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This week, on WP-Tonic EP118, we're joined by Scott Buscemi, founder of Luminary Web Strategies, a WordPress agency that specializes in WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads integrations.

Scott shares some of his extensive personal insights about what makes a great e-commerce site, and growing an e-commerce centered agency. He also delves into his 8 years of helping clients get the eCommerce results they are looking for. Some of the things we talk about have nothing to do with the technology, but more about helping the clients see what are the real business problems they are facing, and then offer them solutions!

Episode 118 Table of Contents:

Show Introduction 0:15

Scott's Background in Web Development 0:49

John and Jonathan Intros 1:55

What Scott Has Learned About Running An Agency and Serving Clients 2:58

Diving Into Business Objectives with Client Projects 4:00

Figuring Out The Business Model Before Hiring a Web Development Firm 5:50

Tips for Hiring Developers and Small Agencies 7:25

Make Sure The Money You're Spending Is Going In The Right Direction 8:09

Don't Get Distracted by Too Many Features Too Early 9:34

Launching A Website Is Easier Than Figuring Out Why You Want It 11:24

You Can Build An App, But Do You Have a Brand?  12:08

Building A Brand Is The Hard Work 12:28

Is WordPress and WooCommerce the Best Solution For e-Commerce? 13:53

Building a Minimum Viable Product On WordPress 14:40

Looking For a Consultant or Partner vs. Looking for a Developer 18:37

What Role Does Analytics Play in Web Strategy? 23:06

More Traffic Means Analytics are More Accurate 23:34

What Things Motivate and Inspire Scott 25:47

What Are Scott's Success Principles? 27:40

To Be Different, You Have To Be Act Different 27:56

Don't Let Fear Rule Your Life 31:15

Podcast Portion Outros 33:06

Visit the WP-Tonic site for bonus content from this episode:

https://www.wp-tonic.com/podcast/118-wp-tonic-all-about-ecommerce-scott-buscemi/

Featured Guest:

Scott Buscemi https://luminary.ws/

Hosts:

Jonathan Denwood https://www.wp-tonic.com/

John Locke Lockedown SEO

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WP-Tonic is not only a WordPress maintenance and support service, but we publish a twice weekly WordPress podcast where we talk with some of the smartest people in WordPress development, web design, and online marketing.

Our main WordPress topic is going to be "Email Plugins and Strategies for Email Marketing" We've also got three great stories from the WordPress community.

Our Panel  

Sallie Goetsch: from Wpfangirl.com

Jackie D’Elia: from Jackie D’Elia Design

Kim Shivler: from Whiteglovewebtraining.com

John Locke: from Lockedown SEO

Our weekly WordPress news stories:

Headway Theme's Future Uncertain Amidst Financial Troubles

https://wptavern.com/headway-themes-future-is-uncertain-amidst-financial-troubles

Competition, Crisis Management, and the Community

https://serverpress.com/competition-crisis-management-community/

How To Create Accessible WordPress Websites

https://pagely.com/blog/2016/08/create-accessible-wordpress-websites/

Show Table of Contents:

0:00 Intro

2:26 WP News Story: Headway Themes in Financial Trouble?

13:27 WP News Story: How To Create Accessible WordPress Websites

18:21 Main Topic: Email Marketing Strategies, Plugins, and Services for WordPress

18:43 Why Do We Still Care About Email Marketing?

19:58 Does Email Marketing Make a Difference in Your Revenue?

20:40 Three Categories of Email Subscriptions

23:58 E-Blasts Get Deleted

25:44 Consistency and Schedule

29:30 Segmenting Your List and Reader Expectations

32:00 Long Form Emails and Drip Campaigns

35:40 What Kind of Email Services Should You Use?

36:25 Using Obscure or Niche Email Services

40:00 The Problem With Email Templates

43:17 Drip Campaigns in MailChimp

43:50 Using GetResponse

44:50 SendGrid and other SMTP servers for Transactional Emails

46:07 MailGun and Google SMTP for Transactional Emails

46:48 WordPress Plugins that use the Host Provided Email System

47:46 What is the Difference SMTP and wp_mail

49:05 What Do You Use For Email Signups?

50:40 Exit Intent Email Signup Boxes and Pop-ups

53:15 Compelling Lead Magnets

54:17 You have to have enough signup boxes to get subscribers

56:18 "You know how to take the reservation, but you don't know how to HOLD the reservation."

57:04 Different Lead Magnets for Different Content

Read the article:

https://www.wp-tonic.com/podcast/117-round-table-email-plugins-strategies-email-marketing/

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WP-Tonic is not only a WordPress maintenance and support service, but we publish a twice weekly WordPress podcast where we talk with some of the brightest minds in WordPress development, web design, business, and online marketing.

Email marketing is a subject that causes a lot of confusion. How do you produce effective email marketing? Angie Meeker gives us some straightforward advice to get your email campaigns running on all cylinders.

