Marketing a WordPress Product Live: Session 16

Transcript ↓

In this podcast episode, host Corey Maass and Michelle Frechette discuss their new initiative to create a collaborative WordPress plugin directory. They share their vision for a dynamic platform that goes beyond listing plugins to become a marketing resource fostering community growth and engagement. The discussion covers their approach to inclusive yet targeted guidelines, creative marketing campaigns, and leveraging networks like Post Status. Corey and Michelle also explore the potential for cross-promotion among members and outline their plans for a summer sale and engaging assets. If you’re a WordPress plugin developer or business owner eager to connect and innovate, this episode offers a glimpse into an exciting new project and how you can get involved.

Top Takeaways:

• Collaborative Directory Concept: Corey and Michelle are developing a WordPress plugin directory that emphasizes collaboration over competition. The goal is to create a platform where businesses can support each other and engage in joint marketing efforts rather than focusing on traditional affiliate models.
• Inclusive Yet Targeted Guidelines: They plan to establish guidelines that are inclusive but also target specific types of plugins and businesses. This approach aims to maintain quality while allowing for diverse participation.
• Cross-Promotion and Marketing: The initiative will include cross-promotion among participants. They plan to use creative marketing assets, such as memes and other visual content, to boost visibility and drive traffic to the directory.
• Community Engagement: There’s a focus on building an active community around the directory. Corey and Michelle propose using Slack and Post Status for discussions and idea sharing, and envision bringing in experts for talks and workshops to benefit members.
• Early Stage and Rapid Development: The project is in its early stages with a goal to move quickly, aiming for a summer sale and rapid development. They emphasize the importance of getting involved early and contributing ideas to shape the initiative’s success.

Mentioned In The Show:

• MexicanTrain.online
• Zach Katz 
• WS Form 
• Post Status 
• Slack
• WP Tavern 
• OMG IMG 
• Stellar WP
• Freemius
• Letter People
• Fiverr
• Deadpool
• Wolverine
• WordCamp US
• Mahjong
• GravityKit

🐦 You can follow Post Status and our guests on Twitter:

• Corey Maass
• Michelle Frechette (Director of Community Relations, Post Status)
• Olivia Bisset (Intern, Post Status)

The Post Status  podcast is geared toward WordPress professionals, with interviews, news, and deep analysis. 📝

Browse our archives, and don’t forget to subscribe via iTunes, Google Podcasts, YouTube, Stitcher, Simplecast, or RSS. 🎧

Transcript

Corey Maass: Knock, brush. 

Michelle Frechette: Hey, Cory. Knock, brush. 

[00:00:06] Corey Maass: Knock, brush. 

[00:00:07] Michelle Frechette: You are in a fun mood today. I love it. 

[00:00:10] Corey Maass: I, I had my, uh, my, my usual nap later than usual. 

[00:00:18] Michelle Frechette: I haven’t had a nap. 

[00:00:19] Corey Maass: I’m fresher than usual or something. 

[00:00:20] Michelle Frechette: Looking forward to stepping away from the desk, though, and getting into a softer spot to sit. My sciatica. I swear to God, I’m gonna be 56 in a couple months, and all the things that I heard my mother complain about, and my father complain about, and I thought, I’m never gonna be like that when I’m old. I’m friggin like that when I’m old, so. It is what it is. Anyway, we got lots of stuff to talk about today, because we’ve been doing a lot of background work. Over the last week.

Corey Maass: Totes.

Michelle Frechette: But the first thing I want to say is congratulations. And you have been selected to speak at WordCamp US. 

[00:00:56] Corey Maass: Are we allowed to say that? I don’t, I guess I haven’t seen anything to the contrary. So 

[00:01:00] Michelle Frechette: We are. I actually checked with somebody about that because I hadn’t heard if I was selected or not selected. And I said, Hey, I’m seeing people post. Are they supposed to do that? And she said, we don’t have a moratorium on that anymore. So, yeah, so you can talk about it.

Corey Maass: Woohoo. 

Michelle Frechette: It’s not even on the website. Yeah. But you’ve been selected. What is your topic? What is it called? What are you talking about? 

[00:01:21] Corey Maass: Uh, I am talking about, my collar is a mess. This shirt is a mess. I 

[00:01:26] Michelle Frechette: I’m a mess today. It’s all good. 

[00:01:27] Corey Maass: I don’t know what it’s called. It’s I’m talking about one of my other projects, uh, called MexicanTrain.online.  Um, and it was, it was a hell of a, it’s been a hell of a project. I haven’t done much with it. Uh, in recent years, honestly, in the last couple of years. Um, but it was a pandemic project that blew up and so it, and it brought lots of people together. And of course that’s one of the mantras of the WordPress community. So, um, it makes her a good topic and I’m excited. Cause it’s like, I’ve got, I’ve told you, I’ve told a bunch of people personally, but like, because it’s donation based and because. Uh, largely the demographic is older. I actually get people sending in donations via check. 

Michelle: Oh that’s fun.

Corey Mass: Um, and so people like, you know, send me stuff like, so I have a whole pile of.

cards and letters and, and stuff like that. 

MIchelle: Oh that is really sweet. 

