Smart Marketing Show

In this episode, Jason Tucker and Bridget Willard were joined by Jeff Matson from Pagely's NorthStack. He gave insight into Managed WordPress, WordPress Hosting, and Managed AWS Service.

Thank you to our sponsor!

The WPwatercooler network is sponsored by ServerPress makers of DesktopServer. Be sure to check them out at https://www.serverpress.com as well as PeepSo.

If you're interested in sponsoring the 40 minute mark of this show, check out the details on our sponsor page. We offer episode by episode spoken ads, rather than large contracts. A show by you for you.

Stop Getting Cheep-A$$ Hosting

WordPress hosting matters. Hosting is hosting is hosting until it's not. When it comes to your "hobby," if you take it seriously, it has the potential to become your career.

It seems like WordPress hosting is saturated, but it's really not. Pagely was the first to create Wordpress Managed hosting back in the day. You can hear Joshua Strebel talk about the last ten years in his WordCamp Phoenix talk.

So, how do we convince content creators, bloggers, and non-inside baseball writers to think good hosting is important?

When you pay for $5 hosting, you get $5 hosting. They're digital slumlords, Bridget says in jest. If the support folks are getting paid minimum wage ($7 something in VA), the Five Dollar Host loses money every time one of their customers calls.

"Even if they are getting paid minimum wage, if they talk to you for an hour, the company lost money on you." Jeff Matson

Bridget spends $25 a month on Pressable and thinks that's a reasonable amount for anyone to spend. To her, it matters that the company she chooses has a reputation of treating their employees well.

"I don't want to use a service that has a big turnover. If they can't keep their employees, they have internal issues." Bridget Willard Hobbyists Learn Everything When Their Sites Blow Up

It's true. When your blog gets notices, as Jason points out, and all of a sudden you're getting traffic, your site may not be able to handle that. Managed hosts will scale the traffic.

Do you want to learn the hard way? Your hobby or small business needs to value website hosting.

"You teach them that their business is important." Jeff Matson

You don't need more web hosting than your site requires, especially if you're getting only 20 hits a week. But with something like a managed service, you can scale up and then down when you need it.

What do you get with Managed WordPress Hosting?

If you're in the $250 a month or $25 a month plan, when you pay for managed WordPress hosting, you're paying for support. Larger fees at the front pay for concierge-level service. Jeff recalls how Pagely had top-tier folks in their slack helping with Gravity Forms site migrations at midnight. That's the kind of service you get with top-tier Managed WordPress Hosting.

Why not run your own box?

You could run your own DigitalOcean box, but why? If you're running your own box, you have to do all of the security maintenance, patches, and updates. Also, if you're facing a DDOS attack, you have to face those trials, too.

Almost any level of business should outsource these types of things so they can focus on working on your business.

"Is that really what you want to spend your billable hours on?" Bridget Willard

So, the perfect solution between running your own box and buying high-end Managed WordPress hosting is managed AWS service.

What is a Managed AWS Service?

With NorthStack, Pagely is bringing the same level of product without the support. You can get a fast site that scales when someone posts your article to Reddit.

"It's an unbelievable product to host your sites on without all the extra stuff that you might not need." Jeff Matson

This is made for developers who use GitHub and CLI to create apps and build sites. For now, that's where NorthStack is focusing. You pay for the amount of resources you're using instead of a general bucket. Automated deployments for the win.

This product better suited for small to enterprise agencies. Not everyone needs Disney-level service.

How do you market your product?

Marketing products in a word-of-mouth space like WordPress requires finesse. Jeff makes recommendations on products based upon his personal experience. He regards his recommendations as a reflection of himself. In short, Jeff manages his personal branding and that's how he recommends products.

"I keep my reputation above all else and that's what I use to market products. "Jeff Matson Tool or Tip of the Week

This week's Tool or Tip of the Week is brought to you by PeepSo. PeepSo is a super-light, free, social network plugin for WordPress that allows you to quickly and effortlessly add a social network or an online community right inside your WordPress site. Your Community. Your Way. Find out more at at PeepSo.com

Bridget recommends Everybody Writes by Ann Handley. It gives actual and practical tips on effective copywriting.

