As a wise man once said, “and so this is Christmas and what have you done”. Well John, in true Honest fashion, quite a bit. Quite a bit.
The heart of Honest Communications
Honest wouldn’t be what it is without the incredible team that I’m so lucky to have. This year I’m thrilled to say we’ve had promotions coming out of our ears – in fact, every single team member has been promoted which is a huge testament to the hard-working, driven team we have.
We started the year with Fay becoming our first-ever Operations Director, a key role in the growth of the agency going forward. She now looks after all our systems and processes, making sure everything is running efficiently and that we have everything in place that we need to keep delivering amazing results for our clients. That and fighting with the printer when it breaks, a job I was more than happy to pass over.
Sophie then started with us full-time, having been part of the team in 2023 part-time as our Junior Account Executive on our student internship placement while she finished her degree. Sophie continually impressed us throughout her placement and offering her a full-time position was a no-brainer. We were so impressed in fact that she almost instantly got promoted to Account Executive, a role she has absolutely thrived in this year.
Then Dani, our in-house wildlife fanatic and self-proclaimed bird nerd, moved up the ranks to become Account Manager. Having joined us in June 2023 Dani rapidly showed us she was ready to take on more responsibility and was promoted in less than 12 months!
Then, most recently, Beth became our Head of Culture. As the team grows and we take the agency forward into its seventh year, it’s more important than ever that we focus on our team to make sure they are happy, and developing as individuals. Another key part of Beth’s new role is to ensure that, despite hybrid working, we still feel like a team and that we make the most of our time together when we are in person. She’d been our Party President for some time, looking after all our socials and team outings, and now will look after all our training (and has already signed us up as CIPR members to offer CPD qualifications to the team), so expect many more updates in 2025!
We’ve got more team news lined up but we’ll keep you waiting on that… stay tuned for January news!!
Events
While 2024 was a big year for our team, it was also packed with exciting events that kept us on our toes. From connecting with journalists to showcasing our clients’ stories at iconic venues, here are some highlights that made our calendar so memorable.
This year, three events stand out for me. As ever, we kicked off the event calendar with the Garden Press Event – one of my favourites! It’s such a lovely day to catch up with journalists and industry connections and chat about all the wonderful things our clients have going on. The Honest team got our steps in and were glad of a seat on the train home!
Then, of course, the RHS Chelsea Flower Show soon crept up on us. We took care of four clients at the show, ran media and influencers tours of all the stands, and managed to sneak in time to explore the show and gardens as well! The weather may have been a bit more hit-and-miss this year, but it didn’t dampen our Chelsea spirits!
Then in July, we returned to one of our favourite things – show PR! We handled the PR for the Climate Forward Garden designed by Melanie Hick at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival and had so much fun landing features about it all! Check out our case study here.
Clients
This year, we were privileged to work with some incredible brands who trusted us to share their stories and deliver results. To further this, we welcomed some new brands to the Honest Communications family. Ark Wildlife joined us and we’ve loved spreading the word about all things wildlife! Then most recently, Maxicrop came on board for support for its spring 2025 rebrand, introducing a fresh new look to the gardening world. Its tried and tested seaweed-rich solution remains unchanged, but we’ll be providing PR support to broaden reach and engage a new generation of gardeners while honouring its 80-year legacy and existing loyal customer base.
We kicked off Topiary Awards; ran press trips to Holland; launched many, many new products; managed influencer campaigns; arranged national competitions and giveaways; secured more than 2100 pieces of coverage, and handled more than 1300 journalist enquiries! All demonstrating how targeted PR can directly impact visibility and engagement.
Take a look at what else we got up to!
The Honest Network
If all that isn’t enough, this year we launched our own influencer network – The Honest Network! What started as simply a database rapidly grew into so much more.
Put simply, The Honest Network is our little black book of influencers and content creators that we can turn to when plotting social campaigns for our clients. That might be ongoing partnerships or ad-hoc campaigns, for product launches, event attendance or brand awareness pieces.
As the year has gone on, and more and more members have signed up, it’s become so much more and is shaping up to be more of a community for sharing ideas, tips and content ideas – as well as a way of working with our clients.
We’ve got plans to keep the Network growing in 2025 to recruit new members, work with more brands and build the community through webinars such as “What are marketing managers looking for?”, “How much should I charge?”, and “What needs to go in a contract?”.
Changes in PR in 2024
This year, there have been interesting changes in print media with some titles sadly closing, but others emerging with refreshed looks and we’re loving seeing the new opportunities that this brings for our clients.
We’ve definitely seen even more uplift on the digital side of things. This shift toward digital-first PR has solidified our commitment to staying ahead of trends. We’ve introduced advanced analytics to measure backlink ROI and are doubling down on creating evergreen content that not only ranks well but keeps readers engaged. With quick fire turn around on requests, a focus on keywords in our content, and a big push on the ultimate digital gold – backlinks! More digital opportunities have come hand in hand with more opportunities for our clients to provide expert advice pieces. In fact, this year our clients provided more than 500 pieces of expert advice!
And that’s a wrap on 2024!
It’s been a year of growth, connection, and plenty of hard work—and we couldn’t have done it without the incredible support of our clients, partners, and the Honest team. As we look ahead to 2025, we’re ready to embrace new challenges and opportunities with open arms.
It’s been a fantastic year and we want to send a huge thank you to everyone that we’ve worked with – our wonderful clients, the fantastic journalists we work with (last-minute requests and all!), our partners who make our lives so much easier, and the creative influencers who continue to inspire us!
We’re so excited for 2025 and all that it has to bring!! From expanding The Honest Network to working on new partnerships, and continuing to explore the evolving PR landscape, we can’t wait to see what the future holds!
Ready to make waves in 2025? Get in touch to see how we can put the Honest touch on your PR campaigns!