Corey Maass: Um, and so I’m going to make a little, I have a, a folder and I’m going to reach out to a bunch of the people, um, who still play and say, you know, can I tell your story or can I tell an anonymized version of your story? But cause I mean, during COVID, um, obviously people were separating, staying apart. Um, and so it helped people stay together. But then even after that, um, a lot of people either with. Um, compromised immune systems or circumstantially like had to stay apart from each other or go into hospice or even just go into the hospital for an extended stay or whatever. And just like use Mexican train to like stay in touch, like, or it was something to do while talking on the phone kind of thing. [00:03:18] And some of the stories are absolutely astounding. So I’m excited. 

[00:03:22] Michelle Frechette: I’ve never played. It’s a dominoes game, correct? 

[00:03:25] Corey Maass: Mmhmm. Real popular with, um, In the retirement communities, which is part of why it caught on. Um, and so I, I made, I made the, I think it’s still the only multiplayer version, like you don’t, all the other versions you play against the computer, this one, you actually play against friends.

[00:03:47] Michelle Frechette: Oh cool. I am, I’ve been, I’ve never seen that game, but I’ve seen Mahjong and now I kind of want to learn Mahjong too, but you should have a.

[00:03:55] Corey Maass: Mahjong is really cool. 

[00:03:57] Michelle Frechette: I have an old antique mahjong set that was my grandfather’s, but I don’t know how to use it. So maybe someday soon I should, I should learn that. 

[00:04:04] Corey Maass: Oh wow. Okay. It’s July.

[00:04:07] Michelle Frechette: Yes. 

[00:04:07] Corey Maass: It’s almost August. 

[00:04:08] Michelle Frechette: Yes. 

[00:04:10] Corey Maass: That gives us a month and a half? To play.

[00:04:15] Michelle Frechette: Until WordCampUS?

[00:04:16] Corey Maass: Yeah. So let’s rope in a couple of other people who we know are going to be at WordCamp US. And like the four, cause I think it’s best with four people. Like, I know you can play with fewer, but, um, but like, let’s all download an app on our phone and learn it at least the basics and then play live, uh, in September.I think that’d be really fun. 

[00:04:41] Michelle Frechette: I think that’d be a lot of fun too. So, yeah. So congratulations on that. I actually have been selected as a backup speaker. So.

Corey Maass: Woo-hoo. 

Moichelle Frechette: In the event that the Miss America cannot serve the first runner up. I dunno. Something like that. Um, anyway.  Um, and my topic is building a customer success team in WordPress. So hopefully I’ll get a chance to talk. I would be sad that somebody else would not be able to talk, but I would absolutely jump at the chance. So 

[00:05:10] Corey Maass: I, um, yeah, I think if I, like, this isn’t the thought went through my head if I was giving a talk that wasn’t. That was just like a boring tech talk. I honestly think I’d be like, Michelle, come here. Like.

[00:05:25] Michelle Frechette: I don’t want anybody to step aside for me, but if the circumstances are that a speaker cannot make it for whatever reason, I’m ready to put me in coach. 

[00:05:34] Corey Maass: Like they accidentally twist their ankle, walking down the escalator where Corey’s in front of them. 

[00:05:42] Michelle Frechette: And I said, you can be my WordPress, Tanya Harding, but Oh, so last week, I know we have a lot of things to talk about, but I want to talk about my idea first and then we’ll go ahead and do your list.

[00:05:54] Corey Maass: Hell yeah.

Michelle Frechette: Last week we, um, I don’t remember if we talked about it on screen or if it was something we talked about afterwards. Cause honestly it all kind of ran together, but we had the idea to, instead of just working on our own, there’s a lot of small plugins who could use some collaborative marketing. And so the idea would be to have an end of summer WordPress pool party. Idea of having, um, a one week sale where we would collaboratively market so that we would be able to, um, boost each other’s signals across socials and things like that, and include each other in our newsletters and those kinds of things. And so we started to think about what would that look like? And if, if everybody would have the same percentage discount. And honestly, we didn’t get a whole, like very far on it, except to, um, kind of start to think about some domains and what that would look like. I think it could be a really pretty quick build and we could really get this going. And I think, uh, we were talking like targeting the last week of, of August. Before everything. 

Corey Maass: Oh, that late. Okay. 

Michelle Frechette: Well, we were originally talking about sooner, but it’s going to be August like tomorrow.

[00:07:08] Corey Maass: That’s what I was wondering. Yeah. 

[00:07:10] Michelle Frechette: So I think if we give ourselves a couple of weeks and, um, pull in some other small businesses, small WordPress, um, Plugin companies. We could make this happen really quickly. Um, yeah, we could, we could throw a build together pretty darn fast. I’ve been known to build a website in an evening, for example, especially when it’s simple.

Corey Maass: Mmhmm. Same, yep.

Michelle Frechette: Um, and we can use, you know, we talk to Mark Westgard and use WS Form and ACF to make it super simple to create a very simple website that people could link them to their sales pages. And whether we’re using a discounted coupon or we’re just applying discounts automatically that month, I mean, that would be something that each business would decide for themselves. Um, but I, and I said, what about WP pool party. com? And you’re like, what about pool party WP. com. And like, I love it. Right. So like I I’m happy either way. And you were like, well, of course we buy both right. Indirect one to the other, but.

[00:08:06] Corey Maass: Right, um. Yeah, because they are available. Um.

[00:08:11] Michelle Frechette: which means we have to buy them now. Cause somebody, we have one person watching and they may swoop in and buy those underneath from underneath us. 

