly across verticals.  

There’s power in speaking someone’s language like this. It builds trust and gives buyers the confidence to advocate for your solution inside their organizations. For marketers, that means moving beyond quick fixes and investing in a repeatable—dare we say delicious?—framework that balances efficiency with authenticity. And, for us at 2A, it means helping teams create materials that both reach and resonate with industry audiences. 

By Forsyth Alexander

Image by Emily Zheng

Building a keynote for an executive takes vision, collaboration, flexibility, and more than a little finesse. You’re in for a full-contact, multi-week process that involves executive wrangling and nerves of steel. 

But the good news is you don’t have to do it all yourself. 

For more than a decade, 2A has helped execs, product leads, and marketing teams turn high-stakes presentations into crowd favorites. We’ve written social sizzles and talk tracks, designed decks, scripted demo intros, and—yes—been the ones swapping slides backstage at the last second. We don’t shy away from the daily stand-ups, the late-night text threads, the “What if we reversed the order of the whole keynote?” brainstorms. It’s part of the journey. 

Through it all, we’ve also gained some tips that can help during this year’s keynote season.  

Start with the spark (and sometimes a sizzle reel) 

Every great keynote starts with an idea. It can be a new message. Or the unveiling of a cool new set of products. Or sometimes just a vibe. But whatever the hook, the audience needs to care. 2A works with your team to uncover the spark that delivers straight keynote fire.  

Next, we come up with a few themes based on the spark and the conference topic that will carry your message. We craft a positioning statement and introductory paragraph for each proposed theme to offer a taste of the full keynote story. One or two group discussions is usually all it takes for buy-in.  

And here’s a bonus. The winning theme often sparks a short sizzle animation to debut the presentation or a social teaser to generate pre-event buzz.  

Know who’s in the room, on the stream, or both 

Audience alignment drives everything. In a perfect world, the definition of your audience should happen before anyone opens a presentation file. But this is the real world, and it doesn’t always work that way. 2A knows what it’s like to be several slides in before someone mentions the audience. We make sure to home in on whether the presentation is for developers, database administrators, decision-makers, customers, or internal teams. 

Write talk tracks for humans, sometimes more than one 

Nowadays, a keynote will have multiple speakers who are captured in the talk track. To pull that off it often means 10 subject matter experts will be pasting 10 writing styles into one doc. Some are verbose. Others speak in shorthand. Then there are the ones who are just unclear. Suddenly your 50-minute keynote clocks in at 75 minutes. But it’s okay, because we’ll be there, cutting it with the precision of a CNC while keeping what your experts insist is the key moment. And we’ll do it in a way where each speaker retains their personal voice and style.  

Throughout the talk track, our seamless transitions between presenters keep the energy flowing and avoid those awkward “uh, I guess I’m next” moments. Our specialties are friendly banter, warm welcomes, conversational threads, and more.  

You don’t have to go it alone 

Whether you need end-to-end support or someone to tighten your transitions, 2A is here to help you build a keynote people will still be talking about (in a good way) long after the final applause. So, if that conference is looming and you’re wondering how you can nail that keynote, let’s talk. 

By Jane Dornemann

Gossip (for nerds) 

• Microsoft has become the second company in the world to achieve a market valuation of $4T—yeah, that’s a T. Microsoft as a whole saw 18% YoY growth, which emboldened the company, for the first time ever, to break out its earnings by division. Azure brought in $75B for the year. 
• Of course, we all know how it feels to have that kind of casual cash burning a hole in your pocket. Personally, I’d get in on the Labubu craze. Instead, Microsoft chose to spend $30B on capital for AI in one quarter. 
• Microsoft also released a new report that listed the top jobs expected to be replaced by AI. In the top five: interpreters and translators; historians; passenger attendants; service sales representatives; and writers and authors. Not on the list: dog trainers! Job security and puppies? Let’s do this.
• Amazon’s Q2 earnings were less impressive than Microsoft’s and Google’s, with the cloud division growing 17.5% over the last few months. CEO Andy Jassy said there’s a Wall Street narrative that AWS is falling behind in AI. The rest of Jassy’s statement shows a company that’s doing this thoughtfully and acknowledges that it’s still “so early” for generative AI. Amazon has a well-known bring-your-dog-to-work policy. So those puppies I mentioned earlier? They may also be a distraction… 
• AWS is dipping out of a third data center in Louisa, VA. And you thought those NIMBYs airing their grievances on Nextdoor were all talk!
• AWS is also working on cooling technology for Nvidia’s GPUs, using a new system called IRHX. 
• AWS gave $1B in cloud credits to the Trump administration. They say rich people love a good deal, and that’s one hefty coupon. 

Wheelin’ and dealin’ 

• Move over potatoes, Idaho is here for nuclear energy! AWS is working with the Idaho National Laboratory to advance energy research and development using AWS. Why? The tech giant joins Microsoft in looking for more sustainable ways to power AI data centers. “Power is AI’s single biggest constraint,” says Jassy. 
• GitLab is teaming up with AWS for the next three years to make its single-tenant GitLab Dedicated platform more accessible. This will help regulated industries and public sector teams remain compliant in the cloud. At the same time, GitHub’s CEO stepped down and Microsoft moved GitHub into its CoreAI division. 

New stuff 

• AWS is making two new models from OpenAI available on its platform. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em! 
• Microsoft and Databricks created a new integration so that Microsoft Fabric users can access Azure Databricks tables directly and query the latest data without copying or moving anything. 
• Microsoft has integrated Chat GPT 5 into its full portfolio of AI-powered tools. And while some users call the newest generation of the GPT “emotionally distant,” I’d honestly feel bad ordering someone I really vibed with to do all my busy work. Frenemies, mmkay? 
• AWS has opened a marketplace only for AI and agents, so expect to see a flood of partners earning their AWS AI Competencies to gain access.