Starting a new website from scratch may seem like an unwise idea. The overwhelming amount of content on the web makes it harder and harder to come up with unique and original ideas, not to mention the ever-growing actions and tools a publication needs nowadays to gain even the tiniest audience. But in this day and age of engagement, everyone wants to pen a spiel based on the most burning topic on the agenda. Why not, right? Especially if you think, after years of experience, that whether it’s your family, friends, 2,000 followers or the entire 312 area code, you can bring real contribution to the conversation.
We at PostFunnel thought about all that and more before we launched—with the back of our parent company, Optimove—on the 28th of May 2017. Our wish was simple, you may call it naïve even: to create valuable, quality content that addresses marketing experts’ interests and pain points. We made it our mission to write professional content, using research and data insights, thinking about our target audience the entire time. We learned and improved as time went by, crafted our processes and methods, kept with the writers and editors who knew how to bring that extra thing, the thing we felt that justified publishing the article for your eyes. We missed quite a lot, but the learning process is satisfying, now at the end of a full 12-month cycle.
Pivoting the content ship
Now – and pardon the parenthood clichés – we are not an infant anymore. No longer tip-toeing carefully, keeping a close distance from the wall. We’ve reached the KPIs we set at the beginning of the road, and we feel it’s time to start skipping down the corridor. We established our tone, our style. We have a clearer voice, and it will only get more lucid with time. The next step, though, wouldn’t be something we’d want to do alone, as we are eager to receive the feedback of our readers.
Creating a powerful community of marketers who support PostFunnel, was from the start, one of our main goals, to share, exchange, and provide insights into your profession. While we worked to streamline and refine our style, it’s our readers who ensured we stayed on track or shifted our course for what we hope culminates in continued value. I’ll take this opportunity to again encourage you to send us ideas for articles, questions, or even a request to participate in our “Powwow” project, where we interview professional marketers from various industries, trying to understand the marketers’ mindset.
Optimism in numbers
As the data-happy beings we are, we wish to share some numbers with you – our readers: during these 12 months, we published more than 310 articles on PostFunnel, written by 28 writers. We listed over 200K sessions and close to 250K pageviews. We published three special printed editions – you can get your copy from our latest volume by registering here, shared a highly popular e-book and had a very satisfying engagement growth on our social platforms, especially on Twitter where we put most of our efforts, with over 3,100 followers.
But one driver behind these achievements is the content we produce daily. No more, no less. There are a lot of automation tools out there that can promise you a respectable number of followers and a large audience in no time. This is not why we are in this. I truly think we surpassed our goals to create ‘good’ content and write knowledgeable, professional, thought provoking, and authentic pieces. They were transparent, completely platform-agnostic, despite the fact we are powered by Optimove. They fulfil their initial goal – to help marketers excel at their jobs. I’m more than sure we will keep up with this rate and at this level, and even go further.
Our top-picks
In a chance you missed it, I picked a list of some of the most remembered articles we published this year:
Matt Duczeminski gave us a closer look on the maybe annoying but can’t-be-ignored troll marketing. Sam Hurley presented these clever tweaks to make your customers return. Adam Fout shared 3 exceptional and hilarious customer service examples and summarized the history of the customer journey. Chris Morrison explained the problems of gaining true customer loyalty in the fast-food industry.
Ben Jacobson wrote about the ways good onboarding methods helps reduce churn rates. Rebecca Wojno was in-charge of our Brand Prix series, where we put two mega brands in the ring to test their retention tactics, and clarified how to turn employees into brand ambassadors. Lauren Dowdle listed the downsides of taking a data-oriented approach. Adebisi Adewusi taught us how to deal with bad, real bad, reviews.
Matt McAllister showed us ways to pamper our VIP’s without losing our heads, or budget. Victor Ljidola introduce us to guerilla marketing. Aaron Orendorff provided some insights on what ecommerce businesses can learn from the gaming industry and Evan F.P researched new-grounds of cannabis dispensaries marketing. This is just a small portion of what we have to offer for you – our readers. I’m sure there are a ton I missed.
And the new year’s resolutions
Where are we going to be when we’ll celebrate our 2nd birthday? To pardon my parenthood’s clichés once again, we’ll grow in weight, in height, pull the teeth out, and start to take pride in our voice, which will be clearer and louder. We aspire to create a PostFunnel community with experienced marketers who will influence one another, exchange comments and ideas – you are more than welcome to publish and express your opinions in our twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts – or even write for us.
We’d appreciate hearing your feedback on our website, on the articles and projects, and receive ideas for new features. I’ll take this festive opportunity to say thanks to all of you for joining us, becoming a reader of ours, and hope you keep enjoying our content and that it helps enrich your professional selves.