{"id":11256,"date":"2020-12-31T10:00:37","date_gmt":"2020-12-31T10:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodpecker.co\/blog\/?p=11256"},"modified":"2025-01-21T10:16:23","modified_gmt":"2025-01-21T09:16:23","slug":"what-was-2020-like-for-us-at-woodpecker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodpecker.co\/blog\/what-was-2020-like-for-us-at-woodpecker\/","title":{"rendered":"What was 2020 like for us at Woodpecker?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not long ago Twitter asked its users to summarize 2020 in one word. They got thousands of replies, also from some world-famous brands. Adobe replied with \u201cCTRL + Z\u201d, Microsoft Edge with \u201c404\u201d, YouTube responded, \u201cunsubscribe\u201d. We could say \u201cblacklist\u201d. And how would you describe it?<\/span><\/p>\n

For us, it was the year of many challenges and hard work, but fortunately, we\u2019ve made it to the end of it. But instead of talking about difficulties, I\u2019d like to focus on what was good about 2020 and what is to come next year, which hopefully will be a whole lot better for everyone.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

What good did 2020 bring?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Our customers\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

More than 3000 customers from 70 countries use Woodpecker in their daily work: for cold emailing, webinar lead generation, increasing trial-to-paid conversion rate, onboarding new customers, getting backlinks, or starting any new business partnerships.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Thank you for being with us through this tough year. We\u2019ve prepared a special gift for you (unfortunately only in a virtual form this year). It\u2019s waiting for you at the end of this post.<\/span><\/p>\n

Woodpecker Partner Program<\/span><\/h3>\n

Our Partner Program reached 1100 members this year (and still counting). Thanks to all our partners for being such amazing Woodpecker evangelists.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a consultant, online training instructor, growth marketer, sales professional or a freelancer who is looking for new opportunities, you should definitely give our Partner Program a try. How does it work? You get 20% of each monthly payment we receive from a person who became a Woodpecker customer through your referral link.<\/span><\/p>\n

Go to the Partner Program page to learn more and sign up >><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Woodpecker team<\/span><\/h3>\n

We\u2019re closing 2020 with almost 70 talented specialists on board. You won\u2019t find a more enjoyable team to work with in this galaxy, believe me.<\/span><\/p>\n

Work under Covid-19 unusual circumstances<\/span><\/h2>\n

It\u2019s impossible to talk about 2020 without referring to the pandemics and how it affected our day-to-day work. For everybody\u2019s safety, we had to switch to remote work almost overnight.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From an employee perspective, I must say that although we miss working together in the office, working from home didn\u2019t slow us down or loosen our team bonds. We maintain daily meetings within each team to be on the same page with all the ongoing projects (and there\u2019s been a lot going on!). We also keep a time holder in our calendars for a team coffee or lunch break to chat about non-work-related stuff, just like we used to in the office.<\/span><\/p>\n

Most important features released in 2020<\/span><\/h2>\n

A\/B tests<\/span><\/h3>\n

This has been one of the most awaited features of 2020. Finally, you can conveniently A\/B test up to 5 versions of different subject lines or email copy to see what\u2019s working and what\u2019s not.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s more about <\/span>how to A\/B test cold emails and follow-ups in Woodpecker<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Manual tasks<\/span><\/h3>\n

Sometimes to get to someone you have to use LinkedIn InMail, comment on a post, follow on Twitter, or even make an old-school phone call. Juggling between different channels is not easy, but you can now include a manual task, such as a reminder to send a connection request on social media, within your campaign flow in Woodpecker, and stay better organized.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read about manual tasks in more detail in <\/span>this blog post<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Snippet-based conditions<\/span><\/h3>\n

No more segmenting prospects and running two separate campaigns. No more problems with missing snippets. With snippet based-conditions, you can now split your email sequence into two Paths based on a prospect\u2019s data.<\/span><\/p>\n

Email customization in preview<\/span><\/h3>\n

I\u2019m sure that at least once while previewing your campaign before sending it out, you noticed a typo. Or you came up with an idea to add some tweaks to the email copy for a particular prospect. That\u2019s why we\u2019ve introduced email customization in preview, which allows you to edit a chosen email.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bulk-change of prospects\u2019 statuses<\/span><\/h3>\n

Before adding this feature if you wanted to change the status of let\u2019s say 100 prospects from active to blacklisted, you had to do it manually one by one. That was a real drag. Now with bulk actions, you can do it with a few clicks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Deliverability report<\/span><\/h3>\n

The technical setup can be tricky even for advanced users. That\u2019s why we\u2019ve added a deliverability tab to the email account settings, where you can check if you have the <\/span>SPF and DKIM<\/span><\/a> records set up correctly.<\/span><\/p>\n

You can read more about email customization in preview, bulk-change of statuses, and deliverability report <\/span>in this blog post<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

AI-powered interest level<\/span><\/h3>\n

This year we\u2019ve also introduced the AI-powered interest level, which is a system that analyzes the sentiment of the first reply received from a prospect (for now only in English) and marks its interest level accordingly. After all, those people whose interest you managed to spark are on the best way to become your new customers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more about it <\/span>here<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

New integrations added in 2020<\/span><\/h2>\n

Zoom, GoToWebinar, join.me, DEMIO, WebinarJam\/EverWebinar via Zapier<\/span><\/h3>\n

If you host webinars on a regular basis you can use Woodpecker to send personalized invites, follow up with registrants before an event to keep them engaged, and after it to continue sales conversations.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Zaps with some of the most popular webinar tools will help you semi-automate this process, so you have more time for actual sales conversations and closing deals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Read how to create such a \u201cwebinar sales funnel\u201d and boost webinar ROI.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Google Sheets<\/span><\/h3>\n

Don\u2019t have to clutter your desktop with dozens of CSVs, but import prospects to Woodpecker database or a specific campaign directly from a spreadsheet on your Google drive.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Check how to make prospecting more productive with Google Sheets.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Hunter<\/span><\/h3>\n

With Hunter you can find email addresses of professionals you want to get in touch with. It crawls the Internet and indexes publicly available email addresses. Once you collect your prospect contact data, you can export it to a Woodpecker campaign.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Leadpresso<\/span><\/h3>\n

Leadpresso is a source of potential clients for digital agencies, SaaS companies, and B2Bs in more than 30 countries. To find the right prospects, you can use thousands of categories for micro-category targeting. Then, export the leads you find with Leadpresso straight to your Woodpecker prospect base.<\/span><\/p>\n

Woodpecker for WordPress<\/span><\/i> plugin<\/span><\/h3>\n

Those of you who have a WordPress website can <\/span>install our plugin<\/span><\/a> and automatically transfer the data collected through lead forms on your page straight to a Woodpecker campaign.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more about how to use Woodpecker for WordPress.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Refreshed blog layout<\/span><\/h2>\n

If you\u2019re our regular reader, you remember the old blog layout: it was a bit old-school, not particularly UX-friendly and a bit tricky to navigate. Shame, but that\u2019s true.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One of Woodpecker’s marketing & design teams\u2019 biggest projects of 2020 was to make the blog look nicer and be easier to use. I think we nailed it. What do you think?<\/span><\/p>\n

Must-read blog posts of 2020<\/span><\/h2>\n

So far, we\u2019ve published nearly 300 unique articles on our blog. It grew to a true vault of knowledge about cold emailing, lead generation, outbound & inbound sales, and business growth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This year we\u2019ve started partnerships with <\/span>webinar<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>SaaS experts<\/span><\/a> and together created some really top-notch, valuable content. If you haven\u2019t yet, check out some of our most-read articles this year:<\/span><\/p>\n