[00:08:17] Corey Maass: And that, and that was, that was a concern where I was like, Oh, we’re doing this live. Right. So we have to be careful about domains and whatnot, but, um, but yeah, some of the, so high level things, things that I heard and things that I’ve since thought, and then also I, um, talked about it with my Mastermind Group, um, is Part of the original idea that I had contributing, adding on to, to what you brought up was, I’m admiring the way that Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, right?I always wanted to say Jack human, Hugh Jackman. Are, you know, trolling each other. Not really. Right. But, um, and so. 

[00:09:08] Michelle Frechette: LIke the whole Deadpool and  Wolverine.

[00:09:09] Corey Maass: Wolverine, you know, I mean, and, and for years 

[00:09:12] Michelle Frechette: And bleeds into their real life. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

[00:09:14] Corey Maass: Right. So, um, so we were talking about. Cause it’s Black Friday is the big sale and it’s the thing that everybody gets the most excited about. And then we said, well, what, you know, I, other companies do sort of a, a sale opposite that, and obviously we’re not opposite, but still like a few months off. Um, it’s just, it’s something to talk about is like, which I think we’ve mentioned a few times, um, Like we need things to market. We need words to say, we need ways to go, Hey, over here, pay attention to me. And so doing a sale, but doing a sale together, um, like there’s a bunch of plugins and, um, indie developers and whatnot, and if we all figured out a way to talk about each other. Um, or to each other, but you know, we all have our own followers. And so if we were doing it in a funny way, 

[00:10:14] Michelle Frechette: With personality and sense of humor. 

[00:10:16] Corey Maass: with personality. Right. And so we talked about, um, I, I hear you like one of the things you, you and Mark brought up was, Uh, concern about it being too seasonal. So pool party, but it’s like that conceptually. Um, and one of the visions that I have is, um, like, did you ever, did you have the letter people when, to learn the alphabet when you were a little? 

[00:10:44] Michelle Frechette: No.

[00:10:45] Corey Maass: come and meet the letter people. Da, da,daaa,  okay. So there were these blow up these balloons that were probably like 12 or 16 inches tall of each letter and each one had a face and they each had a personality and they would bring in each one one a day as we learned the letters in kindergarten. Um, they later became a cartoon. There’s also a cartoon called Mr. Men and Little Mrs. They had them at Arby’s, the little figurines. Um, so it was like Mr. Happy and Ms. Sunshine and dot, dot, dot. But anyway, these little abstract, um, but the vision I have in my head, you can picture this because you watch Sesame street at some point, um, or electric company or any of those, right. Is like picture a bunch of. The, of letters, you know, the letter A andB are sitting at a, in, on the edge of a pool as, letter O is doing a cannonball into the pool. 

[00:11:47] Michelle Frechette: And splash water goes everywhere. Yeah. 

[00:11:48] Corey Maass:Right I have this stupid vision because I think it’s hilarious of like. So at its core, what we’re talking about, I think as a directory of Indie, essentially, um, the, the word that I, I sent you earlier today, cause I was talking to my Mastermind Group.Um, and, um, what’s his name? Alex, uh, Standifird brought up. Um, he’s like, what you’re talking about is similar to there’s a craft beer network. 

[00:12:19] Corey Maass: And I  was like, that’s it like that’s it. Craft plugin network. Okay. And so creating a directory of indie, but not necessarily small, plugin developers, there’s a form to request access. And then there’s, once we approve you, there’s a form to, uh, for you to maintain your own profile, you can add whatever discount you want or no discount. 

[00:12:49] Michelle Frechette: Mmhmm. 

[00:12:50] Corey Maass: And so that definitely should be evergreen. That should not be seasonal, but the spirit of the thing and or the big push that we do initially would be the pool party concept. Um, and the reason why I brought up the, the amazing letter people, um, is because I want to do things like. Once people for every five people that join this thing, we take their logos that they’ve uploaded. We send them to somebody on Fiverr and we go create a ridiculous scenario where OMG and WS Forms are water skiing behind a boat that’s being driven, you know, by, you know, Siren Affiliates.

[00:13:33] Michelle:  affiliates. Yeah.  Or you know, like whoever. Yeah. 

[00:13:36] Corey Maass: Like the, these silly things that give us group, like that, that group us together a little bit and give us assets to, to market. 

Michelle Frechette: Mm-Hmm. 

Corey Maass: Um, and then one of the other really fun ideas that I thought you had. Was, uh, it’s not operator, but the game of like, I know a plugin that’s great for affiliates and tweet that. And so then, you know, uh, Siren goes, well, I know a plugin that’s, you know, good for forums and then, you know, WS Forums passes it along somehow. Like, you know, that or something like that, but like ways that we. Uh, you know, call each other out, talk to each other. But like, as our brands was like the funny, to me, the funny concept.

Michelle Frechette: Yeah. 

[00:14:24] Corey Maass: Um, and, uh, you know, and we do a little like Twitter scavenger hunt, like whose logo is, is a rainbow and you, and you have to go tag them or, you know, something just, and so if we could come up with. You know, if we do a sale for a week and we do a game a day on Twitter or a game a day like this, and as many people participate or they don’t, and we encourage everybody like, Hey, here’s an excuse to send, you know, an email out to your newsletter, promoting this new directory that’s full of other great craft plugins. Um, so, so this was some, you know, this was the. My takeaway after a week of, of where we go with some of this stuff. 

