The fifth anniversary is a big thing. Especially when you feel emotionally connected to the company. Then it’s not an anniversary anymore; then it’s the fifth birthday. And nothing can go wrong.
That is why, the Marketing department that I am proudly a part of started the preparations a month in advance. After an insightful brainstorm session, we decided that instead of doing a celebratory post for our social media, we would do a birthday week, full of celebratory posts. Starting with a short video prepared in our creative studio, through a fun photoshoot on Instagram, to an interview with our HR director, everything was supposed to be birthday-themed. But you can’t have a birthday without presents.
The idea was to wrap up our week with a short video of a few client testimonials and keep it as a surprise for our lovely co-founders.
The plan was simple:
- Ask the account managers to contact the clients so they can record the videos.
- Cut and edit the videos.
- Prepare a copy.
- Post the final video on our social media.
Seems easy, huh? Well, that’s what I thought when I gladly accepted to be in charge of that project. I also thought that it wouldn’t take me more than a week.
I started the preparations three weeks in advance. I sent a Slack message to all the Account Managers at my company—six people in total. I explained what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and why it’s important for them to collaborate with me (and their clients) on that project. Proud of myself that I figured out who was responsible for which client, I waited for a response.
After three days of no response, I sent an email. A nice, clear, easy-to-understand message saying that we want to post a client testimonial video, that there is an example of a nice message, that it can be in Dutch or English, and that the deadline is in a week. I even attached a file with instructions on what to do, mentioning once again that it will be posted online.
Out of 6 people, 2 people answered. But only after I’ve sent a follow-up email. I was not too surprised; I knew they were busy with their work, but it still put me a bit off. One of them said that they are taking some time off and someone else is taking over their accounts; the other one said that they will check with one client with whom we have a long history and a friendly relationship. First micro success.
I decided that we should probably come up with a plan B for the client testimonial post in case we get less than three videos. But I did not want to give up. On the contrary, I started being even more stubborn. I set up meetings with the accounts that ignored my messages. It wasn’t easy. As a Marketing Intern (and the youngest employee) in an almost fully Dutch office, I already felt like I was annoying. But it was necessary if I really wanted this project to see the light of day.
The pressure from the marketing team asking follow-up questions all the time was definitely not helping. However, to my biggest surprise, the calls turned out to be very informative, and at the end of the day (somewhere 2 weeks before our birthday), I figured I would have 4 testimonials. Yay!
With the first video, I also got the question “What are you going to do with the videos?”, and so I responded, “We are giving it to the founders as a surprise. We are also posting it on social media. We won’t mention the brand name if the client doesn’t want to.” Short and sweet.
I was really happy. All this effort really paid off; in the end, I got seven different videos from our clients. I needed to stay over the evening before the planned post. After all, I had to edit the videos and still finish all my other tasks. I didn’t mind, though.
May 3rd, 11:00: The video is sent to our company WhatsApp group. The co-founders are more than happy, one of them has tears in his eyes. Everything that they stand for—a good relationship with the client, growing together, and learning from each other seems more important than ever. They ask who did it, and my manager points at me. I can’t stop smiling at seeing them so happy.
Five minutes later, we posted the video on LinkedIn. 10 minutes after that, we need to delete it. Some clients called to say that they saw our video on LinkedIn but did not agree to it. It turns out that the Account Managers had not communicated with the clients that the video would be online.
Even though I mentioned it in writing and in person at least four times.
But every lesson is somehow valuable. Now I book a meeting straightaway or come up to somebody’s desk in order to ask a question. I do not care about being annoying anymore. I also ask five times if something can be published. Like a maniac. I guess “better safe than sorry” doesn’t always work.