I liked “ClassicPress is for builders” also, but I think many people in the WP space take this to mean “page builders”. Someone who reads this meaning would think CP is not for people who don’t use page builders, which is worth avoiding.
Personally, I would prefer Classicpress for Creators or though I like the idea of the dropdown with different variations.
The only thing though that I don’t really like though would drop the CMS. I know technically that is what we are, but most people I know or talk to use the words website, blogs etc.
So I would in actual fact add Website in the phrase above so would have;
Classicpress for Website Creators
Builders
Developers
Businesses
etc
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I like the “ClassicPress for Website Creators” slogan by itself but here are two reasons not to use it.
First, this is very, very similar to an existing product. We were wondering about this similarity already and I don’t think we should move further in that direction:
The Flexible Platform Empowering Website Creators
Joomla! is an award-winning content management system (CMS), which enables you to build web sites and powerful online applications.
– joomla.com
Second, CMS is a more meaningful term than website. Under the commonly used definition of the term a web CMS can do websites with static pages, blogs, and much more.
Since “CMS” has a commonly understood meaning that is not very ambiguous I think we should keep it. We can use the rest of the page space below the tagline to elaborate on what exactly is meant by that, and who ClassicPress is meant to serve.
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Didn’t realise that the ‘Website Creators’ was being used, so understand why it isn’t possible to use that.
I also know what you mean about the “CMS” but if we were marketing purely to professionals, then I would be all for it, but as we are trying to enlarge our reach to ordinary individuals as well, I just think a term that is more commonly used, even if it isn’t used in the right way, would be better thats all.
I am sure that most people who want a CMS for business, blogs online shopping etc will search for how to make a website and not how to make a CMS, and I would imagine (as i haven’t searched it myself) that more searches and how to videos would use website instead of CMS.
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I think something like this could be a good basis for a targeted SEO campaign.
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Thanks so much for the feedback!
Many other solutions in our space use the acronym “CMS” in their tagline and/or identification. Looking at Google Results, this is how each CMS reads in the title:
Drupal.org: Open Source CMS
Drupal.com: A CMS Platform for great digital experiences
WordPress.org: Blog Tool, Publishing Platform, and CMS
joomla.org: Joomla Content Management System (CMS) - try it for free!
Textpattern.com: Textpattern CMS
However, here are the platforms that identify as “website builders”:
Wix.com: Free Website Builder | Create a Free Website
Squarespace.com: Build a Website - Website Builder
WordPress.com: Create a Free Website or Blog
websitebuilder.com: Create your own free website in minutes
weebly.com: Free Website Builder: Build a Free Website or Online Store…
If I had to choose which group ClassicPress belongs in… well, I think we want to be seen as a CMS and not a website builder.
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Although we might want to be seen as a CMS, i would have thought it would be better to target and try and poach people in the second group.
I am just worried that if we are not careful, we will end up looking like a specialised CMS for a specific job, when I thought we would be better to market ourselves as a versatile platform for all types of websites, and for all types of levels, which in turn would increase our chance of getting developers interested in making plugins, themes etc made for our platform.
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Here’s another one:
TYPO3 — the Professional, Flexible Content Management System
I like what @BlueSkyPhoenix was describing above (in the meeting) when she said:
have creators as the main/first word, but have that word then cycle through with other words.
I think this is similar to what PyroCMS have done on their homepage banner / hero / thingy.
I wonder if we could do something similar ish?
ClassicPress: the CMS for Creators …… ClassicPress: the CMS for Builders …… ClassicPress: the CMS for Developers …… ClassicPress: the CMS for Businesses …… ClassicPress: the CMS for Designers …… ClassicPress: the CMS for Creators ……
But whatever we do, I still think our best chance at this time of increasing our user base and attracting developers is by targeting the 25% or so of WP users that haven’t upgraded to WP5. For them, it’s a very simple switch with minimal effort and zero learning curve. It should, in theory, be a no brainer. In this case, ClassicPress: the CMS for WordPress Users should be our main message.
As an aside, for those that like numbers and stats:
According to BuiltWith, WordPress has a 37% share of the market with approx. 27m live websites.
Let’s just say 20% of those WordPress sites are still on WP4.x. That’s 20% of 27m which equates to 5.4m websites.
If we were to gain just 10% of those 5.4m sites, that would give us 540,000 sites and moves us firmly into the big league.
I know things are never that simple but it makes you think.
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I think the bigger problem though, is all this marketing is wonderful, but I fear will be wasted.
First we need to try and work out why the 20 percent of the wordpress sites haven’t updated, as if they do not won’t to use Gutenburg, then they can continue with the classic editor (for now).
Then we need to put ourselves in their position. Why would they switch to a virtually identical CMS, especially if they are using the classic editor, when we offer all the plugins and themes from the WP directory and don’t have our own.
There is no incentive to swap from a large user base CMS to us. (At least not at the moment)
We also need to try and establish, why those sites haven’t updated (haven’t a clue how though), then we could then do the marketing campaign based around those reasons to move to us.
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Yep, the people who are drawn to Wix, Squarespace and Weebly are not likely to have either the motivation or the aptitude to use CP. Personally I don’t think there’s any point in targeting them.
I think this is the key to growing the userbase. Like @spanner44 though, I’m not immediately sure how we do this.
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I think this is the crux of the problem we have with marketing CP. Why would they take the risk of switching platforms for no perceived benefit?
As long as there is a way to disable gutenberg/blocks, they are perfectly happy where they are. Very few people look further ahead than they need to, and most don’t realize the mess they are going to be in eventually.
