Ways to Promote RapidWeaver & Addon Developers

[dan (Dan C.)]

Starting a new thread here for suggestions on ways we can market RapidWeaver and the surrounding ecosystem to bring in new users.

Copied over all the excellent suggestions from @Fuellemann as the other thread had gone off the rails. Want to keep this all in one place.

Please keep the suggestions coming. If we can work out some solid strategies, it will help us all!

I have to give a hat-tip to @joeworkman for his zoom calls/YouTube videos as I think ht’s probably the most prolific creator of RW related content. We probably need to be a bit more like Joe.

@Fuellemann

One of the things I miss is a list why a static website could be an advantage compared to WP or other online services. Security etc. A FAQ perhaps?

What I is definitely necessary is a showcase of really nice websites made with RW. They have to meet some criteria (like working well on mobile, etc.) and earn a sticker from RW for excellence. Which the designer can use on his/her website if wanted.

Perhaps the users can even vote for a website of the month on your homepage/ showcase so that you have some sort of interaction on your site? You can feature them in your newsletter, etc.

@Fuellemann

Next, I would engage a writer for your Blog, so you have a steady flow of articles surrounding Macs and Webdesign in general.

Right now it seems you blog whenever there is a quota of time available. This looks - in my eyes and yes, it is the same for my own site - unprofessional.

An article a month should not cost a lot and you can work on the technical site of things. But you lure Mac users interested of Web design to your site.

@Fuellemann

Next, do some voluntary actions:

Gather 3 to 5 website developers using RW. Each of them offers to create one Website for a non-profit cause (no shop or too complicated things) but around 5 pages of content and perhaps a blog. Legal information (data protection etc.) has to be provided by the non-profit.

Write a press release. You are looking for companies hit by Corona, mostly small companies or single person companies, and you offer a free website service. RealMac will cover hosting costs for one year, the developers will built the site.

I think all of us will profit from such a PR and more companies will ask developers to built sites.

Things To-Do for this:

• offer a website developer listing on your site (a bit like the add-on developers)
• charge a minimal maintenance fee for this listing (around 100,- Euro a year)
• Make a dedicated website for this PR action
• Have PR written and distributed

There will be more requests than developers I think, so the developers can offer a reduced price for the non-profits which can not benefit from this free action.

@Fuellemann

Next, gain more attention:

Offer a live Zoom call: How to build a website in one hour with just RW and some predefined images and text (no stacks and frameworks this time, just out of the box).

This is a recurring event once every 2 months. Every time you have 5 RW licenses to give away, so that you will get attention and the media can place this into a listing of workshops or such.

Repeat this for a year.

@Fuellemann

Next bring in the stack-developers and theme builders for the customer:

Offer a Q&A session every month for one hour and feature one developer in this hour. Talk about website development and how the products of the developer helps to produce great solutions. Talk about how the developer decided to use RW, his thoughts on website and software etc. (I would love to see @Elixir talk about his work).

[ben]

@Fuellemann

What I is definitely necessary is a showcase of really nice websites made with RW. They have to meet some criteria (like working well on mobile, etc.) and earn a sticker from RW for excellence. Which the designer can use on his/her website if wanted.

Perhaps the users can even vote for a website of the month on your homepage/ showcase so that you have some sort of interaction on your site?

We have a gallery on the Community - it is a bit stale at the moment, however I have plans promote it and get more submissions.

I like the idea of “voting” of some sort - perhaps just a like button?

@Fuellemann

You can feature them in your newsletter, etc.

I will be starting a Weaver Weekly newsletter in the near future - this will include links to submit your site to the gallery

@Fuellemann

Right now it seems you blog whenever there is a quota of time available

I have just built a blog for the Community site - I have really announced it yet as it’s a WIP, however this is something I plan on posting to regularly.

@Fuellemann

offer a website developer listing on your site (a bit like the add-on developers)

This is a really interesting idea - I like it! A services listing of sorts - it could be tied to a company, so you could list addons and services you offer (web design, hosting, you name it).

@Fuellemann

Offer a live Zoom call: How to build a website in one hour with just RW and some predefined images and text (no stacks and frameworks this time, just out of the box).

I have had a similar idea to this for a while - live stream building a page/site in RW. I have considered doing this exclusively for community subscribers.

@Fuellemann

Offer a Q&A session every month for one hour and feature one developer in this hour. Talk about website development

Dan and I did do a weekly podcast for an entire year - and then ever other week for a while after that. I really enjoyed doing it, but I can’t say we noticed any major benefits from it WRT sales/numbers.

It’s also quite a bit of work to prepare for a show - especially when interviewing someone. I have the feeling that there’s other things that would move the needle faster/further.

Thanks for all the ideas - I will definitely be acting on some of these. If anyone has anything else they would like to see on the Community site please let me know - we’re trying to make it as valuable for both you guys and all RW users

Cheers,
Ben

[Fuellemann (Jan Fuellemann)]

I like the idea of “voting” of some sort - perhaps just a like button?

Yes, that would be fine.

I have had a similar idea to this for a while - live stream building a page/site in RW. I have considered doing this exclusively for community subscribers.

As long as they do not have to pay, yes. This is a showcase of how easily a website can be done to attract buyers.

Dan and I did do a weekly podcast for an entire year - and then ever other week for a while after that. I really enjoyed doing it, but I can’t say we noticed any major benefits from it WRT sales/numbers

I am using RW for such a long time and never heard of it Is there still a link?
But in my experience a podcast will not do. Try a video and add it to YouTube, called “Website creation for macOS: Developer insights” or similar. Perhaps every 3 months?

Thanks for looking into my suggestions
Jan

[dan (Dan C.)]

@Fuellemann

I am using RW for such a long time and never heard of it Is there still a link?
But in my experience a podcast will not do. Try a video and add it to YouTube, called “Website creation for macOS: Developer insights” or similar. Perhaps every 3 months?

I like this idea. What say you @ben - shall we do it?

[instacks (Jannis from inStacks Software)]

My ideas to promote RW (and its addons) are more functionality based. IMO, only if the core product in itself (without addons) is “a cool product people like to use” it’s able to build the base new customers come in and later on also purchase our addons.

Overall UI streamlining

I really like the way Apple redesigned the standard Mail app on Big Sur. I image such a redesign and simplification also for RW9.

Remove the old themes and add new ones

RW was always good on selecting a predefined theme and just start writing. Most of the supplied themes are really old. Remove them, or at least hide them by default.
In addition, bring back developer created themes like ii was in RW6 and RW7.

New editor

In times of Medium.com or Gutenberg Editor, the Styles text page editor type looks outdated.
I loved the basic page editor you’ve included in RW8 beta, and I never understood it wasn’t possible in 2(?) years to bring it into the final product.

New layout options

It’s difficult to understand why it’s not possible to create like an iterating 1-2-1-2 column layout. It must be possible to have more layout options also without the stacks plugin.

Reusable formatting rules and font selector

It might be to hard for the average RW user to use CSS classes. You could hide these in some kind of “reuseable formatting rules”, which can be applied in the text editor.
In addition to that, it should be possible to add custom fonts also in the core product.

[Elixir (Adam Shiver)]

@dan If you’ve purchased NCD’s theme library, that would be a great way to improve v9. Add all of those themes to the app itself. People will love that! Seriously.