Melissa Drew – InSite BUILD

About Melissa Drew – InSite BUILD

InSite BUILD is a general contractor firm founded by Melissa Drew, who spent 20 years in construction before launching her own company on a simple belief: that complex projects succeed when the right people show up with the right level of care, accountability, and trust from day one.

Based in Maryland, InSite BUILD serves large national and regional contractors as an MBE (Minority Business Enterprise) partner, state and local government agencies with major capital projects, nonprofits pursuing new construction, and clients seeking owner’s representative services. Melissa’s firm had earned its credibility project by project, but its public profile hadn’t caught up to its actual trajectory.

Zilker Media began working with InSite BUILD in November 2025.

The Challenges

A company that had outgrown its own story

When InSite BUILD approached Zilker Media, the gap between the company’s on-the-ground reputation and its online reputation was significant. Potential clients searching for them found very little, and AI platforms didn’t know they existed. The firm was showing up to conversations it had already earned the right to be in, without a digital presence that reflected that.

The campaign needed to build a new story, one that honored their roots while positioning Melissa and InSite BUILD as a high-performance, nationally credible firm competing for larger state, government, and national contracts.

The Solution

A three-channel strategy built to compound

Zilker Media deployed a strategy across earned, rented, and owned media, each reinforcing the others.

Earned media meant pursuing the publications, awards, and platforms where InSite BUILD’s target clients and peer networks actually pay attention. Every placement was chosen to serve a specific credibility goal: construction trade media for industry authority, national business press for general brand recognition, and women’s leadership recognition to reinforce Melissa’s unique positioning.

Rented media meant activating Melissa’s personal LinkedIn as the company’s most powerful distribution channel. Her story was the kind of narrative that earned organic reach.

Owned media meant auditing the InSite BUILD website and building the infrastructure to make the company’s growing digital footprint work harder: a press page, blog, newsletter signup, and expanded service pages, all designed to compound discoverability over time.

The Execution

Deliberate, stacked momentum

The award strategy was deliberately stacked: local Maryland recognition to build regional credibility, DC-market recognition to support geographic expansion, and national Inc. and EY recognition to signal that InSite BUILD is competing at the highest levels.

Podcast bookings spanned two verticals simultaneously: construction industry shows for industry authority, and general business and leadership platforms for broader name recognition. Opportunities secured thus far include ConTechCrew, Construction Genius, The Business Game, People-First Builders, and Show Your Value with Lee Benson.

Two TEDx applications were submitted targeting the Washington, DC market: TEDx Logan Circle (theme: Rethink Power) and TEDx Largo, with the goal of creating evergreen video content and global thought-leadership positioning.

On LinkedIn, a clear content truth emerged early: Melissa’s personal story outperforms everything else at roughly 10 times the reach of general industry content. Posts centered on her journey, her recognition, and her voice as a woman who built something in a space that wasn’t built for her generated the campaign’s highest-performing moments. 

Awards & Recognition Secured

• Inc. Regionals — #1 Fastest-Growing Private Company, Mid-Atlantic
• Inc. Female Founders 500 Trailblazer
• EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2026, Mid-Atlantic Finalist
• Women to KNOW in Washington DC
• 100 Women to KNOW in America (Visa & JPMorgan) Honorable Mention
• Inaugural MD 500 Recognition List, The Daily Record
• TDR Maryland Best Women-Owned Businesses

The Results

The foundation is built. The momentum is just beginning.

In the first 90 days, InSite BUILD moved from a company whose digital presence significantly lagged its real-world performance to one whose name is surfacing in national conversations, AI search results, and Inc. Magazine rankings.

20 total media opportunities were generated across podcasts, publications, awards, and speaking platforms. On LinkedIn, Melissa’s content reached 45,846 impressions from just 1,318 followers, meaning her content traveled 35 times beyond her existing audience.

On AI and search visibility, InSite BUILD now ranks #1 on Google for branded search and holds the #1 position across both ChatGPT and Perplexity for “construction management services in Eastern Shore of Maryland”. The $53 million Eastern Correctional Institution project is also being cited by name in Google AI responses.

The Inc. Regionals #1 ranking as the fastest-growing private company in the Mid-Atlantic is an objective business credential that speaks directly to the government agencies and large contractors InSite BUILD is pursuing. 

The campaign is ongoing. The next phase builds on this foundation with an expanded content strategy, blog, and thought leadership publishing, deeper geographic reach into Baltimore and DC, and continued pursuit of top-tier trade and national media.