[00:15:13] Michelle Frechette: I like it a lot. And I was just looking at the, I was like, the private chat has something in it, but that’s from last week. So the craft beer got me thinking like, do you know, there’s a five letter.There’s a five letter URL that’s actually available and it isn’t premium right now as IPA WP?

[00:15:35] Corey Maass: That’s pretty awesome. 

[00:15:37] Michelle Frechette: I’m just trying to think like, what could IPA stand for if it wasn’t like India pale ale, right? Like it could be 

[00:15:41] Corey Maass: independent plugin.

[00:15:45] Michelle Frechette: all WordPress. Yeah, like that’s actually kind of a fun little thing. Like IPAWP is having a pool party. IPAWP is going sledding. Like we can figure it out like seasonally if we wanted to do it more than once a year kind of thing.

[00:16:00] Corey Maass: Right. Exactly. 

[00:16:03] Michelle Frechette: Are you buying it right now? 

[00:16:05] Corey Maass: I am. Why not? That’s a good five letter. 

[00:16:09] Michelle Frechette: Yeah. Those don’t come around very often, do they? 

[00:16:11] Corey Maass: No, they don’t. 

[00:16:14] Michelle Frechette: Yeah. 

[00:16:14] Corey Maass: Um, yeah, everybody talk quite amongst your self. 

MIchelle Frechette: I just shocked myself when I saw it available. To be quite honest with you.

Corey Maass: That’s pretty good. 

Michelle Frechette: But I love the idea. And the idea would be, it’s not just open, it’s not open to this cooperative or whatever we want to call it. This craft company or not even company, but club would be for specifically for small businesses for. You know, people running really lean one and two person operations kind of thing so that it’s an opportunity for us to pool our resources, which are really more human resources than even monetary resources, right? Like if we hire Fiverr or people, we’ll, there’s some money there, of course, but it’s not going to be thousands of dollars worth of marketing. 

[00:17:01] Corey Maass: Right. 

[00:17:02] Michelle Frechette: And that’s what I like about it. So, um, 

[00:17:04] Corey Maass: yeah, I, I, what I had said to the Mastermind Group is like, we have. Generally, we have more time than money as independent developers. Um, so, you know, what can we do with our collective networking, um, networks, followers, friends, um, that, you know, we’ll take advantage of that. And we all, we all go up together kind of thing. It doesn’t have to be, um, commercial, you know, Uber, corporate, etc, etc. So, 

[00:17:40] Michelle Frechette: right. 

[00:17:40] Corey Maass: Um, yeah, I’m trying to do this quick. 

[00:17:45] Michelle Frechette: I’ll talk for a minute while you do that. So the idea would be that if, if, you know, I know that we get more people listening after when we’re not actually live, which is fine too. Um, if you are a small WordPress business, and I, I think I’d, I’d be open to it being, even if it’s a small hosting company of one or two people, if it’s a small plugin company, um, if you’re a small WordPress business, and I don’t want to say, set a specific, like this number of people or this amount of money or less. I think it’s kind of on a case by case. Does it fit with our vibe idea? We want to talk to you. So, um, we’re going to be pulling the trigger on this really darn fast. Cause it’s literally coming up in like three weeks. Um, but small businesses are the people who can actually. Operate quickly and get something like this done.Like we can have a website up by Sunday for this. Not that it can’t change and we can’t like continue to make it better, but we can have a website up by Sunday for this. We can start thinking about who’s in this and who wants to be in this with us so that we can move it forward very quickly. And if you don’t become part of it now, but you want to become part of it when we do something in the future, still have a conversation with us because we would really like to see how this can help us move small businesses and WordPress forward for sure.

[00:19:04] Corey Maass: Yep. Sorry I had to sign up for a new registrar pay now done. Out for processing the strange analogy 

[00:19:17] Michelle Frechette: That is weird. Um, as you’re saying like games and things I love doing things like the idea of like let’s say it’s a pool party and it’s a barbecue Well, what do you do for kids? Well kids have Word searches and crossword puzzles. So maybe I’ll make a word search that people can, that will be used in marketing and people can like do the word search, like those kinds of fun things. I’ve done that before, um, to engage people. Just, it’s just fun, right? You can make a word search in like, just in, um, I was going to say Excel, but I don’t even use Excel anymore. What is it? Sheets or whatever we call it now. Gosh. 

Corey Maass: Right. 

Michelle Frechette: Google Sheets. Yeah. So like anything like that would be super fun. And I’m sure there’s generators online that you can just generate one as well. Um, but we could put our brands, we could put WordPress terminologies and those kinds of things. And I know I’m taking it to the extreme, but that would take literally 15 minutes to make and then make it available for, every company involved to be able to share those out over social. We have put them on the website, those kinds of things. Um, it doesn’t need to be incredibly tech heavy to be incredibly effective. And I mean, every company can make for themselves what they’re, you know, um, what they’re expected ROI or they’re required ROI to do it again, or whatever they want to say, like what their goals are for it, but like for us. Like if we put in minimal effort, like let’s say we spend between the two of us 20 hours doing this and we make three or four sales, like I would love to see even that much of the new, the right needle move to get some momentum and working with other companies.I think that that’s a really cool idea. 

