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Mithrandir wrote:
One of the fuzzy things is what you want exactly from the official XOOPS team, Ken. Am I right in thinking that you want something comparable to pages 3 to 5 of the OpenOffice marketing plan to build on?
This post is an example of exactly what I want from the official XOOPS team.
Feedback, direction, your XOOPS environment knowledge, official appointment, commitment to the project.
Regarding the OpenOffice marketing plan - yes, I would like to have the board's
input on that type of marketing goals, and once these goals are established for XOOPS,
a commitment to achieving those goals.
As I have discussed earlier, there may be some effort required from the development
side to meet certain marketing goals. Some very easy, some more difficult.
Exactly what will be needed will not be known until the competitive analysis is done.
I want board commitment to some level of development which may be required.
My concern - the marketing project is expected to operate autonomously rather than
be a part of the whole. The user focus I have discussed before is very important.
How successful the project will be in the long-term will depend on development also.
The XOOPS Foundation goals are somewhat general.
To create more specific marketing goals, I am looking for input such as the remainder
of your post.
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To give my initial views:1) Search engines are fine, and getting more people visit this site would be good - however, we HAVE many users, we HAVE many visitors.
We have someone offering to do this.
SE marketing is a piece of a marketing plan.
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What I want is that when someone does get to this site, relevant information is available and easy to find.
I have been thinking about this.
The XOOPS site is huge, complicated, and not structured to sell.
It is an information site, not a marketing site.
We need a XOOPS Marketing Project web site.
We can use it to manage the project and as a showcase for XOOPS.
Requirements are simple: able to install a customized XOOPS, able to self-manage
all aspects of that site (this would include FTP access).
Where this is is unimportant to me.
A subweb here. A stand alone site.
While I would prefer it be here, we can pursue another situation if needed.
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2) Having many users is not a goal in itself. I am not doing all this work in order to satisfy someone in Texas, who learn about XOOPS next week. I am doing it for YOU. You, who already know about XOOPS and use it on your site. I'm doing it for you, who are thinking about trading XOOPS for another CMS (hopefully making you change your mind). I'm doing it for myself, because it will reflect well on me to be part of a respected project.
Marketing wise - current users (customers) are the best source of new business.
The current database is filled with the kind of users you want to target
who for whatever reason did not get XOOPS up and running for their project.
This is another area I would like to see commitment from the board.
I have never received any communication from XOOPS since I registered.
Active outgoing communication is a must.
A once a month mailing of news and info would be very useful.
Even quarterly to start would be wonderful.
I am sure thousands of the web site members have opted-in to receive email.
Not using this channel is just nuts.
I know there is an issue with the web site performance and emailing the list.
Maybe we (the marketing team) could negotiate a free deal with an outside mailer.
Perhaps we could use an email program on a local machine and throttle it
to do the mailing over 5 days.
Perhaps we could do the mailing in blocks each day at the web site's lowest
traffic level and throttle it to minimize the impact.
What ever the final solution, we must do this mailing.
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I want reviewers and journalists to be able to review XOOPS and honestly say that it is a good product that they can recommend.
One thing you can count on is them being honest.
Plan on an honest assessment - this may be unpleasant, it may be wonderful.
And hopefully factually correct - our job to help insure this (XOOPS all of us).
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[Competitors]
We are up against tough competition. There are commercial systems such as MS SharePoint, Sitecore and others. There are open source systems such as Xaraya, PostNuke, Mambo and OpenSourceCMS. What do we have that they don't have? Two strengths, I do think we can use: Easy to setup, easy to trial (especially relevant in competition with the commercial systems) and focus on security (relevant in competition with the other OS PHP systems)
These type items are what will be what we are trying to discover in the competitive analysis.
You may be surprised.
What we consider easy setup may be difficult for the target user.
This is an area where I would like board commitment.
We definitely should target users where XOOPS has what they need now.
Invariably there will be items which they require that we do not know about.
I would like a commitment from the board to attempt to meet these needs.
Easy stuff should happen almost immediately (like my easy examples in posts above).
More difficult items should at a minimum be added to the ToDo list.
Basically what I am looking for from the board is some level of commitment to user-focus.
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[Conclusion]
My personal opinion is that we should aim at increasing the market share in the area of small and medium enterprises that need interaction on their websites (not just static information pages), have multiple roles in managing the content (e.g. providers, editors and approvers) and have IT responsible employees.
This would be a great target market.
** Small and medium sized companies with at least one dedicated IT person.
Does that sound like a good description?
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The last one perhaps needs a little explanation: XOOPS does not have a lot of consultants connected to the project, we cannot guarantee support and we cannot (yet) guarantee quality of 3rd party modules etc. Therefore XOOPS is not a viable solution, in my eyes, for a small company without IT personnel who can learn the system and provide internal support.
This would be another fantastic target market.
** Third-party integrators or consultants.
You get one integrator and you get multiple installations.
They are also a good project resource.
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A more long term goal could very well be that it should be usable by anyone, regardless of IT knowledge, but XOOPS as of today is not like that, I think, and that is what we should focus on: How XOOPS is right now.
Ease-of-use is important no matter the client size.
A commitment to this user-focus should over time make XOOPS easier for all sized clients.
The two target markets above seem to fit the "How XOOPS is right now" quite well.
If we can confirm these are the first two target markets for this project,
we will have made progress. Please confirm this with the other "official" members.
Herko, we need your thoughts and input on all of this.
So more what I would like to see/hear from the board:
- Yes, we want to pursue the XOOPS Marketing Project.
- Yes, we are committed to supporting the project.
- Yes, we confirm you (me) as the XOOPS Marketing Project Lead. (a mandate)
- Yes, we will help by setting up a subweb for the project.
- And the stuff I mentioned above.
Regards,
Ken
