Fenwick Longview Issue 106, April 24, 2025—Forwarded this? Sign up yourself

Why Annual Reports Are Indispensable

They say writing a novel is like driving a car across the country at night: You can only see as far as the headlights but you can make it the whole way like that.

Running a content operation is similar. Though eventually, you do need a destination. Otherwise, you’ll wake up five years later on that same drive. Back in 2020, my friend Jillian noted this. She asked us to do a write-up on a survey she’d run. That was her way station in the desert—an annual report to relieve first-quarter pressure. The next year she repeated it. I distinctly recall how disappointed she was. Expense was high and interest was low. Still, she believed and persisted.

This year, Carina finished writing that company’s sixth edition and the program is a towering edifice. The biggest trade association co-sponsors it. They get a yearly burst of inbound interest. They are now too far ahead for competitors to catch up.

In this issue, I share the story of how Loopio broke ground on something new and why it pays to take the long view. It features insights from Amelia Garvey, Senior Content Marketing Manager at Loopio, with thanks to Alison Hayter, Cheyanne Lobo, and the team there that makes it happen every single year.

What it took to build

These reports take months. You need someone to run the study as well as a strategist, a writer, and a designer. You must think up questions likely to produce useful information for your readers (a whole discipline), collect responses, produce a findings deck, discuss it, ask more questions, outline, design, and so on, in a cycle. And then the work begins because you must promote it.

At a lot of companies, these types of investments get deferred; higher-ups want what Velocity Partners calls “the sugar rush of leads.” And if you aren’t careful to ask “success” questions, you’ll have nothing interesting to segment by. You can’t say, “Most companies do this, but the best do that.” It's just a flat expanse of averages.

And lord help you if the survey partner doesn’t proofread their findings deck and your writer has to wade into the cross-tabs to correct them, causing work to drag on for added weeks.

Like I said, real brain sweat. Over the years, it gets easier. But the report also grows. (Just like buildings.)

In the early days, Loopio simply reported the data. The second year, they began to editorialize. In 2023, they officially partnered with the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP) and surveyed their members, which improved the data but shifted the sample and caused a fissure in the past-future dataset timeline. They started making the PDF printable with collated pages. And this year, their design team produced a whole delightful microsite experience.

Also this year, Loopio’s report raised an annex—Carina and team felt the careers chapter was so valuable, it became its own report.

What it feels like to own a destination report

I asked Amelia at Loopio how she and the team think about the report and how they measure the value of having built a destination. She’s pretty enthusiastic about it.

It’s a mutual exchange of insight

The report is genuinely useful to readers, who base their salary and headcount decisions on it. But it’s also rich insight for Loopio. “The real value to doing it over time is we have a very real understanding of the challenges and day-to-day realities our audience faces.”

It’s a competitive moat

“This one-of-a-kind original research lets us speak with data-backed authority. Even when our competitors try to do something similar (and they do try), they can’t match the longevity of our report or the depth of the conclusions we can draw because of it.”

It’s an endless font of content

“From a marketing perspective, we’re able to slice and dice the report to use it across all our channels—it’s a treasure trove we can use all year.”

It’s an owned cultural moment in the proposal industry

The Loopio team measures traffic, downloads, leads, and attributable revenue. But less quantifiable is how people anticipate and help promote it, including the industry association, their customers, and the sales team. “Culturally, the whole company knows about this report and looks forward to it, because so many people use it in so many ways.”

It’s also an event strategy

Carina produced presentations for the Loopio team who went on to speak at conferences about the data. “People can actually come out and meet us and often, the Trends Report is a topic of convo!”

It’s a whole company win

Loopio’s report is essentially a product. “The whole company supports it and shares it with their own connections and audiences. I think sometimes it’s easy for marketing to be churning away in its corner while the rest of the company does their thing, but this is visible, exciting, and clarifies marketing’s impact.”

In sum, long drives are nice. But eventually you need a destination. The best time to start would have been six years ago. The next best time is now.

Fenwick Principle

♟️Longview

We take the long view. We produce works that compound in value and accrue into something more; we paint tiles knowing they will one day become a mosaic without worrying whether anyone can see it yet.

How to apply today's principle

It is easier to discover a destination than to invent one. This week, look at your top organic-ranking page and ask, could this become a destination?

(For example, when we created Voiceflow’s publication Pathways, it was because customers were already asking for it.)

In the next issue

A lesson in the power of creative restraint.

Worth reading

Tips for original research.

Hijacked creativity. Carina's newsletter on creative inspiration is lovely.

Email is good because it is ignorable. Hat tip to Dave Cunningham for finding. Big ideas are rare. This is one.

Hiring squad. The future of human resources isn’t so human. A takedown on par with “The People Who Ruined the Internet.” Journalists doing the outside-in looksee will never not be interesting to me.

Argument: Blogs are no longer worth it. If you don’t know your blog brand, I agree. The question is, “If your company did not exist, would your blog?” If not, there’s no unique value.