I don’t know how it works at your company, but lately, I’ve realized that at Woodpecker we usually run ahead and we hardly ever have time to look back. And that’s a shame, really. Sometimes it’s good to look back and realize how far you have gone. That may give you a broader perspective and some fresh energy. I took a look at 2017 and it turns out it has been a fantastic year. It was so thanks to you, our dearest customers, partners, blog readers, and friends. I’ve put together a little recap here, so you could see for yourselves what we can be really grateful for at Woodpecker.
Helping more and more B2B companies
Our premium user base has more than tripled throughout this year. Almost 1.5K B2B companies from 55 countries all over the world are currently subscribed to one of our premium plans and use Woodpecker on a daily basis. We reached some very significant milestones this year:
- 500+ customers – March 2017
- 800+ customers – June 2017
- 1000+ customers – August 2017
- almost 1500 customers – December 2017
That’s a tremendous success for us and we are grateful to all those who got on board this year. We also send our special thanks to those who joined us before 2017 and keep being with us through all this time. Thank you for your steadfastness, loyalty, and patience.
Team
Our team has grown substantially in 2017, so now we’re 30 people ready to help, serve, and talk to you every day. At the same time, we somehow managed to sustain the team atmosphere we built when there was only a handful of us. That’s something we wish you on the road of growing your own company.
Improving the product
This year, we’ve put a lot of work into improving things that can’t be easily noticed at first sight: deliverability, email integration process, email sending, and reply detection systems.
We can’t say that was a year full of new bright and shiny features’ releases. But we can confidently state that we spent this time improving the core features that each of our users needs every single time they send their email campaigns from Woodpecker. All the new features we have waiting in our backlog would be pointless to introduce if the good old features weren’t taken to the next level.
Among the few changes that can be easily spotted in the interface, you’ll find:
- Integration with 750+ apps through Zapier – released in January
- Updated Email Connection Process – released in October
- the ability to Connect External SMTP from Mailgun or SendGrid to Woodpecker – released in November
Launching new projects & events
There are three massive projects we began this year and will continue in the next one and on. Those have already required a lot of new energy from us, and they will require more in the future. We believe, though, that they will bring us tremendous effects in terms of well-balanced, long-term growth. Those are:
- Woodpecker Partner Program – launched in April
- 65 Customer Interviews – the first edition carried out from July to November
- Woodpecker Webinars – the very first of which took place in December
App stats & numbers
The scale at which Woodpecker operates every day, week and month have changed immensely. The numbers speak for themselves:
- 37 700+ that’s how many email campaigns have been launched in Woodpecker this year
- 25 765 000+ that’s how many messages have been sent within those email campaigns
- 1 978 900+ that’s how many replies to those campaigns were detected by Woodpecker
Blog stats & numbers
In 2017 over 53 000 people were reading the present blog. Over 6400 people subscribed for the blog newsletter. I’ve heard many warm words from the blog readers – thank you so much for all of them. I’m more than happy to hear that my posts are helpful to you. Here’s a list of most often read articles this year.
Top 10 most often read posts in 2017
- What is SPF & DKIM? And Why You Want to Have It Set Up >>
- How to Check & Improve the Reputation of Your Domain and Email Server IP >>
- 25 Tools & Services for Outbound Prospect List Building >>
- Follow-up Emails: How Many & How Often? >>
- How to Warm Up My Email Address before Cold Outreach? >>
- How I Wrote a Cold Email that Got 50% Reply Rate >>
- Why We Set up a Separate Mailbox for Outbound Campaigns? >>
- What Are Email Sending Limits of Various Email Hosts? >>
- Step-by-Step Practical Guide to a Cold Email Campaign That Gets Delivered >>
- 15 Places Where You Can Find B2B Leads, Other than LinkedIn >>
48 new blog posts were published in 2017 (actually, this one’s the 49th), including:
3 interviews:
- How to Use High-Level Personalization in Influencer Outreach? >>
– interview with Magda Urbaniak of Brand24 - Send cold emails & follow-ups automatically from your mailbox >>
– interview with Matt for Siftery Stories - How cloud apps helped this company get to 1,000 paying customers in 2 years >>
– interview with me featured by PickSaaS.com
2 new reviews of prospect list building tools:
4 guest posts:
- 10 Reasons Why Your Outreach Emails Are Getting No Response >> by Nina Cvijovic of Etools
- A Guide to Personalized Email Using Individual Videos and GIFs >> by Julia Samolienko of Chanty
- How Leadberry Automates Email Outreach with Woodpecker >> by Zoltan Gero of Leadberry
- 7 Common Email Etiquette Mistakes You Need to Avoid When Writing Cold Emails >> by Gloria Kopp of Australian Help
3 new case studies:
- How Lead Pal Uses Cold Emails to Get New Agency Customers >>
- How edrone.me Builds Relations with Future Customers Using Cold Email >>
- How OBO Agency Uses Email Automation to Triple Their Clients’ Pipelines >>
To sum up
On behalf of our whole team, I want to thank all the people who contributed to making this year a success for Woodpecker.
Dear customers, we couldn’t be where we are without you. Thank you for your trust, continuous support, all the warm words, and your precious feedback (both positive and negative.) You provide us with inspiration and energy to grow and to keep helping you grow at the same time.
Trial users, thank you for giving us a chance. We’ll keep improving for you, too, and hopefully, we’ll be able to meet your expectations next time you give us a try.
Partners, your contribution to our sustainable growth is invaluable. Thank you for spreading the word about Woodpecker and for bringing us to even more small and medium businesses all over the world. You undoubtedly add fuel to our growth engine.
Blog readers and newsletter subscribers, special thanks from me for all the time you spend reading the things I put up here. Your attention and interest drive me to write (hopefully) useful stuff every week. Thank you for all the words of appreciation and support I got from you this year.
All friends of Woodpecker, there are no words we can use to express how much your dedication and support mean to us. Thank you so much for all that you’ve done for us so far. We are entering 2018 as an almost grown-up company. Though we see this as a huge success and a source of new opportunities, we’re also aware that we’re about to face some new challenges. We believe that our team will be ready to take up all of them if we have you with us.
Best wishes for 2018 from all of us at Woodpecker team.
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