The Rosewood team reviews all they accomplished in 2022

After a relaxing and celebratory holiday break, the Rosewood team are back and busy at our desks in our various offices today, and 2023 is proving to be as exciting as its predecessor. We’re excited for all the amazing projects this new year is bringing and anxious to get started, but first, we’re taking an opportunity to review and reflect on the incredible year and successes the Rosewood team and our clients have shared in 2022. 

Rosewood Grew in Team Members and in Service Offerings

Overall, 2022 proved a productive and fruitful year for us and our clients. Rosewood saw growth in all divisions of our company and reached some fantastic milestones. We grew to over 120 active clients and white-labeled for 5 other agencies. We also started a new nonprofit fundraising platform in collaboration with Graf-Martin Communications. Our Canada-wide team even met up this Fall and spent some quality time together for a photoshoot and day of fun.

Rosewood Rebranded to Serve Our Clients Better

Rosewood saw some exciting changes and developments alongside our growth in 2022. In November we celebrated our seventh anniversary. It’s astonishing how much Rosewood has grown and changed over the years. To match our development, in August of this past year we launched our rebrand with Rosewood 2.0. Our loyal peacock departed for a new logo look and feel. To match the growth of our services over those years, we also took the opportunity to clarify our company core values, mission and vision. Along with that new look, we implemented a new target audience and social media strategy. We’re still growing and changing and will soon be launching a whole new website that better reflects Rosewood’s path forward. 

Rosewood Welcomed a New Account Coordinator

2022 was certainly a year of news for Rosewood. To better organize our wide swath of projects, we implemented a new project management system through Monday.com. That was spearheaded by another new at Rosewood. We brought on our newest team member Paige as an Account Coordinator to our clients and to support Rosewood internally. Paige has been an incredible addition to our team. Her passion and enthusiasm are contagious, and her penchant for planning has been vital for customizing Monday.com’s setup for each division and their specific needs to ensure the utmost streamlining for everyone.

Speaking of our divisions, they also have plenty to boast about for their 2022s. 

Here are just a select few of their wins from 2022:

Websites:

  • Designed and launched more than 25 new websites
  • Completed over 640 updates and requests
  • 18 new clients signed on for maintenance for regular updates, optimal functionality, and high-quality content from our expert web team
  • Developed a new fundraising platform for nonprofits in collaboration with Graf-Martin Communications

Ads:

  • Our advertising team produced a nearly 20x return on advertising spend (ROAS) which also produced a customer acquisition of up to 6x for some of our clients
  • Ads team was able to generate over 7,300 visits to just one of our client’s websites
  • One client’s ads reached nearly 71,000 people, and another was seen a staggering 312,646 times

Digital Media:

  • Created and published well over 1100 posts 
  • Numerous new clients signed up for our social media services to improve their business’ discoverability, reach, and authenticity
  • Successfully increased clients’ reach through social media to develop high-profile partnerships, including two from the ground up

Catch the Ace:

  • Helped nonprofits raise over $500,000 to support community programs

Misc.:

  • We successfully put our heads together to solve an escape room during our team building day
  • Our Director of Digital Media, Georgie, became a proud mother to the first Rosewood Baby (and she’s adorable)

It proved to be an eventful and accomplished year, but we’re even more eager to continue our work and growth into 2023. We have some new services that we’re excited to announce soon. Keep an eye on our social channels for updates. For now, we hope you all are also having a good start to the new year. Thank you all for being a part of this past year, and we’re looking forward to sharing in success this year.

A graphic with a miniature man writing a blog post in paper with a pencil that is larger than him. The blog paper is on top of a computer with notifications coming out of it. There is a desk lamp to the right side.

Turning one blog post into multiple pieces of content is not only a great way to save time, but it is also a great way to engage your following and drive traffic to your website. Repurposing your blog posts is also a fantastic way to reach new audiences. When you reach new audiences you open yourself up to gaining new followers and potential clients! 

Use Blog Posts Snippets for Social Media 

If you use social media, then you probably know how time consuming it can be to come up with new content. Using your blog images as a post is a great way to use the content you already have, while still creating content for a different platform. 

One blog can go a long way when we repurpose it! Using excerpts of the blog as captions for your social media posts is a great way to not only use it as new content, but also have it reach a wider audience. 

Captioning a post before your blog is released is a fun way to build anticipation. While captioning a photo with a past blog post is a great way to revisit some great topics and ideas that you have already written about!