Show Sections

0:00 Intros

1:57 Where People Go Wrong With Email Marketing

4:10 Finding The Sweet Spot

6:12 The Promotions Folder in GMail

8:44 Getting People To Sign Up To Your Newsletter

10:42 Tailor Your Offer To The Content Being Read

11:19 You're Not Using Enough Opt-In Boxes

12:18 Pop-Ups Still Work

14:00 Add Email Opt-in Offers In The Content

15:00 Exit Pop-ups Are Best

16:16 How To Find Your Own Sweet Spot With Email Frequency

18:06 Correlation Between Conversion Rate and Sales

19:08 Fighting Inertia and Getting Businesses To Use New Tools

20:40 Establishing Trust With Business Owners

21:40 Show Them A Clear Path To Their Goal

22:30 Businesses Need To Find Their Marketing Voice

25:09 Feeling Confident in Your Marketing Message

27:06 Angie's Favorite Motivation Books

27:33 The 10x Rule

30:27 The Closers Survival Guide

31:48 Decoding Prospect Objections

33:42 Contact Information For Everyone

Guest:

Angie Meeker

http://mynameisangie.com/


Hosts:

Jonathan Denwood

https://www.wp-tonic.com

John Locke

Lockedown SEO

Read the Article and get Bonus Content not included in the podcast:

https://www.wp-tonic.com/podcast/116-truth-about-email-marketing-angie-meeker/

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WP-Tonic is not only a WordPress maintenance and support service, but we publish a twice weekly WordPress podcast where we talk with some of the brightest minds in WordPress development, web design, business, and online marketing.

We have a great panel discussion connected to the latest WordPress news stories of the week
then we go on to the main topic connected to what are the main WordPress page building solutions out there at the present moment. We really look at a number of different solutions.

Sallie Goetsch: from WPFangirl.com
Kim Shivler: from Whiteglovewebtraining.com
John Locke: from Lockedown SEO
Bridget Willard Social Media Manager at: WordImpress
Jonathan Denwood: from WP-Tonic.com

Find WP-Tonic on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wordpress-wp-tonic-jonathan/id893083124?mt=2


1 - Users of the Posts 2 Posts Plugin Left Searching for an Alternative
  https://wptavern.com/users-of-the-posts-2-posts-plugin-left-searching-for-an-alternative



2 -  How ‘Pootle Pagebuilder’ Sold Licenses for $9K on Its 1st Month

http://freemius.com/blog/success-story-of-pootle-pagebuilder-with-freemius/


3 - Selling the Shovel vs. Mining the Gold
https://syedbalkhi.com/selling-the-shovel-vs-mining-the-gold/



Plugins Page Builders


https://wordpress.org/plugins/siteorigin-panels/

https://codecanyon.net/item/visual-composer-page-builder-for-wordpress/

https://www.wpbeaverbuilder.com/

http://www.getmotopress.com/plugins/content-editor/

http://www.pootlepress.com/pootle-pagebuilder-pro/

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Themes

http://www.elegantthemes.com/gallery/divi/

http://headwaythemes.com/

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Themes/Plugins Hybrids

http://themify.me/builder

http://velocitypage.com/

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Read the full article on the WP-Tonic website:

https://www.wp-tonic.com/podcast/115-wp-tonic-visual-builders-good-bad-ugly/

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WP-Tonic is not only a WordPress maintenance and support service, but we publish a twice weekly WordPress podcast where we talk with some of the brightest minds in WordPress development, web design, business, and online marketing.

If there's one area where most site owners could improve their WordPress websites, it is with their hosting.

For membership sites or eCommerce, shared hosting is not going to work for you. The next logical step is to go to a WordPress managed hosting solutions. We will look at those, plus a new breed of VPS hosting as we talk with Constantinos Coudounaris of WPHosting Spot in episode 114 of WP-Tonic.

Topics discussed:
- Why is cPanel bad for website speed?
- Why should you use managed WordPress hosting?
- Why is shared hosting terrible for e-commerce and membership sites?
- What are good choices for WordPress hosting?
- Are hosting companies still innovating?
- How does caching affect page speed?
- How does a CDN affect site performance and page speed?
- Why is customer support so important in business? And especially in web hosting?
- What are the success principles that Costantinos lives by?

Episode #114 at WP-Tonic
https://www.wp-tonic.com/podcast/114-wp-tonic-best-value-wordpress-hosting-options/


WPHostingSpot
https://www.wphostingspot.com

Hosted by:
Jonathan Denwood
https://www.wp-tonic.com/

John Locke
Lockedown SEO

Read the article on the WP-Tonic website for bonus content:

https://www.wp-tonic.com/podcast/114-wp-tonic-best-value-wordpress-hosting-options/

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WP-Tonic is not only a WordPress maintenance and support service, but we publish a twice weekly WordPress podcast where we talk with some of the brightest minds in WordPress development, web design, web hosting, and online marketing.

WP-Tonic #113: How do You Write Winning WordPress Project Proposals?

