[ad_1] Marketing consultant Bridget Willard announced the first commercial content pack for her Launch With Words project. Last week, she released a set of 12 blog posts for roofing contractors, but there are more on the way for industry-specific content. In January, alongside Ronald Huereca of MediaRon, Willard launched the Launch With Words plugin. The initial project supported a single “starter pack” of draft blog posts to prompt website owners to publish something new each month to build their brand. The plugin itself is primarily an importer. For the developer crowd, Huereca has a post that covers the technical details of the project. It is well worth a read to see how he approached building the plugin. The idea was unique. Willard had written starter content for both the default Twenty Nineteen and Twenty Twenty WordPress themes. She then asked why no one was doing the same for post content. Thus, a new product was born. The roofing content pack carries a price tag of $497. Companies can publish the posts directly on their sites or customize the content for their locale. The imported content is a set of 12 blog posts specific to the roofing industry, each set as a draft that users can publish on their own schedule. Each is around 500+ words and includes headings, links, and quotes. Preview of a daft post. “So many roofing contractors don’t address the frequently asked questions from property owners,” said Willard. “These blog posts address 12. Having content that is turnkey ready allows them to have more content to share on social media as well as helping their SEO efforts.” She has been writing about the construction industry for over 20 years, so this was an easy jumping-in point. The challenge was creating this first pack while also publishing two new books and wrangling client work. With things settling down a bit, she thinks monthly pack releases are a more realistic target. Future Content and Starter Packs Willard is already working on a new content pack that focuses on general contractors, which she may split into two products between residential and commercial. She plans to have at least one ready by the end of the month. The long-term goal is to hire other writers to cover industries where she has less knowledge. First, she needs a few more sales to bring others on board. She may also create some industry-specific blogging prompts similar to the starter pack that is available for free. These would also come at a lower price point of around $97. “The starter pack (blog prompts) aren’t mutually exclusive with the premium packs,” said Willard. “They can be used together. Ideally, they should be used together. Because the content packs are JSON files, and the posts are imported as drafts, they can be written (prompts) or localized (premium) and scheduled. It’s the best of both worlds.” Writing, Writing, and More Writing “Writing is the way I can teach and solidify my legacy,” said Willard. “It’s super important for me to create a life worth living. Sadly, I found this out after a mental health emergency in February of 2020.” Her most recent book is The Only Online Marketing Book You Need for Your Nonprofit, co-authored by Warren Laine-Naida. Adrian Tobey, the founder of Groundhogg.io, also contributed an extra chapter. “You can’t create unless you consume,” said Willard when asked how she kept up her pace and the creative juices flowing. “I prioritize reading fiction and nonfiction, watching documentaries, taking walks in my neighborhood, going to a museum or a park alone to think and reflect and spend time with my friends laughing and playing card games. “The best thing for a writer to do is to write. Don’t worry about whether other people already talked about your subject. Don’t worry about what people will say. This is why we love WordPress. Start publishing.” Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link
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Alex Denning and Iain Poulson Launch FlipWP, an Acquisitions Marketplace for WordPress Companies – WordPress Tavern
[ad_1] Alex Denning and Iain Poulson launched FlipWP today, a private marketplace to facilitate acquisitions for WordPress companies. WP Engine’s recent published research, which estimates the WordPress economy at $596.7B, has inspired confidence in the ecosystem. An increasing number of acquisitions announced over the past month is also reinforcing the need for a more centralized marketplace for these opportunities. “Iain and I started talking a lot more regularly a year ago, when he started Plugin Rank,” Denning said. “He was getting people asking him for acquisition opportunities, and with Ellipsis I was getting clients asking for help evaluating acquisitions and with sales. There was no go-to marketplace, so in March we started talking about working together on solving the problem.” Sellers can list on FlipWP privately for free and buyers handle their own sales, with no exclusivity obligation. The site doesn’t charge for listings and it doesn’t take commission from any sales. The $299 membership for buyers opened today, which offers access to FlipWP’s email list of acquisition opportunities. Listings include business data, such as ARR and monthly profit, the asking price, and commentary about the opportunity from FlipWP. Buyers can reach out directly to sellers with no middleman involved. In the past, finding a buyer for a WordPress company required having a wide network, knowing the right people, or posting on various marketplaces like Flippa and MicroAcquire. “Every week I was hearing about another acquisition, getting an email from someone looking to buy a plugin business, or emails from developers asking the best way to sell,” Poulson said. “The need for a WordPress specific acquisition marketplace became more and more apparent.” The Acceleration of Acquisitions in the WordPress Ecosystem There is a lot of buzz on Twitter lately, questioning whether an active acquisition market is a healthy development. Some have expressed concern about small, independent tools getting bought up by larger companies and worry that consolidation will lead to lack of competition. Eric Karkovack wrote in a post speculating on the future of plugin acquisitions, entertaining the possibility that “a few big players simply set the rules for everyone else to follow:” Frankly, it’s becoming a lot harder for solo entrepreneurs or small development shops to manage a popular plugin. Supporting a large userbase while also focusing on the future could become overwhelming. Thus, it’s not surprising to see that some of these products are being sold off to larger firms. We saw something similar happen with internet providers back in the early 2000s. The more mature the market, the harder it became for a small company to carry out its mission. Pretty soon, they were just about all bought up by corporate interests. While that may not fully reflect the case here, it seems to at least be trending in that direction… It will take some time. But there might come a day when a typical business website runs plugins from perhaps only a few big development houses. Not everyone shares this same bleak outlook on the potential effects of consolidation. During Matt Mullenweg’s Q&A at WordCamp Europe, Brian Krogsgard asked what these acquisitions mean for the health of the WordPress economy. Mullenweg sees it as a positive development that should spur more creation: It’s a really exciting time because it feels so robust and healthy. The fact that these exits are happening then creates more incentives for something new to be created, either from the alumni of these companies or by people that know that they can get something to a certain point and sell it to one of these companies. It’s actually not very different from Google and Yahoo and all of these companies that buy up lots of startups. Guess what, that created way more startups, some of which became Airbnb and Uber and challenged the tech giants. That’s the beauty of how the ecosystem works. Poulson and Denning are also optimistic that FlipWP will open up more opportunities for business owners to get connected and accelerate the process for all parties involved. “The acquisition trend is indicative of WordPress maturing,” Denning said. “If WP Engine thinks the WordPress economy is worth $597 billion dollars and the biggest public companies in WordPress are worth ~$20bn, we’re about $577bn short. A lot of that number will be made up through the small businesses we see getting sold, and until now they’ve not had a way of selling other than ‘post it on Slack.’ If that study is right, then the one-most-weeks rate of acquisitions might actually be significantly too low, and those businesses are being undervalued, too. We can make it much easier for buyers to find quality WordPress listings, and we can make it much easier for sellers to get the best price.” Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link
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