View in #marketing on Slack
@Michelle_Coe: Marketing meeting here in about 26 minutes :classicpress:
@ElisabettaC77: :skin-tone-2:
@klein: Hello
@Michelle_Coe: Hi @ElisabettaC77 & @klein — we’ll wait just a minute or two before we get started to see if anyone else joins. I have an agenda, but are there any topics in particular you’d like to discuss?
@ElisabettaC77: I don’t have particular topics…
@Michelle_Coe: Here’s what I have so far:
• Blog ideas
• Connecting w/ theme & plugin devs
• Connecting w/ hosting companies
• Overcoming objections (probably a larger, ongoing discussion)
• Supporting other teams: Ecosystem, Core, etc.
• Updates to the website
• Ramping up to the next CP update; v2
@ElisabettaC77: Overcoming objections is a very tough one…
@Michelle_Coe: It is, which is why I suggested it’s probably a larger discussion. Still, we (marketing) needs to be prepared for objections and how to move past them
But let’s start at the top
Blog ideas… @klein has been doing such a fantastic job w/ the blog, but we no longer have a backlog of posts. Any new ideas?
@klein: We are starting to get a new backlog thanks to @ozfiddler
@ozfiddler: @ozfiddler has joined the channel
@klein: but I dont want the focus to just be his content
@Horlaes is also working on something new, but that takes time.
@ElisabettaC77: “feature your CP site” series? I remember we wanted to have a showcase for that… If I am not mistaken
@Michelle_Coe: Yes, and we’d started making a list on the forums
https://forums.classicpress.net/t/site-showcase-websites-built-with-classicpress/944/14
@ElisabettaC77: I mean, businesses showing how CP benefitted them, to back up the “business focused” in the slogan
@Michelle_Coe: I think that would offer substance to the post and would be important
@klein: Something like that did come up, but at the time it fell by the way side thanks to unclearness and other priorities.
A series like that could work, but we need a good format for it.
@Michelle_Coe: Right. Any suggestions?
I see it almost as a case study
We could formulate a short series of interview questions that we could pose to the developer to elaborate on how CP turned out to be the right solution to a particular problem
Though, we’d want to try to cultivate more specific answers than “we did it to avoid Gutenberg”
@ElisabettaC77: Yes. That is obvious. We need to highlight what makes us business focused. Things like security first for example.
Performance.
Cleaner code
@norske: @norske has joined the channel
@Michelle_Coe: Which actually brings me to another question… what kinds of businesses are we focused on? Because “cleaner code” doesn’t really speak to most business owners, but it does speak to developers.
I realize that we’ll be speaking to developers to get the content for the blog articles, but who are we writing the blog articles for? Developers? Or general business owners?
@ElisabettaC77: That is a great question. I think businesses rely on devs, so we should write for devs. Makes sense?
@James_Nylen: here late, sorry
cleaner code doesn’t speak directly to businesses but performance mostly does
however I have been wondering lately what “business-focused” actually means for us
@klein: The blog mostly writes towards developers, with of course the general news sprinkled in.
@Michelle_Coe: I agree with this.
@klein: The tutorials, MTCs and others seem very geared towards the development side.
@norske: theoretically we are business-focused, but in practice (looking through forums) we are dev-oriented)
@James_Nylen: developers or people looking to build a site in various ways
@norske: TBH, business owners rearly read CMS blogs, so I’d focus on devs and people who make decisions on this particular topic (choosing CMS and supporting it). From my particular experience they are: techies, marketers and agencies
the last one is important by the way
since they are opinion makers
@James_Nylen: “WordPress, the way you wanted it” ?
@Michelle_Coe: I feel our focus is on developers mostly. Business owners as a secondary or even tertiary market…
@James_Nylen: I don’t think we should get too bogged down in this during this meeting though, lots of other smaller stuff to talk about…
@Michelle_Coe: Well, yes and no. We started by looking for blog ideas, which led us to ask… who are we writing for?
@James_Nylen: ok 
by “developers” do you mean “coders” or “people who build sites”?
two very different audiences
@norske: build sites
@Michelle_Coe: Absolutely is, and I think we are speaking specifically to coders and skilled developers.
@norske I build sites, but I don’t code.
@ElisabettaC77: But where do we write to get coders on board?
@norske: devs in companies rarely use WP (at least in my region)
i mean software developers etc - they are not the target audience in general
@Michelle_Coe: Right now, unless I’m using Beaver Builder, CP cannot be a viable option for my client base…
@norske I understand better what you’re saying now
So really, web development agencies, specifically.
