The Savvy Digital August 13th, 2022
A whole new name with the same old weird. Hello, friend! I hope your weekend is off to a great start. Have a newsletter!
Adventure is on the other side of fear.
That’s what we’re told anyway. Adventure is on the other side of fear is another thing I’ve seen written about taking risks and living your life to its fullest.
I went sailing for the first time yesterday. While I didn’t die, I was definitely doing handstands on the deck of a sailboat and not because I was showing off either. It was a feature, not a bug.
What I Bookmarked This Week
Do the things that are difficult to scale
Awesome customer service is one of the best tools you have at your disposal. When you invest time in your customer’s ability to do business and if you can improve their experience with your product/company through that personal touch you win.
Things I Wish I knew When I began working for myself…
Sometimes Less is More
In a world of never-ending feature races, where utility and productivity continue to increase, it can be refreshing to say and offer less… Brilliant marketing or nah? h/t @camber
In WordPress
A little bit of drama…
In WordPress news, there was a bit of the #wpdrama over the last couple of days thanks to Matt-in-Chief of Automattic.
A volunteer responded with an update on an upcoming design change for the WordPress homepage. Brian Coords was frustrated.
Mullenweg cited loss of version control and a lack of planning for testing the new layout and the time spent building a block layout version of the homepage as reasons he wasn’t too happy about Coord’s update.
It’s funny to me that Mullenweg has an issue with using the block editor for the WordPress.org homepage, given how he forced Gutenberg on everyone with the release of WordPress 5.0. Sure, I see the concern of losing version control of the homepage but platforms like Wix, Webflow, Squarespace, (and Elementor) have had that issue figured out for some time.
Late voices and mystery voices have a way of upending a project. We’ll see if cooler heads prevail
Twenty Twenty-Three Theme Breaks Ground
The new default theme for WordPress has begun development. And by the looks of it, it appears to be a non-opinionated theme, something of a minimalist layout and design. I like it!
You can take the new theme for a spin by visiting the Github repo here: https://github.com/WordPress/twentytwentythree.
Pasadena WordPress Meetup
If you’re a weirdo, like WordPress, and live nearby Pasadena I have an event just for you (hosted by yours truly).
https://www.meetup.com/wordpress-pasadena/events/287664438/
Converting WordPress Classic Blocks to Block Editor Blocks
A nifty plugin that provides a UI and helps convert those pesky Classic Blocks over to native blocks. https://github.com/MarieComet/convert-classic-to-gutenberg.
Rethinking Pricing in the WordPress Space
Jon Christopher, the developer behind the SearchWP Plugin, penned his thoughts regarding how WP Product devs price their products. He recently released a new version of his OrganizeWP product. He discusses the sense and viability of the widely adopted Subscription Pricing model vs a Major Version Payment option.
I’m intrigued by it but also surprised we haven’t seen this in the WP space before now. We’ll see how it goes.
Actionables
What to Write
There’s a prevailing thought specific to copywriting and one that I’ve incorrectly adopted over the years: Say what you want in as few words as you can. It’s nice in theory but terrible in practice.
Be clear, not confusing. Heck, I’m not clear on our homepage. “Get Where You’re Growing.” It’s clever and concise but not clear.
Good Examples
WP Fusion nails it. The headline especially sells what their product does. Guess who wrote that (it me)?
Shopify
Chef’s kiss.
Could be better…
WP Engine
I don’t care that you’re #1 in hosting, I care about being #1 with my customers. How does you being #1 make me #1?
How to Write
If you’ve never heard of Jonathan Stark, I highly recommend my freelancer, and agency-owning colleagues check out his book and podcast on Ditching Hourly billing. I’m a member of his Ditcherville community, and he shared some thoughts on how to get into the practice of writing regularly scheduled content
Length—The average word count for my daily emails is 322 words per message (so, pretty short). If I have a longer idea, I break it into multiple messages.
Friction—It’s really worth hyper-optimizing something you do every day. Remove as much friction as humanly possible from each phase of the process (i.e., capture, writing, editing, publishing, syndication). Every little thing you remove or improve about the process will compound toward your success.
Focus—The more clear you are on who is my ideal reader? and what is my promise to them?, the easier it will be for you to come up with useful ideas. For more info on this, read through my rants on positioning yourself and content solar system.But the biggest thing to do is just decide that you do daily emails now.
It’s not a question of IF you’re going to write an email today, it’s a question of WHEN.If it sucks, send it anyway.
Use the embarrassment as fuel to do better on the next one.
Most people I have spoken with have a hard time with the first 30 days or so.After that, something clicks and they start to love it.
Did you love this edition? Hate it? Reply and let me know!
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