[00:20:58] Corey Maass: Right. Um, So one of the other things that came up is, so in my mind, I’m starting to sort this out as, or separate this as the evergreen directory. Um, somebody said like, well, it kind of, you know, like the downfall downside of a bunch of these directories is these, you know, evergreen discounts or people are about to check out. So then they go search for a discount. And I’m like, this is, this is not about. We’re not trying to be an affiliate to everybody in the directory. 

Michelle Frechette: No.

Corey Maass: So it’s not that kind of play. So people can choose to put a discount or not. Um, and then also I think if we coordinate intentionally quite coordinate like a week, a year, that is.

A sale where we do a big push and then the rest of the time it’s just hanging out. It’s still backlinks. It’s still content. It’s still all that kind of stuff. Um, and, uh, so there’s kind of, yeah, the two parts, right? There’s the evergreen directory and then there’s the pool party aspect of it. Like, let’s do one big push. Um, one of the other things that came up Um, and there’s, and we can do things like, Oh, we had talked about last week. We had talked about randomizing the, the results.

Michelle Frechette: The way the list, hhmhh.

Corey Maass: Um, and so it’s not, and, and there’s no paying to be upfront, um, except that, um, the folks that I’ve talked to love the idea of like, if we see value in spending time on this, featuring certain plugins. Or certain people, um, in the context of, uh, being an indie or craft. I like craft because like you said, like, I don’t want to disclude some people, like even if they are, even if they have reached success, um.

[00:22:57] Michelle Frechette: Yeah.

[00:22:57] Corey Maass: You know, and so I like the idea of, of craft, meaning like.

Michelle Frechette: It doesn’t have to be struggling. 

Corey Maass: Right, exactly. Um, but when, so extending the idea of the order of things, how you find plugins to two concepts came up. One, I absolutely love. I, we need lots of thinking around this, but, um, people were talking about like part of the Indie ethos or craft ethos is there are plugins, companies behind plugins that we think make bad decisions, right? Um, in the name of greed or in the name of breaking sort of WordPress practices, dot, dot, dot. Um, and so originally the idea of course came up as like, we all have to sign a pledge. And I’m like, no, that’s too extreme. Like we can’t be dogmatic. And there’s, and there’s things that like, there’s, there’s WordPress stuff that you’re not supposed to do like phone home, some plugins need that. Right. Um, and they pointed out that like, there are a lot of indie, um, developers use Freemius and Freemius includes some of these things, but in a way that most of us are pretty okay with. 

[00:24:15] Michelle Frechette: Yeah.

[00:24:15] Corey Maass: So one of the things that, so the way that we sort of talked it down and I love this, um, personally is in the form that you use to submit, like once, once we’ve approved you, which sounds very, but, but we want, we’re not going to just let anybody in.

[00:24:35] Michelle Frechette: There has to be a vetting pprocess for sure. 

[00:24:37] Corey Maass: So once you’re vetted, that’s a better way to put it. Um, you know, you’ve got a form where you can maintain a profile on that profile. We add, we start with one or two, but we add any number of switches. That say, does your plugin put a notice in the admin? Does it phone home? Does it try to upsell you to a, to, uh, another version? Does it try to sell it, upsell you on a thousand other plugins that you also own, et cetera, et cetera. Right? Um, and so none of these things disqualify you once we’ve vetted you. But it’s another way to filter. And so if those things are important to you, then you can go on there and go, you know, I, I am dogmatic about not having admin notices. And so I don’t, on principle, I don’t want plugins that do it. So I’m going to uncheck that and those results will go away. 

[00:25:34] Michelle Frechette: Yeah, for sure. 

[00:25:36] Corey Maass: Um, 

[00:25:37] Michelle Frechette: Yeah.

[00:25:37] Corey Maass: and I think it’s, it’s an easy way to start that conversation. It’s an easy way to, I think, I, I think there is a, a concentric circles overlap quite a bit in the indie/craft developers who believe strongly in these things. And so if nothing else, they can. You know, they’ll use the directory. 

[00:26:01] Michelle Frechette: Yeah. And, um, interestingly, WS Forum has just done an, uh, as just working on, uh, um, integration, I believe if it’s done, I’m not, I think it’s almost done. If it’s not done with like, um, uh, Gravity Kit, right. So like the whole Zach Katz thing. So, um, it could, we could use that for the display. 

Corey Maass: Ol’ Zach Katz.

Michelle Frechette: I use that right now on Underrepresented In Tech. I love Zach. He’s awesome. Um,

[00:26:28] Corey Maass: Just the way you said it, we should make him a shirt that says. The whole Zach Katz thing. 

[00:26:32] Michelle Frechette: The whole Zach Katz, exactly. I don’t know who’s watching, but if it was him that was watching right now, that would be kind of actually kind of cool. They’d be like, yeah, I’m into it. Um, I just, I love the idea. I love that we were going to like really iterate it quickly. Iterate is probably not the wrong word. The right is probably the wrong word, but, um, implement it quickly. Um, I think that, you know, Async in Slack, we can think of some people that we’d like to invite specifically to be a part of it. And like, if it’s 4 companies, the first time we do this. I’m fine with that. If it’s 20 companies, the first time we do it, I’m fine with that too. Like it doesn’t, I’m not, I’m not seeing that, like, I don’t want to set a goal for 10 companies or it’s failure. Like, no, that’s not how growth works. And that’s not how small businesses work actually. And so I’d like to just kind of like get proof of concept the first time through, see how fun it is. How much fun we can have with it and make some money selling our plugins and our business models in the, you know, in the meantime. So I think it could be a lot of fun for sure. 