@Laurence: @Laurence has joined the channel
@Michelle_Coe: But those who hand-code WordPress sites and are likely most affected by Gutenberg
full custom work
Because it’s easiest for them to make the jump to CP
This is important to note, because right now we don’t have a lot of audience there — either on the forums or Twitter (I don’t believe so anyway)
So… I do think that doing some case study/showcase type of sites is good for reaching out to them
@James_Nylen: it’s clear to me at least that we need to spend some time doing case studies
@Michelle_Coe: And in doing so, we may also be able to reach more developers, who are the ones that are working for these web dev agencies
@James_Nylen: I can help with the “developer == coder” persona, and to some extent the “developer == website builder” persona
@norske: the most nicely working argument for me (e.g. when I explained the reasoning of CP in WP russian team sluck) is that we focus on removing features instead of adding bloat. This one is well understood and accepted by almost everybody
@Michelle_Coe: And that’s great — and it confirms what we started out saying — that “business-focused” isn’t really accurate here; it’s too general
@James_Nylen: slimming down, because this is what the community told us was wanted/needed
@Michelle_Coe: We are focused on reaching freelance web developers and agencies who do web development
@ElisabettaC77: Freelancers sometimes do work on platforms/marketplaces. Do we have a way to be featured there with these case studies? Generally these platforms have blogs…
@klein: Emergency is growing out of hand, I am bowing out for now, good luck!
@James_Nylen: !! hope everything turns out ok !!
@klein: We have a big job for one of the big soccer clubs in the Netherlands that requires immediate attention.
so important client
@Michelle_Coe: I’m not sure what those platforms publishing policies are, but I imagine they could be contacted to find out. The first step is writing the articles, and it looks like we’re all agreed on that.
I’ll connect with klein (not tagging him so he can go save the day) after to find out action steps and we’ll follow up on the forums.
Next: reaching out to theme/plugin developers. We have an opportunity here, given that WP is moving Gutenberg quite clearly into their space.
How do we reach them with an effective argument for supporting CP, particularly as we grow more and more different?
@James_Nylen: Regarding that, is @1stepforward around by chance?
@1stepforward: @1stepforward has joined the channel
@Michelle_Coe: @James_Nylen do we have any recent numbers on installs?
@James_Nylen: (since this is pretty similar to different kinds of outreach work he’s already been doing)
I don’t, that is on my list to look at again
@Michelle_Coe: Okay, that will be important to know so we can share with these devs.
@norske: BTW is there any specific doc page answering “what steps should a plugin/theme author do to support CP”?
@Michelle_Coe: Good question…
@James_Nylen: closest thing is this https://docs.classicpress.net/faq-support/#will-my-current-plugins-and-themes-work-in-classicpress
FAQ and Support
we used to have a FAQ about reaching out to plugin developers and explaining what they’d need to do, but that page didn’t make it over to the latest version of our main site
(not complaining, that page was a mess anyway)
wait yes it did https://www.classicpress.net/faq/
aaand that has the same content as the docs site :man-facepalming::skin-tone-2:
@norske: I’ll clarify the situation example: I’m localizing a couple of premium plugins by some authors (e.g. Media Cleaner Pro). I’m in touch with author. I can easily offer them to support CP. What link shuold I send them to ‘answer’ all their possible question. Kinda landing page, you know, but selling us as a platform for plugin makers
@Michelle_Coe: There isn’t one, @norske but we can definitely build one.
@norske: I think this would help a lot, since we a targeting this audience we have to make a specific proposal, which is usually a landing/target page
@Michelle_Coe: Updating the site was my second-to-last bullet point but really, it should be #1 or 2. We need to get our site in order before we start inviting people to come see it. So, this is one thing that needs to be added/modified. What else?
@norske can you work with @James_Nylen to craft that landing page as you think it would be most effective?
And then we can add it
@James_Nylen: there are a ton of things to do on the site
@ElisabettaC77: Starting Zendesk. Am on a three hours shift. But I am going to lurk here and at least listen.
@norske: yes, absolutely
@James_Nylen: we can chat separately about that
@Michelle_Coe: Thanks to you both.
I’m needing to step away as well, so let’s wrap this meeting for now. I’ll move some of these other bullet points to the forums for further discussion.
We do have some good action items — so thanks all for being here today and for your input!
See you on the forums