OUR STORY
A Quest for Visibility
Patty Radford Henderson, Annum’s founder, had a lengthy career as a marketer working for top corporate and agency organizations and throughout that career she built marketing calendars in spreadsheets.
Because that’s what marketers do.
One day she was in the conference room of a Fortune 200 company discussing a product launch and there were five calendar spreadsheets on the table. The ad agency had one. The PR agency had one. The brand marketer had one and, as the lead for the digital agency, she had brought two.
The “integrated” campaign was literally siloed by channel.
Patty was struck with just how insane it was to expect marketers to plan strategic and compelling omnichannel campaigns while using something designed for number crunching. How can you get everyone on the same page when everyone is so literally NOT on the same page?
She set out to find a solution but soon discovered that applications with calendars were either designed for project management (built around tasks and due dates vs. initiatives, tactics, and in-market dates) or were channel specific production and publishing tools.
Driven by an ever growing need to solve the problem, she designed a prototype of her ideal integrated marketing planning calendar and began showing it to colleagues and clients.
They told her the pain is real. Marketers shared that they live in siloes and that no one knew what was going on. They described their current planning process as a time suck and a nightmare. They complained about plans being spread all over and how their current calendars made it impossible to connect tactics to strategy. They talked about “tab fatigue.”
Then she shared her prototype. They called it helpful, great, useful, amazing even. They described it as simple, beautiful, anxiety reducing, exactly what they’ve been looking for. They said it would help them be more proactive, help them plan smarter, save them misspent time. They said they loved it and that they would use it.
She thought about how frustrating it was to have to make tactical decisions without sightline into the overarching strategy and visibility into opportunities for cross channel integration.
She thought back to all the long hours and late nights spent trying to get spreadsheets to look halfway decent. Of the reoccurring status meetings needed to keep people updated, the back and forth clarifying emails. All that unvalued, invisible time behind the scenes.
She knew she couldn’t get that time back, but she could pay it forward. And she knew the time was ripe for her to make a broader positive impact with her career.
Annum was founded in St. Paul, Minnesota in February of 2020.
FOUNDER & CEO
Patty Radford Henderson
Patty is a senior marketing strategist, entrepreneur, speaker, and workshop instructor for the Association of National Advertisers with over 25 years of experience in brand building, content strategy, and integrated marketing planning. She’s spent half her career on the corporate side and the other half on the agency side with leadership positions at Target, Regis Corporation, Martin Williams and Colle McVoy. In 2013, she co-founded Union Park Marketing a digital agency that worked with clients such as General Mills, Red Wing Shoes, North Memorial Health, and Shinola. As a consultant she’s advised teams at Thompson Reuters, Northwestern Mutual, and Twin Cities PBS on content strategy and multi-channel content programming. She founded Annum to solve a career long pain point and to empower marketers to do their career best work.
CTO
Shane Mechelke
Shane is an entrepreneur and creative technologist with over 20 years of experience leading the delivery of technical solutions for brands both big and small including Intel, Best Buy, Cargill, United Health Group, Jamba Juice, Embroidery Library, Wilbur Ellis, HiBAR, Autodesk, Pentair, and Computype. While holding leadership positions at Martin Williams and Modern Climate, he architected and led the development of over a dozen software products and countless websites. Through his agency Particular Collective he delivers digital solutions from strategy to completion.
“Annum is a single, visual dashboard of strategy in action. Having a central gathering point of cross channel tactical activity keeps all stake holders on the same page, provides for greater clarity and consistency, and, most importantly, ensures best, repeatable outcomes.”
– Brian M
OUR PURPOSE
To help marketer’s smash organizational silos and drive more revenue.
To give them them the insights and visibility they need for strategic cross-channel decision making.
To guide customer centric planning that results in cohesive and compelling omnichannel experiences.
To empower marketers in delivering their career best work.
OUR VISION
To revolutionize the way marketers do strategic omnichannel planning.
OUR ROADMAP
We are self funding this venture with the support of our customers. They are our board of advisors. Their needs and their investment in Annum drive the development of new features.