[00:27:40] Corey Maass: And down the road, we were talking about, um, one of, one of the things that I think Uh, I and the my Mastermind Group thought would make a big difference Um, or be a big differentiator eventually would be some sort of way to bundle these things.

[00:27:57] Michelle Frechette: Yeah 

[00:27:57] Corey Maass: Um, and and again like at least right now not looking at the directory, we’re talking about creating as the way to check all of that out, but some, some way to encourage people to buy, you know, these are the five, this is the package of five that is recommended by so and so, you know, get them all together at a reduced price kind of thing, um, without the same person owning all five.

Michelle Frechette: Right. 

Corey Maass: Or whatever the scenario, you know, um, yeah. Or without it being, you know, baked into a hosting scenario. 

[00:28:34] Michelle Frechette: I think that’s a second iteration of this. 

[00:28:36] Corey Maass: Oh, for sure. 

[00:28:37] Michelle Frechette: Um, yeah, I think that that that’s, I would love to see how that’s even possible. I am not the programmer. I am not the developer. So that would be like, 

[00:28:47] Corey Maass: Yeah, no, we started talking, we started talking through how to make that possible. And it was like, Oh gosh. Um, but I think there’s logistical ways to do it. Yeah. Um, you might still, like, if we figure out how we want to let people, I like, as we’re talking, I’m like, what if in your own profile you can, or should also recommend your, since we were kind of focusing on the product, but also maybe the people behind it, individuals or small teams, if they link to a few others that they recommend within the directory or whatever. 

[00:29:26] Michelle Frechette: That’s a great idea. And one thing..

[00:29:27] Corey Maass: And then eventually, 

[00:29:31] Michelle Frechette: Go ahead, finish your thought. 

[00:29:32] Corey Maass: Things like I, we could essentially just do things like referral where like, if you buy OMG, when we email you, we’re going to say. You know, here’s here. We have secured discount codes for our three other favorite plugins. You know, there’s a little, there’s softer ways than it actually being one click here to purchase and five get installed automatically because that’s a lot of tech, like you might have to click a whole bunch, but ultimately. You know, we’re essentially selling the idea of a bundle, at least. 

[00:30:08] Michelle Frechette: And we haven’t really talked about what the, um, revenue model looks like, but I, I’m envisioning the only revenue comes from selling your own plugins. So for example, if, if WS Form wants to join us, we’re not asking them to give us an affiliate link that we then make money off them. That is because we’re looking to all raise money and not spend money into each other. 

Corey Maass: Correct. 

Michelle Frechette: That being said, I have no problem. If WS Form then sends a thing that says, Hey, if you looked at OMGIMG, and if they’re specifically sending out a link in an email to use a, um, an affiliate link for that, if that’s what they want to do, I have no problem with that. We haven’t talked about that, but also if you want to use a UTM in the directory. Great. So you can track where that money comes from. Awesome. I have no problem with that either. 

[00:30:57] Corey Maass: Yeah. And that, you know, and that’s it, like it’s, it’s the, all, all ships go up together scenario. And that’s, I think what we’re like, I keep like, when I was thinking about domains today, I was thinking words like co-op or collective or, and I’m like, well, that’s not really, maybe that happens behind the scenes. That’s not, I don’t think quite what we’re talking about. 

[00:31:19] Michelle Frechette: Right. 

[00:31:19] Corey Maass: Um, but you know, but if that happens and, and initially like, I think, I think we’re on the same page and we think the same way in the, like, if they come, we will build it, not the other way around. And so if we find that people want, if, if we, I mean, my imagination always goes crazy. I mean, there’s a reason why I’m an entrepreneur, right. But my wild happiest scenario is we end up. With our own Slack community and ideas are flying around and we’re all figuring out ways to work together, collectively, cooperatively, so that we all, again, so that we all go up together, you know, or there’s ways that we can, you know, dot, dot, dot, right. Um, that you can’t force any of that stuff. It has to just happen. So.

[00:32:13] Michelle Frechette: But the  antithesis of that is feeding off of each other as opposed to. You know, finding the food elsewhere kind of thing. So yeah, like if we were only, like if we were requiring affiliate links for everybody and they had to pay us out for every sale that comes through that, that’s not what we’re talking about at all is what I mean.

[00:32:29] Corey Maass: Right. And that’s, and those exist. And those are the directories that we’re not. It’s fine that they exist. I think most of them I’ve, I’ve seen some and I have no objection to them existing. Um, different. That’s a business model. That’s not what we’re trying to do. Frankly, I let, this is, this is a marketing model or marketing experiment. Let’s be honest. 

[00:32:50] Michelle Frechette: Like it’s almost like a flea market, right? Like you come to the flea market and see who’s there. And if, if I buy, you know, a trumpet, Because I can see it on my screen. A trumpet from the booth next to yours, it doesn’t mean that you have to pay me money because we’re all in the same space, right? I’m, I’m excited about. 

[00:33:09] Corey Maass: I’m not buying Flea WP, but it’s cute. 

[00:33:10] Michelle Frechette: What’s that? 

[00:33:12] Corey Maass: I said I’m not buying Flea WP.com, but it’s cute. 