Turn Quotes into Graphics

If you use stats or quotes throughout your article, you can easily isolate those pieces and turn them into graphics. Using a tool like Canva, you can find templates for quotes or stats and personalize them specific to your branding.This is a quick way to generate tons of social media content!

Using Blog Posts as Discussion topics

A blog topic that you are passionate about is a great topic to turn into a workshop or a discussion. More and more business owners are going live on their social media to engage  with their community and following. Using a blog topic as a base for your discussion is an amazing way to have people prepared to engage with you. It is also a great tool to have to refer people to when they seek more information on that topic. 

Including Them in Your Newsletters

Using your blog posts in your newsletters can help shape or support the topics that you want to address. A great tip is to only include the first paragraph of your blog. This gets the reader interested and onto your website! When you drive traffic to your website, you also increase your organic SEO. Including a new blog post in each newsletter is also an easy way to get your readers and subscribers opening up your newsletters each month. 

Connecting Your Blog Posts to Your Content 

Now that you have repurposed your blog post, make sure that you have an easily accessible link! An easy and fast way is to have a Linktr.ee set up. This allows you to update links in a matter of moments, both from your phone or computer. Tag us @rosewoodmarketing the next time you repurpose your blog posts! We can’t wait to get reading! 

team

On Thursday, November 14th, Rosewood Founder & CEO, Deanna Simone spoke at the annual Entrepreneurs in Residence by the Aurora Public Library. The event invites 4 local entrepreneurs/small business owners to share their personal stories of entrepreneurship and then form a panel to answer attendees’ questions and share tips for growing your team.

Question #1: What Would You Tell Your Past Self About Your Business?

The questions were great! Deanna’s personal favourite was, “If you could go back in time and tell your entrepreneurial self something about your business, what would it be?” What a great question!

Deanna’s answer was, “I would go back and tell myself that you don’t have to do this alone. Asking for help and support is NOT a weakness. That being said, I would have encouraged myself to hire staff/subcontractors sooner. I waited 3 years into my business to hire someone, and I wish I had done it sooner!”.

She went on to say that “growing your business can be a daunting concept. Not only are you giving up control of your “baby”, but you have to spend time to find the right people. Practice your interviewing skills and know what values you are looking for in potential teammates”.

Question #2: How Did You Know It Was Time to Hire Someone?

One question was directed specifically at Deanna, “How did you know it was time to hire someone?”. My response was firstly, there were many signs and I wish I had done it sooner! I was overworked, overwhelmed and making way too many sacrifices. I remember pulling out my laptop after Thanksgiving dinner and working while eating pumpkin pie, or working until 1am Christmas morning so that I could have a few hours off the next day for Christmas dinner. There was a time I was wanting to quit because it was too much.

And then I read the book, Clockwork – How to Make Your Business Run Itself by Mike Michalowitz. It changed my life. It helped me realize that my time was better spent on certain areas. When I broke down the different tasks and responsibilities, it became clear where my time was best spent and what items could be delegated to someone else.  It also taught me about delegation, which is such a skill (but I’ll keep this for another time).

Since then, I’ve never looked back and we continue on with managed growth!

Tips for Growing Your Team

Since then Rosewood now has a solid team of three internal members, and a looser structure built up of several subcontractors who specialize in their individual areas. While there have certainly been setbacks, we wouldn’t trade it for anything. The team members we have now are the “A” team, and set the bar for attracting future talent with shared values.

Setting Your Organizational Values

My favourite saying is, “You can’t teach personality”. It’s so true! So instead of focusing on a set skill-set, I look for candidates who have the following traits:

  • Eagerness to improve the skills they already possess
  • Willingness to learn
  • Exceptional communication skills (as this is the Queen Bee Role of Rosewood as an organization)
  • Aptitude for technology (while not a personality trait, they should have a solid foundation in technical aptitude in order to build their skills)

As you can see from the list above, only one item has to do with technical skills. While this may sound bizarre coming from a technical business, if they have a solid technical foundation and an aptitude for learning – I can teach them anything.  This is partially because one of my strengths (and favourite things to do) is teach!

The Rosewood team now is exceptional. They bring in such an array of skills and foster a supportive environment. Although we’re subcontractor-based, we work as a team and foster a company culture together.

If you weren’t able to make it to the event, we’ve got you covered! Click here to watch Deanna’s presentation.