Our panel:

Morten Rand-Hendriksen: from Lynda.com
Sallie Goetsch: from Wpfangirl.com
Jackie D’Elia: from Jackie D’Elia Design
John Locke: from Lockedown SEO


Today the WP-Tonic panel discusses how to write a winning WordPress proposal.

What things go into a great proposal? How do you handle the payment schedule? Who is responsible for content creation? How should you price? Should you use value-based pricing, hourly pricing, fixed pricing, or another means of pricing? What are some common mistakes to avoid? What items do you stress in your proposals?


All these questions and more are answered on episode #113 of WP-Tonic.

https://www.wp-tonic.com/podcast/113-how-do-you-write-winning-wordpress-project-proposals/
 
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Spotlight WordPress news story (top of the hour):

https://helen.wordpress.com/2016/07/13/theme-disconnect-and-discontent/


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WP-Tonic is not only a WordPress maintenance and support service, but we publish a twice weekly WordPress podcast where we talk with some of the brightest minds in WordPress development, web design, business, and online marketing.

We Have a great discussion here with Christopher Hawkins about an interesting subject how to deal with those difficult clients?

Chris has been building web applications for over 16 years, successfully completing projects for business of every size, from Fortune 500s on down.

Day-to-day, he manages a custom web development consulting firm. He also authors a software industry blog and has been published in Software Development Magazine (now Dr. Dobbs).


http://www.christopherhawkins.com/about/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherhawkins

Cogeian Systems

Read the article on the WP-Tonic website for a full transcription of the show:

https://www.wp-tonic.com/podcast/112-wp-tonic-best-deal-difficult-client-situations/

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WP-Tonic is not only a WordPress maintenance and support service, but we publish a twice weekly WordPress business podcast where we talk with some of the brightest minds in WordPress development, web design, business, and online marketing.

This week, we look at What Makes a WooCommerce Website Successful? The lessons we learned are not what you might expect them to be.

Our panel this week:

Sallie Goetsch: https://wpfangirl.com
Morten Rand-Hendriksen: http://pinkandyellow.com/
Scott Buscemi: https://luminary.ws/
John Locke: Lockedown SEO

Show Table of Contents:

0:00 We introduce the episode and our panel.

3:34 WordPress News Story:
John James Jacoby Publishes 35 Part Tweetstorm on WordPress Leadership, Community, and Economics

https://wptavern.com/john-james-jacoby-publishes-35-part-tweetstorm-on-wordpress-leadership-community-and-economics

27:26 Our Main WordPress Topic:
What Makes a WooCommerce Website Successful?

27:49 What are the characteristics that make any ecommerce website successful?

28:45 Show off what makes you different.

29:15 You have to drive traffic to your website.

31:34 Running an e-commerce site is the same as running a bricks-and-mortar store.

34:12 If you don't have traffic, you aren't going to make sales.

35:58 Rising to the top of Google takes more than one day.

38:19 People think that WooCommerce extensions will help them make sales, when they are really for sites already making sales.

39:56 Not every issue is a technical issue.

40:30 Many companies think they know their audience, but they don't.

43:29 If you really know your market, you will succeed.

45:25 Are there any challenges that are unique to WooCommerce as opposed to other e-commerce platforms?

48:04 WooCommerce is a powerful platform, but requires a lot of technical knowledge from the consultant setting it up.

50:27 There's a user story behind every WooCommerce setting.

51:57 Every ecommerce platform has certain trade-offs.

52:59 Some more thoughts on what can make a WooCommerce site build challenging.

57:26 Running an e-commerce website has many layers of complexity and legal obligation beyond those of a regular marketing website.

1:02:01 We do outros for the podcast listeners.

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Leave us a review on iTunes and subscribe to our WordPress podcast:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wordpress-wp-tonic-jonathan/id893083124?mt=2

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Read the article on the WP-Tonic website for bonus content:

https://www.wp-tonic.com/podcast/what-makes-a-woocommerce-website-successful/

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WP-Tonic is not only a WordPress maintenance and support service, but we publish a twice weekly WordPress podcast where we talk with some of the brightest minds in WordPress development, web design, business, and online marketing.

Bob Dunn, known as BobWP across the web, started his business in 1992 and spent over 25 years partnered with his wife providing marketing and design for large and small businesses. He discovered WordPress in 2007 and started designing WordPress sites.

Visit the WP-Tonic site for additional content:

https://www.wp-tonic.com/podcast/110-bob-dunn-bobwp-podcast/

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WP-Tonic is not only a WordPress maintenance and support service, but we publish a twice weekly WordPress podcast where we talk with some of the brightest minds in WordPress development, web design, business, and online marketing.

An insightful WordPress roundtable discussion on what are the thing you need to understand connected to the clear difference between what works connected to web-copy and how in someways it clearly very different to print world.

Read the full article and get bonus content on the WP-Tonic website:

https://www.wp-tonic.com/podcast/109-wordpress-difference-effective-web-copy-print-copy/

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WP-Tonic is not only a WordPress maintenance and support service, but we publish a twice weekly WordPress podcast where we talk with some of the brightest minds in WordPress development, web design, business, and online marketing.