Notes From The Trail: Campfire Collective’s 2024 Year in Review

What a year!  Between TikTok trends and Twitter’s demise, the Paris Olympics and the Presidential election, this year has certainly kept marketers on our toes. While ups and downs have been frequent, we’ve been grateful for our 2024 over here at Campfire Collective. Take a walk with me down memory lane as we revisit the past year. 

Growth

While we won’t know the final numbers until January, we have definitely experienced growth this year at Campfire Collective. 2024 has outpaced 2023, even in a year of uncertainty, which speaks volumes to the trust our clients and community have placed in us. 

Our team has also grown this year! We welcomed Allison and Olivia as Content Kindlers, Alexas as a Client Expedition Manager, and Millie as our Team Wayfinder. Each of them has added  a unique perspective, creativity, and a level of passion and fun to our team dynamic. 

Many team members got new titles in 2024 as well. Kate was promoted from a Content Kindler to our Director of Expeditions. Content Kindlers Sarah, Elizabeth, and Abby were moved into a newly created role as Client Expeditions Manager where they manage our client accounts. 

Milestones

Our team celebrated many personal milestones this year as well, another reason to celebrate! Kate got married. Gwen got engaged. Abby bought a house. Alexas and her wife adopted three beautiful children. Martha welcomed a new baby into the world and is preparing to launch her first book into the world. We’re growing internally as a team while our families and honorary Campfire Collective team members grow as well. 

Partnerships

When we say we value community, we truly mean it. This year, we have launched several key partnerships to further our goal to uplift the community. We launched our monthly non-profit spotlight on the I Love Memphis blog. We spotlight key Memphis changemakers through Choose901. We host our Just Bluffin’ podcast through WYXR. And we talk about the incredible Memphians we interview during our weekly Memphian Minute segment during The Drop morning show on Mondays at 6:30am. I Love Memphis, Choose901, and WYXR are all valuable contributors to our community, and we are thankful to work with them to spread positivity in Memphis. 

Clients

We treasure our long-term clients who have trusted us for years with their marketing, public relations, and social media. This year, we were also thrilled to welcome new clients as well. Thank you to JEM, Boshi Botanicals, Stitching Supply, Mid-South Hobbies, Worksite Care Clinic, City Brew Tours, and Freedom Prep Academy for your confidence and partnership. We have truly enjoyed learning about these Memphis organizations and getting to know their teams inside and out. That’s one of my favorite parts of the job: working to support the people in our city who make it better every day. 

Client Wins

We love the work we do every day with our clients, and there have also been some rewarding milestones this year. 

We hosted several grand openings for new business this year: JEM, Boshi Botanicals, Worksite Care Clinic, and Stitching Supply. Each one of these exceeded our expectations. Thank you to Memphis for showing up and supporting these local businesses! Each client commented on the success of their event and many reported increased sales. All around amazing!

We promoted and staffed SO MANY events for clients this year, including four separate  three-day events all within two weeks of each other! (Does anything scream NAP louder than that?) We launched a new RC Park for Mid-South Hobbies, celebrated the one-year anniversary of the Welcome to Your Future campaign with Welcome to Memphis, created a year-long hospitality career fair schedule for the city, developed a marketing plan for several organizations to utilize, and covered two events whose Instagram reels went viral! (Thanks in-part to those viral posts, we also increased social media impressions for that client by 390%.) 

I am looking forward to January, when we do our annual analytics reports that measure the impact we had on our clients and the community over the course of the year. Stay tuned for more on that! To say our team works hard is an understatement. Please treat them like the shining stars they are next time you see them in person. 

Awards

While the impact of the work is the real reward, it’s always nice when our community recognizes us as well. We took home 28 total VOX and Gold Awards at the 2024 PRSA Memphis VOX Awards for our work on client campaigns.  Our former Wayfinder Mackenzie Grannan was recognized with the PRSA Memphis Rising Star Award. And Campfire Collective was named Best Small Agency of the Year!

We’ve set our goals for 2025 and are already looking toward next year, but it’s always important to take a moment to reflect on what we have accomplished and just how far we have come. Campfire Collective couldn’t do what we do without our incredible team, amazing clients, and supportive community. Thank you everyone! Here’s to 2025 and beyond.