[00:33:17] Michelle Frechette: That is cute. Um, I like IPA WP I think that it gives the vibe of what we’re looking for and I think that’s great. I love it. 

[00:33:23] Corey Maass: Yeah. And it can, it can stand for whatever we want it to stand for, which I also like.

[00:33:27] Michelle Frechette: Exactly. Yeah. Same. Same. Um, but it gives that nice little vibe and the logo possibilities are endless with that too. 

[00:33:36] Corey Maass: WP Tavern already has the corner on beer. So, um.

[00:33:41] Michelle Frechette: It’s very specific old school logo. They have the, we can do something a little more fun. So.

[00:33:45] Corey Maass: It’s true. 

[00:33:46] Michelle Frechette: I’m just saying. Oops, I clicked the wrong thing. If you have comments, yeah. Go ahead and put them in the, in the, in the, um, what do you call it? In the, uh, thread.

[00:34:01] Corey Maass: Chat.

[00:34:02] Michelle Frechette: Chat, that’s the word. It’s been a long day, but the chat, if you have questions or comments or ideas to help us grow this idea, um.

[00:34:11] Corey Maass: That’s something that I want to figure out like like I said, I don’t want to start a new chat But I don’t I do want to so two things one. I’m I’m thinking of this in part as Chain letter as far as signing up and so it’s you know. We’re gonna we’re gonna tell a handful of people but encourage them to tell as many people as they want who they you know if they have a sense of of What we’re going for tell everybody you think who might be a good candidate. And I have a feeling that, you know, we’ll end up with some number, which will be great. Um, and. I think the other differentiator, and this is going to be where we actually end up again, using time instead of money, but we, we will need to put some effort into is I do want to do the, um, memes, the cute images, the, like creating assets, like we’re going to create our own marketing silliness or whatever, marketing assets and marketing campaigns and not go crazy with it, but have fun. Doing it. Um, and we might spend a little money, but not a lot. Um.

[00:35:29] Michelle Frechette: Exactly. 

[00:35:30] Corey Maass: And then, but I, but I do want to encourage people to anybody involved to throw in ideas. I think that’s the other, like, again, if there’s, there are going to be plenty of people going, Oh, this is another place to put a backlink. And then I never want to think about it again. Okay, fine. Um.

[00:35:52] Michelle Frechette: yeah that’s not what we are looking for, but, yeah. 

[00:35:54] Corey Maass: Um, you know, but it’s fine. It doesn’t hurt us. Um, at least not in any way I see right now. 

[00:36:00] Michelle Frechette: Agreed, agreed.

[00:36:03] Corey Maass: But the idea being, you know, as we email people going, you know, okay, you’re now part of this thing. Here’s what we’ve got in mind. Here’s what we’ve done so far. You know, please, please, please, please at least email your newsletter, you know, again, if it’s just, it’s something to talk about. So why wouldn’t you tweet, you know, when we tweet at you, you tweeted us. And like, again, let’s all like do a little, Hey, over here, kind of, you know, marketing attention, grab, um, But then also like, if you have an idea, like your, you know, puzzle idea or, you know, anything like anybody with any idea, send it like, and let’s see if we can coordinate, you know, specifically ideal and it, and even better if your plugin is the way we’re going to do it. Right. If you’re, if your plugin makes puzzles, double good. You know, um, give us a free license, give us a free copy, but we’ll use your plugin. We’ll point out that we used your plugin. And again, it’s like, you know, more, it’s, it’s more cooperation, more collaboration, like there’s some of that more partnership.

[00:37:11] Michelle Frechette: Mm-Hmm. The, the idea isn’t to build it and then just expect that SEO is gonna sudden suddenly do all the work to drive people to the site. It’s not about that at all. It’s about sharing it out through social and, and, uh, email that email marketing to drive people there to find out more about not only your plugin, which will then direct back to your website, but the other plugins that are in there, other businesses that are in there so that people see that there’s more, you know, ideas and ways to be successful through this. And that’s why we’re going to do the cross promotion as, as we all work promoting things on our own. Yeah, that’s great. Right. We have opportunities, we make sales, that kind of stuff. But when you can collaborate on those kinds of things is when the magic really has the potential to work. 

[00:38:00] Corey Maass: Yeah. And we’ll, and we’ll have to come, we’ll have to figure out problems like, okay, if there are two form plugins, You know, what do we, what do we do, if anything, and I’m not saying we don’t let them both in, but you know, how do we, how do we make sure that we’re not promoting one all the time or something like that, where. 

[00:38:20] Michelle Frechette: Or are we like a networking group where there’s just one person per seat? That’s a, that’s a possibility too. Right? So like when I was in a networking group that worked very much like BNI, but wasn’t BNI, it’s like, I was the only web designer. At the table. 

[00:38:32] Corey Maass: Right. 

[00:38:32] Michelle Frechette: And so people would recommend me and come to me and there was a benefit to that. 

[00:38:37] Corey Maass: And that’s the, that’s the model that comes to mind, but it’s also.

[00:38:42] Michelle Frechette: It can be limiting. 

[00:38:42] Corey Maass: Me, that’s going to be very limiting. Yeah. So we’ll have to. 

[00:38:47] Michelle Frechette: Think about that one. 

[00:38:48] Corey Maass: Figure it out. 

