Wow. Just wow. There is no other way to sum up this third year for Express Writers any better.
To really show you what I mean, let’s start from the very beginning: our original goal in December 2012, which ended our second successful year in business.
Remember, at that time I was the sole manager (team manager, project coordinator, sales department, and CEO); we had about 20-25 writers; and we’d completed over 1,751 projects for the year.
My 2012 Ending Goal: Express Writers will become a copywriting agency, with an editor to review and Copyscape every piece of content, a manager to oversee the work, and an even bigger writers’ team than ever (at least 50 writers).
2013: What Really Happened…
In February, I hired my first team manager. She did all the roles I did. In March, we introduced our first editor. These two hires were my first dip into staffing for my company. From there, things started flying on the fast track with additional staff. I could barely keep up with the work: it was mandatory to hire people to manage just so things could get done. Throughout the rest of the year, we added over four additional world-cultured editors. Mid-year, I registered Express Writers as an LLC and set up all my business licensing with a great CPA. Express Writers was absolutely, 200% official.
What happened with staff: instead of “a manager”, my hiring goal for 2013, we added no less than 4: a full-time Content Coordinator; a full-time Sales Leader; a part time Sales Leader; and a Client Coordinator to answer the phone calls and attend client meetings. The oxen of the team, our writers, round up the grand finale. Throughout the year, we interviewed over 300 writers, and have a total of 60 in-team writers this December.
Today, December 2013: Our team is going strong with four staff members, five editors, and over 60 writers.
What We Did For the Year
As for the projects and clients we’ve finished—it’s been an amazing year. We’ve worked with some world-famous names. Our creative writing talents were some of the brainiacs behind video scripts you might be watching on TV. (For NDA purposes, we can’t reveal these projects). We served over 800 clients in 21 countries in 2013, and completed over 23,000 individual pages (web pages, blogs, press releases) for the year.
That’s an average 1.15 million words written for the entire year.
Successes
Some of our clients reported tremendous success on their content projects this year: this was also a new stepping stone for us, seeing for ourselves content results from various clients.
Daily blogging clients reported the most success, from ROI on individual blog return to a steady increase gained in rankings from tracking the backend analytics. One 500-word blog was a landing page and conversion point worth over $800 in ROI alone for one client. That’s some serious writing return!
What’s Ahead
For 2014, Express Writers is redoing our brand, our look, our website, and launching a full-service, a smooth, fully functional e-commerce content shop with over 40 products, with new and better defined products. Lastly, we’re working on additional screening tests for further qualified writers. Our goals? That we’ll have at least 500 active clients registered and ordering in the new site by the end of 2014; our writers will grow double; we’ll have a few more staff in place; and the successes we’ve seen this year will double next year with more retainers who benefit from a high quality standard in our team, across editors and writers.
To all those who were a part of Express Writers in 2013, a heartfelt thank you so much for being a part of our growing company. Our passion is here. We are so excited to see 2014 happen and our brand improve. We hope you’ll stay with us and be a part of it, long-term.
And to all those who are reading: stay on our subscriber list and keep an eye out for what’s ahead!