Jeff recommends The Lean Startup by Eric Ries.

Jason recommends the app Vignette which allows you to (at a minimal cost) add and update photos for your contacts.

Do you have any tools or tips we should know about?

We'd love to hear from you. Also, how are you marketing yourself? Tell us in the comments below.

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Marketing yourself as a WordPress developer is challenging, especially when starting out. In this episode, Jason and Bridget are joined by Rachelle Wise of Wise Arts to brainstorm some solutions.

Join us on this episode of WPblab by visiting our Participant guidelines page.

Thank you to our sponsor!

The WPwatercooler network is sponsored by ServerPress makers of DesktopServer. Be sure to check them out at https://www.serverpress.com.

If you’re interested in sponsoring the 40 minute mark of this show, check out the details on our sponsor page. We offer episode by episode spoken ads, rather than large contracts. A show by you for you.

Networking through WordPress Meetups

Rachelle used to be part of her local WordPress Meetups and WordCamps when she lived in Minnesota. So when she moved here to California, she looked it up and lo and behold she found the OC WordPress Meetup, where she met Bridget and Jason.

Often, attending WordPress Meetups is an excellent way to get work, said Jason, who was reminded about the way Steve runs the general meetup where a lot of new users show up. Steve would suggest that those who need help meet a developer. Mostly, they would want to hire.

Rachelle didn’t get work that way directly but still sees the value of Meetups, especially since one works alone.

“I’ve definitely given a lot of free advice; not any paid stuff yet.” Rachelle Wise

WordCamps and Meetups are brand awareness campaigns in the sense that you are meeting people and reminding them that you are in business or still in business. Keeping top of mind is important with any business.

Think about speaking. Even Jason Tucker tells attendees of Whittier WordPress Meetup to build something then teach people how you did it, what you learned, and what you would do better next time.

Marketing Wise Arts So Far

Rachelle has done quite a bit of instinctual marketing so far. She hasn’t done any paid ads yet. She started working at an agency then worked as a sole developer for an agency. Once she became a remote worker, she was never going back.

After the sole developer gig devolved, she reached out to former contacts at the agency and she got several contracts through that.

“Eighty to ninety percent of my work is referral based. I meet someone I do a project for them, they tell their friends… I end up getting these amazing chains of referrals.” Rachelle Wise
The Magic Word is Referrals

Most businesses works on referrals and that’s why brand awareness is so important, Bridget reminds Jason and Rachelle. Being on shows, having Twitter and social media accounts matter. If referrals are your biggest source (your audience) then going to WordPress Meetups matters most.

“Referral marekting is marketing.” Bridget Willard

Don’t burn bridges. Keep lines of communication open. If you decline work, refer instead.

The thing about referral work is people often build a thing, put up a landing page and that’s it. At some point, you’re going to exhaust your first circle. You do that through marketing whether it’s social marketing or paid marketing or in-person events like Ross Gile does with Chamber of Commerces.

How should a beginner developer market himself? “You have to build something. Please build something.” Jason Tucker

• Set up a GitHub account.
• Set up CodePen account.
• Go through FreeCodeCamp.org. It makes you build projects that can be used on your portfolio.
• Spend time on LinkedIn and keep it updated.
• Call yourself a website builder.
• Do pro-bono work to build your portfolio.
• Case studies with screenshots are better than just links.
• Videos to show specific functionality is great.
• Build your own website and maintain it.
• Pick at niche then go to a trade show. Build landing pages for that niche.
• Have business cards to hand out.
• Go to WordCamps and WordPress Meetups.
• Go to Javascript or WooCommerce Meetups.

“Build your site on WordPress.com; it’s better than WIX.” Bridget Willard
How do you get free work? “Find someone that looks like they need help.” Rachelle Wise

Try approaching local pizza places or nonprofit. Join a hackaton like Do Action. Definitely have business cards, suggests Jason, to give to local businesses. You may even barter for business like Jason did with the local dog groomers.

“You should build projects you care about.” Rachelle Wise

Even better, is building something that you believe in, Rachelle reminds us.

Demonstrate that you know how to learn.

Rachelle Wise reminds us that the most important part of being a WordPress developer is demonstrating that you know how to learn. Good design matters, so does looking things up on Google. Show you have personality.

