This article is part of a series – Internet Marketing For Every WordPress Startup.
- Part 1 of the guide explains why good communication skills through blog, transparency and friendliness are essential ingredients of every successful WordPress startup and how all your efforts will be multiplied by the level of passion you show for your work.
- Part 2 turns your attention to things that will convince others of your quality service by demonstrating your credibility and availability.
- Part 3 is all about search engine optimization.
4. Credibility
Credibility is the capability to elicit belief and it is one of those things that draw the line between a professional and an amateur. The way you earn other people’s trust is by exposing your work and sharing your products for them to use and learn from.
Credibility shows commitment and helps your likeability factor.
Freebie Marketing
Since its first appearance, freebie marketing never subsided. You may want to release quality freebies from time to time. To quote our WordPress developer, Slobodan Manic (yes, Manic is his real lastname) –
It’s better to make one high quality WordPress product, than to release mediocre ones often.
Everybody likes free stuff, especially if it’s high quality goods.
If people like things you create they’ll want to connect with you either on social networks, by email or using rss. Make sure you treat your new friends kindly and provide them with interesting, weekly blog posts or monthly newsletters with discounts, promotions or news on things they might benefit from.
For gathering your future friends’ and clients’ info I suggest a service called MailChimp. It’s easy to implement and it even has a free plan that will work fine for just about any WordPress startup.
Be sure to put your social icons in the footer of each freebie, blog post or newsletter and don’t hesitate to ask for a feedback.
Q/A Networks for Professionals
Engage any of the networks that fit your niche – quora, forrst, dribbble, linkedin and try to comment and give answers to topics you find to be the quality ones. Not only will you learn something new by reading other people’s posts and comments but this communication might spark an idea or two and maybe even a friendship. You should aim at quality and consistency and not quantity of your answers, and try doing this at least twice a week.
Don’t forget to participate in the most important WordPress network of them all ~
WordPress Support Forum. It will build your authority in the eyes of WordPress founders, who often spend time there.
Testimonials
Another way of showcasing your quality work is by using Testimonials. People love stories because they can relate to them. Testimonials is what makes a difference in the end, between someone getting ready to close the deal with you or that someone leaving your website.
Include a picture of the person that is willing to give you a testimonial. This will increase the trust and persuasion level.
5. Availability
A way of saying you care about what your friends, customers and what you do is availability.
It’s very important for you to respond to every comment on your blog in a timely manner, because this shows your respect and care for your audience and it also increases possibility of further engagement. As long as you maintain a chat-like (not snailmail-like) ambiance for the crowd, you’ll have them return for more. The same goes for questions they may have for you on twitter, your forum or through email.
Incorporate ‘Thank You’ into your marketing plan.
Stay in contact with people you used to work with.
Use your Signature on all emails with info such as you website address, your twitter and linkedin accounts or your skype handle and phone number, so you can generate awareness and be reachable at all times.
Twitter is a great marketing tool for all Web Designers and Developers, as it allows you to express your interests, your personality, creativity and engage with other fellow WordPress fans.
Using hash tags is important. By putting the symbol “#” in front of the subject you’re tweeting about, your tweets become a part of a larger topic. For example, when you release a new WordPress freebie you could tweet it like this –
Check out this #WordPress #plugin I’ve just finished. http://goo.gl/uZRGl
Your tweet will be seen by people that are interested in either WordPress or plugins or both.
Twitter is fairly simple to use and there is no reason why you should neglect it. There are other twitter related resources where you can add yourself and find more of your soulmates. Just do a search for twitter directories or use a tool called Followerwonk.
but…
don’t rely too much on social media
A lot of people use huge amount of time for their social media campaigns, when they should be focusing on search engines. Your website is your throne. Do not put your efforts so much into social networks at the expense of your website, where audience expects to find the information.
Social media marketing strategies are very useful, but if you’re just getting started with WordPress and you’re short on time and money, your resources are better spent focusing on your website content and doing a good SEO rather than trying to gather an army of twitter followers.
In the end, the difference between great WordPress designers and developers that are constantly engaged in new projects and those that are equally great, but struggle to find gigs are ~
- communication skills – blog, friendliness, transparency
- proof of expertise – credibility and availability
The final part, part 3 of this guide to internet marketing will tackle search engine bon ton and why this affects not only your articles’ rankings but their usability as well.
I hope I managed to shed some light on how to do marketing for all you web-developers, designers and WordPress start-ups. If you use an approach that I overlooked, please, do act as true friends and share it with me – I’m sure it’ll add to your credibility.