The end of the year is always a great time to pause and reflect on the past 12 months. 

Like any business, we had a ton of learnings over the past year. We ran a bunch of experiments, some of which worked really well, others failed miserably. 

But as we always do, we emerged stronger as a business overall.

Internally, we improved every aspect of the business this year and are poised to have the strongest start to 2024 we’ve ever had.

We grew our team, set new records for sales, revenue, and orders processed, and we tripled our production capacity. Further, we did all of this while improving our service offering and elevating our product quality.

There were a lot of things we learned this past year, but I wanted to specifically call out a few.

Experiences and lessons we’re taking into 2024

1. Importance of Diversification

I can’t stress this enough.

This is important across a number of areas, but specifically, customer diversification.  

IgnitePOST works with customers ranging from eCommerce Shops, to Real Estate, to Insurance Agencies, Nonprofits, as well as Home Service businesses.  

Although these industries are all different, they all use our product in a similar way.

By not focusing on one particular industry or vertical only, we’re able to expand our market while providing insulation from industry-specific fluctuations, which are bound to occur.

Working across multiple industries also allows us to share strategies, techniques, and insights across the board.

Just look at some of our case studies and you'll see that we took approaches that worked in the home services industries and applied them to our eCommerce and telecommunications customers (and vice versa).

2. Managed Services

2023 was our first full year of offering our complete Done-for-You, satisfaction guaranteed, IgnitePOST Managed Service.  

To say that it was a success is an understatement.  

Every customer we worked with was wildly successful and is now featured in at least 1 case study on our site.  

I say ‘at least’ one case study because some customers in the program used our product in different ways and were so successful, we created multiple case studies for them.

Furthermore, the Managed Services Offering allowed our team to rapidly learn about how different markets responded to IgnitePOST’s handwritten mail.  

We were able to take these learnings and insights and share them with all of our customers so that everyone was able to reap the benefits (a rising tide lifts all boats).

3. Shared Learnings and Webinars

This year we launched our webinar series where we passed on our learnings from working with our diverse set of customers.  

Furthermore, for each webinar we hosted, we partnered with a complimentary partner who brought unique insights to our audience. 

By incorporating other partners into the mix, we were able to tap into previously unavailable sources of ideas, viewpoints, and methodologies.

Many times, I learned just as much as our audience did on our webinars and absolutely loved it.

PS. If we’re not connected on LinkedIn yet, here’s a link to my profile so you can join me on the next webinar! 

4. Conferences 

We made an effort to attend in-person conferences this year. 

In the digital age in which we live, it’s easy to get caught up in the convenience of virtual meetings and zoom calls.  

Nothing is as impactful as a face to face meeting and was abundantly clear after the first conference we attended. 

Not only is it easier to connect with other people in person, but conferences have the wonderful effect of breaking us out of our echo chambers. They expose us to diverse ideas, methodologies, and viewpoints. 

Listening to experts talk about the latest trends and predictions for the future allows us to challenge our own thinking as well as pass on learnings to our customers.

We’re excited to make in-person conference attendance a bigger part of our 2024 plan.

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What’s more? 

There are several other milestones we have checked off this year - big and small - from personally becoming more active on LinkedIn to share our learnings to streamlining how the team communicates with one another, there’s a lot that we’re taking into 2024. 

And I’m sure we’re not breaking stride as the new year kicks in!  

2024 is full of promise and we’re grateful for everyone who has supported our growth. 

I hope you have a fantastic end to the year with some quality time with your friends and family. 

Signing off on behalf of the entire IgnitePOST team.