A Cobbler’s Children Have No Shoes

You need to maintain and update your own website. The proverb is true, but you need to invest in your own business. No one can care about it more than you.

“If you don’t maintain your own portfolio and your own website, the cobbler’s not going to make shoes for anybody.” Bridget Willard

In your portfolio and case studies, don’t link to their website only. Always use screenshots, reminds Jason Tucker. Rachelle has been making videos now which shows the functionality rather than the code.

It’s important to let people know that you are accepting clients whether it is in public or through private communication.

“You have to keep your eye on the pipeline.” Rachelle Wise

If the work you do is confidential, anonymize it says Jason. Show the trend on the graph without the actual detail.

Tool & Tip of the Week

• Bridget loves kencko.com. It’s a good way to get two servings of fruit and veg a day and the cost works out to be $3 each — much cheaper than juice stores.
• Jason is a huge fan of UTM codes and recommends the Chrome extension, Google Analytics UTM Builder. It allows you to build campaigns and make presets. He states a use case where people are using a QR code at his church and Rachelle and Bridget are verbally shocked they are being used.
• Rachelle is a new convert to Calendly. With timezones and the annoyance of email back and forth, it helps quite a bit with scheduling. People used to just call her and she was having quite a bit of conflicts. She’s happy with meeting blocks that can be set up in 30 minute and 1 hour types.

Do you have any tools or tips we should know about?

We’d love to hear from you. Also, how are you marketing yourself? Tell us in the comments below.

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

You built a successful company and your reputation is bar none. But how do you transition that branding online? In this episode, Jason and Bridget will give some good examples and take your live questions via chat.

Join us on this episode of WPblab by visiting our Participant guidelines page.

WPwatercooler network is sponsored by ServerPress makers of DesktopServer. Be sure to check them out at https://www.serverpress.com

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We know you know your business. You work magic for your clients, maximize their SEO, send amazing drip campaigns, write their content, and even build their site. But what about your own website? The saying about the cobbler’s kids having no shoes is completely avoidable. In this episode, Jason and Bridget will talk about having that objective eye and how her own site has evolved since 2015.

Join us on this episode a WPwatercooler show by visiting our Participant guidelines page.

WPwatercooler network is sponsored by ServerPress makers of DesktopServer. Be sure to check them out at https://www.serverpress.com

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

How many times have you created a landing page for a client yet neglected a featured image? Sometimes we forget that those pages also need unique images for social sharing. In this episode, Jason and Bridget chat about strategy, tactics, and tools.

Thank you ServerPress makers of DesktopServer for sponsoring this episode.

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode, Jason and Bridget chat with @Michelle Schulp from MarkTimeMedia.com about how branding can make or break your business.

Thank you ServerPress makers of DesktopServer for sponsoring this episode.

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode, Jason and Bridget are joined by "Producer Jen." We brought Jen Miller from behind the scenes to talk about the interesting developments in journalism and how WordPress is involved. Join us in the live chat to ask questions. You're sure to learn a lot tonight.

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CTAs. Marketers and their acronyms, right? It's frustrating and confusing. So you know you need a call to action but where and how many? Is there such a thing as too many CTAs? In this episode, Jason and Bridget are joined by long-time marketer Robert Nissenbaum from Tactical Social Media. He'll give us some insight into the call to action conversation. Watch live so you can comment.

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"This was one of the most controversial and acrimonious we have had in a long time, maybe ever if you’re new to WordPress."