[00:38:49] Michelle Frechette: Yeah. Absolutely. I think it’s got potential. And I think I’d love to see how it works the first time through and if it has real potential for growth and how many people we can and I say people businesses, but businesses are people, right? Especially with small business like this, but if you are a business of one or two people we’re talking about people getting involved Um, but to see how we can help each other. 

Corey Maass: Say people again.

Michelle Frechette:I know i’ll say it again people, people, peeooople, people, people. People who need people anyway Isn’t that a song?

[00:39:22] Corey Maass: Knock brush.

[00:39:26] Michelle Frechette: Exactly. Um, but the idea to, to help one another and to really have the opportunity for growth that way and to pool resources of time and creativity, I think is the most is the biggest thing is to be able to do that. So I’m excited about it. 

[00:39:45] Corey Maass: Yep. So we now own a domain, two domains, because I bought, of course, IPAWP and WPIPA, cause you have to do that.

[00:39:54] Michelle Frechette: I hadn’t checked if that one was available. I’m glad it was. 

[00:39:57] Corey Maass: I checked. I checked. 

[00:39:59] Michelle Frechette: We have two five letter domains for like normal. We didn’t have to pay premium costs. Like that alone should tell people we know what we’re doing. Like amazing. 

[00:40:10] Corey Maass: And I really like that. Uh, so IPAWP. Which is what I would prefer to use. I’m for some, I’m always a WP after person cause I want, I want my thing. And then I need you to know that it’s WordPress. I don’t want WordPress. And then my thing, right? 

Michelle Frechette: I mean, I work at Steller WP, not WP Steller. 

[00:40:33] Corey Maass: Exactly. Um, but I’m looking at WP IPA, which also ends up being WPIPA, which is kind of cute.

[00:40:43] Michelle Frechette: As opposed to IPOP.

[00:40:44] Corey Maass:  These are, yes. 

[00:40:48] Michelle Frechette: IPAWP would be IPOP. 

[00:40:51] Corey Maass: Um, yeah, looks like, I think we own them. 

[00:40:57] Michelle Frechette: Awesome. 

[00:40:58] Corey Maass: Um, one, yeah, one, one, for whatever reason, my usual registrar was not letting me purchase it. And so I quick created an account with something else. So now I’m going to transfer it to my regular register. So they’re all in one place. 

[00:41:11] Michelle Frechette: That works. 

[00:41:11] Corey Maass: Uh, yeah. These, these are the. The, the silly world in which digital world in which we live. But, um, but I’ll create, um, yeah, go set up a site, just something. And, um, we’ll start brainstorming, but I do think, um, yeah, I, I think the other thing to start thinking about, and I will have to think about how to get people involved as quickly as possible is coming up with these sort of general guidelines of what we’re looking for inclusive but exclusive language. Um, and that’s why, you know, using words like craft, like it kind of, I feel like it implies what we want without, but lets us still be. Subjective. Um, and then, cause I, I, I really, really like the idea to, or focus on, um, like we’re not a, we’re not a marketing agency, obviously by any stretch, but in marketing resource, that’s what I want to say. Like this thing is more than just a directory where you then walk away. And so I think it’s important to have. At least some of these ideas set up. Let’s pick a date for doing a summer sale. Let’s pick a concept. We’ll have some assets like, you know, it doesn’t have to be a lot, but like you said, if we, you know, between the two of us, if we put 20 hours in, um, then  people, I want people to sign in and go, Oh, I can grab that.  I can do this. Like here’s a checklist of five things that everybody should do the moment they’ve joined that benefits everybody else. You know.

[00:42:56] Michelle Frechette: Yeah, absolutely. Um, and I can set up a private slack group in Post Status for business owners that do end up joining us so that we can have conversations in one place about that too.

[00:43:11] Corey Maass: And that’s, yeah, that was one of the first things that came to mind is, is not every, ultimately not everybody will be, a member of Post Status, but at least some portion of us right off the bat will. And so there’s a place we can start. 

[00:43:25] Michelle Frechette: Absolutely. And one of the places to start reaching out is the people that we know attend, like the, um, the Product Owners Meet Up and things like that, who are interested in learning and growing that way. It’s a great place to start for sure. 

[00:43:40] Corey Maass: Yeah. And you know, and down the road, more dreams like we bring in. Like this is an audience that have something in common. So we can bring in experts who want to do a talk about like about marketing and then pitch their, you know, pitch their, um, services or whatever, things like that. Like, how do you start a community? You, you know, chicken or the egg. So that’s, we have that first challenge. 

[00:44:06] Michelle Frechette: Yeah, for sure. For sure. It has to be people who are engaged and you have to do the job of engaging them, which is always the challenge, of course, figuring that out. And it all takes time, which is also the challenge, of course.

[00:44:22] Corey Maass: Right.  Well, let’s wrap early today. 

[00:44:27] Michelle Frechette: I’m excited about it. I feel like we are too. Um, again, if you’re interested, we’ll see you later. Hit us up in Slack or DMs on Twitter or any of the other places. I’m on LinkedIn and Facebook and all the places. I think you probably are tooCorey, um, reach out to either one of us or through our OMGIMG account, and we’ll be happy to get back to you and give you some more details and take your ideas. Cause this is an ideation, but it’s going to move fast because it’s not a summer sale if we get past September, if we get past August into September. So this is something that’s going to go quickly. And, uh, I’m excited about it. So thanks. All right. We’ll see everybody next week. We’ll tell you how far we got. Knock brush.