“WordPress without blocks” is our major selling point. We need to get that message out, loud and clear. We need to educate people about where WP is heading and how CP can prevent their sites suddenly going wheels up in a year or two.
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These are the very issues we’re working on right now. The fact is, there are many reasons for switching to CP which this page on the CP website aims to highlight.
This page is just one line of “attack” and takes a more direct approach, specifically targeting users of WP 4.9 and below and also people still using the Classic Editor. The page will also form part of the marketing plan, particularly on social media, for the next few months. @BlueSkyPhoenix may want to elaborate on this.
But that won’t be the case forever and that will be one of the messages we’ll be trying to get across. I would hazard a guess that a large chunk of those people still on WP4.9 know that they’re going to have to make a decision sooner or later.
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Well done. I don’t visit the website often, so I didn’t know that was there.
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That is a fantastic article, hits the right tone and gives the right info. Kudos to the author. But I didn’t know it was there until this morning! Cue hasty retweets.
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Now that sounds awesome 
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Have we done market research? If so, please point me to it and disregard the rest of this post.
I’ve only been sort of following with the marketing discussions, but, I’m not sure the target market(s) are as well-defined as they could be. I think we’ve discussed the market’s needs, but, haven’t surveyed the actual market? Aren’t we basically projecting our own needs and calling that the market? We early adopters probably have different or more reasons for switching than an average site owner/administrator might have. I suspect this is why we’re in sort of a perpetual redesign of the target market parameters and the potential messages – because we don’t truly know who the market is and what their needs are, we’re just basing on what our own needs have been. Of course, to be fair, we are a part of the market…but we’re already here.
Is ClassicPress for businesses? Is it for creators? Is it for influencers? Is it for entrepreneurs? Yes!
Without real survey information to help us understand why they haven’t switched, I’m not sure we can craft the right message and get it in front of the right people. We seem to have a strategy, but, are lacking the tactical aspects. I think that survey data could help us accurately identify the right market(s) and give us a better chance at coming up with the tactics.
If any of this makes sense (and isn’t already negated by marketing research I haven’t yet seen,) my questions from here might be:
- How do we find these sites/people?
- Do we just google for 4.9 sites?_
- How do we make contact? Onsite contact form? Email? Social? Or…?
- How can we collect survey information?_
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I think that goes back to the discussion on a person to replace Scott as the public face of CP.
While the post on the website does a good job of explaining the benefits of CP, who is going to know it’s there?
I’m hopeless at marketing, but I know one thing for sure - you have to spend a lot of time on promotion. The “Build it and they will come” theory doesn’t work online.
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I sort of fall into two camps at the moment as I have one site, my principal site on Classicpress and one, which is sort of semi-mothballed, on WP4.9
I upgraded my main site from a very early stage, as I did not like gutenburg and the direction that WP was going. I thought I would take the risk and move my main site.
Why haven’t I done the same for the other site? Well because at the moment, there is no advantage, and eventually, I can see me going back to WP, not through wanting to but by having no choice.
I have an ordinary news site, that rely on plugins, which I know will eventually stop working with Classicpress, plus at the present I also have a free theme as there is no point in buying one as compatibility with Classicpress cannot be guaranteed.
At the moment, I truly want Classicpress to succeed, I want a lighter CMS and a plugin directory, and I imagine that if we could provide this, then we would be able to target the 4.9 users more successfully, saying that we are lighter, faster, more secure and have a full range of plugins and themes 100 percent compatible.
Unfortunately, until we reach this point, I feel we will always fall under the radar, with the existing 4.9 users slowly upgrading to WP 5+ as they will have no choice as their plugins start to not be compatible, and then we will have missed our chance.
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We are trying to address all of this. We recognise we need to grow our audience and the new web page is only a part of our line of “attack”.
We are currently targeting WP 4.9 users and WP5 users with the Classic Editor plugin installed.
The reason it was decided to target these users is because:
-
a) it’s an easily definable target
-
b) it’s huge. WP 4.9 users amount to around a quarter of all WP sites. Users on WP5 with the classic editor installed increases this still further (possibly quite considerably).
The new web page is heavily optimised towards “wordpress 4.9” for SEO purposes and this will be monitored. The page is also likely to be quite fluid and may change according to circumstances.
The page is also being pushed and used as material for social media (follow @GetClassicPress on Twitter). As Michelle mentioned in the meeting:
I’ll be able to use a lot of this to build a social media campaign that should last us a couple of months, so if you’re on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn please keep an eye out and share.
Just to stress that point, everyone can help to promote CP. For instance, I don’t do social media but I’ve just resurrected an old Twitter account to help out.
To spread the word further, as you may have seen from this post, we are participating in the Twitter-based Hey Pressto! Conference 2020.
WP 4.9 users will not be the only target but it’s certainly a good one. Suggestions for who else to target and how to reach them will, as always, be welcomed.
As also mentioned in the meeting:
Right now, I would say we should be thinking about now . Time is of the essence. We need to try and capture the 25% because that audience will almost certainly be 0% in 5 years.
I know the minutes of the meeting are a long read but it’s worth taking a bit of time out to read them fully. You’ll see that most of what’s been mentioned since has already been discussed.
As to why people are still using WP4.9 or the Classic Editor, I think this is pretty pertinent:
However, I would just like to add:
If you’re still on WP4.9, don’t feel pressured into upgrading plugins and themes when new releases come out. If you find a version that works, is secure and does what you need, stick with it. And then you can safely use that version with CP.
Lastly, don’t forget you can easily revert to any version of WP should CP not work out for you.
There are real advantages of moving to CP, not least that a fiasco like Gutenberg would never happen here. And that is, after all, why we’re all here in the first place.
Sorry for the long post.
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