• Matt Shows off Shape Divider Blocks - 3:12
• Matt mentions vendors that are making blocks for Gutenberg - 3:73
• Matt talks about LazyBlocks https://wordpress.org/plugins/lazy-blocks/ - 4:73
• Gutenblocks are easier if you were brought up using them - 7:17
• Regardless of device used - 7:30
• Bridget mentions that it’s too bad you can use WordPress on mobile without WordPress.com being involved. - 8:23
• To Review - Matt mentions for the first time this Phasing of Gutenberg - 8:77
• Phase 2 - 10:08
• Matt shows the widget manager screen and how it’s “still there” - 10:68
• Editing menus inline - 12:05
• Phase 2 is thinking outside of post_content - 12:72
• Collaboration with multi user editing of Gutenberg. Gutenberg and Google Docs functionality - 14:25
• Core is open - “tackle our 6,500 open issues” is listed at the bottom - 16:50
• PHP7 is the minimum version for WordPress - 17:40
• WordPress 4.9 had 173 million downloads, 68.4% are running 4.9. - 18:48
• Release Cycles 4.9 to 4.9.8 - 18:92
• WordPress 5.0 - 19:40
• Matt mentions controversy with WordPress 5.0 and forcing the release date. - 19:63
• What we learned - 23:25
• Matt mentions having more Javascript talks at WordCamps - 23:98
• Here’s what we learned “the betas were tested more than any other releases”. - 25:97
• “This was one of the most controversial and acrimonious we have had in a long time, maybe ever if you’re new to WordPress. Some were bad, I blame Twitter partially. I blame everything on Twitter. Between Twitter and Facebook we have all the worst problems… and some of warts and some of the debates and some of the sort of open source product” then he goes on to mention this as a “company this would all happen behind the scenes or not at all” he continues “For us, we have all of this happening in the public and it’s all archived and linkable and version controlled and everything. So, we just have to keep in mind that, well, in addition to having good etiquette and realy conversation in a productive way for whatever we’re doing, keep in mind that things might appear worse than they actually are” he continues “because the conversations and things happening on twitter or blog posts or whatever else might not actually be representative of the basics or fundamentals or first principles of the software”
• Bridget says “did he just reprimand us?” - 28:50
• Then for some reason Matt then goes into talking about https not the nicest of segues. - 28:57
• “The community is the only thing that makes WordPress!!!!” - 29:60
• He now goes on into WordCamps and shares some stats regarding them.
• do_action - 30:55
• WordPress Foundation - Internet Archive $10k, Girl Develop It $10k, Black Girls Code $10k. We’re all in agreement that 10k per is a very small amount. - 31:83
• 85 donors. - 32:15
• Currently, there was 407 people watching the live stream from WordCamp US. - 34:12
• Matt mentions jiggling, wiggling and dancing #jiggleandwiggle - 35:50
• 200+ volunteers helped out with WordCamp US - 36:22
• Q&A Begins - 36:57
• Question 1: John - 37:63
• Jason asks about the styles of the blocks that are being made and making sure they work with all themes. This has to be a challenge.
• Bridget mentions Matt’s suit. Jason asks “Matt, who are you wearing?” - 39:25
• Bridget wants to know what the hex color is for his shirt - 39:68
• Question 2: Nick Adams - 41:30
• wordpress.org/blog and the number of posts done by employees not the community. Automattic has 830 people and 40 of them work on WordPress core.
• Question 3: Fred Meyer - Making Layouts more robust in Gutenberg. - 44:93
• Question 4: We were critical about the time he told to get his question out but he took 4 minutes to ask Matt about democratizing publishing.
• He then asks another question: - 54:13
• Question 5: Victor from Miami Why isn’t there a WordCamp Canada? Why is this called WordCamp US? Shouldn’t it be WordCamp North America? - 54:13
• Question 6: Birgit - Health Insurance & Accessibility - 56:92
• Question 7: Adam from Colorado - 59:32
• Question 8: Morten from planet Earth “The use of the word, WE” Matt responds with “We, is contextual..”
• “And if English is not your first language as well I completely understand how things are confusing as you go through”
• Morten responds with “Can I just add a comment to that? What you are describing is a governance structure without governance”
• Matt: “If only there were a meetup for that” - 60:83
• Question 8: Andrew Taylor from Portland - 67:52
• Question 9: Matthew - 70:00
• Question 10: Dimitri - WordCamp Moscow - Themes and styling with plugins adding blocks. Will there be a repository for Blocks? - 72:38
• Question 11: Cristy Chrinos of Caldera Forms - “How are you going to make sure that people that were burned by WordPress.."
• Feature Video: - 79:00
• Fin - 80:35
• Our reaction after the fact - 80:55

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Marketing your WordPress product or business can be tricky during the holidays. What's too much and what's too little. In this episode, Marc Benzakein from Server Press, LLC will join us to talk about how he got it just right.

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