Other Businesses & MODx

I love asking obscure questions, but I’m sure there are a few folks running small web design/development businesses here who use MODx, but I’d like to know what folks think about actually marketing MODx on your site.

I can’t recall whose website this is off the top of my head, but this I think the following is an example of a good way of going about selling (selling the idea, not in the taking money sense) the product to potential customers: http://www.limesharp.co.uk

So, whilst there are plenty of ways to "sell" the product to customers, are there any don’ts? For example, are you allowed to use the logo (provided you were asking permission of course). Are tehre any words you should steer clear of, or are they the usual words like "associated" and so forth.

Really I suppose I’m asking if there are any rules, or whether using common sense is the best course of action. I suppose in the end you could just as easily show the page to the MODx staff before unveiling it to the public as another way of making sure everything’s alright, but it’s nice to get things right first time

You mention our friends at LimeSharp, but I guess as we get more and more attention, you’ll find more and more people explicitly pitching MODx at clients. You sure have noticed it’s a strategic choice for LimeSharp, they also pitch KnowledgeTree, LimeMail and CubeCart. Right now, not many people (to my knowledge) have chosen to do so.

Being specialized in a given solution has its pros and cons.

Pros : If a client already knows that he wants MODx for his website (or that MODx is in its shortlist), he’ll most definitely choose someone based on his knowledge and experience building websites with it (that plus checking out his previous work of course). As time goes by and your MODx portfolio grows, you’ll dig a position in the MODx specialist sub-market. And that’s good if MODx reputation continues to spread. In a way, choosing this strategy is betting on MODx success

Cons: If you’re a small webdesign/development business, more likely than not most of your work is small/medium businesses too. It means, more often than not, that the would-be client has no idea what he wants or at least no clear idea - and he sure does not know a lot about CMSes, the benefits of webstandards or accessibility. Most of what is knows is tied to what he saw on the web (and liked) and what his/her friend told them about the software they’re using for their company. Pitching MODx explicitly does not help your selling websites. It might be that your prospect wonders if a single solution can fit all needs and if you’re not trying to fit your solutions into his needs.

I don’t know about you, but as far as I am concerned the way I went about selling my services is : translate into layman terms what is great about modern webdesign and web applications. What it means to them.

XHTML, CSS ? Might mean something to you but your client won’t care really. What he wants to know is that the choice he makes today are the best way to reduce development and maintenance cost thanks to the separation of content and presentation (a concept he will understand), to guarantee that he will be able to have his website displayed on a PDA or phone, that old or disabled people will be able to change font size or click on menu items, etc...

MODx ? Hmmmm, I sure am a big advertiser for it but it’s not what I start with.

I start with the concept behind the tool : flexibility (you’re not locked into a pattern), modularity (by splitting content into manageable sized chunks, I work faster and maitenance is easier), scalability (you want to evolve ? well you have a framework to build upon) and user friendliness (a quickedit demo is worth a thousand words and even though it still suffers from shortcomings, clients like the MODx admin).

Then I mention MODx as a tool and why it fits all of the above. I talk about the guys behing the tool, the fact that it’s experienced people behind the wheel. That there is an extended dev team, a tester team. Of course I mention the cutting edge technology, the community and open source benefits. Then I show some sample websites, that you can do whatever you want in terms of design.

My strategy is somewhat of a funnel : I start wide and finish narrow.
Kind of the opposite of what LimeSharp does : start narrow (MODx) and go wide (client benefits).

Of course, things will change with MODx new core. We’re one step up with MODx become a full blown web application framework. Marketing will have to adjust to the new capabilities and possibly new positionning (against RoR, Django... etc ? We’ll see).

If you want a brief info about the legalities, see: MODx, the GPL and me

Cheers David.

There’s some realy good points there and that’s probably the way I’d go about itas well - the wide-to-narrow approach exlpaining how things work and things the client should be considering, and then getting onto specific products at a later stage (if they even want to know things in that much detail!)

I need to re-do my business site soon so I’ll bear all this in mind and let you know what I come up with

An interesting topic and I am certainly happen to throw my thoughts in.

Firstly it is fair to say that Modx is the only CMS we choose to offer, but its flexible, expandable and meets most client needs in the areas and profile of business we target. Knowledgtree and LimeMail, as indeed SMF are generally marketed as additions to Modx which have been integrated. Cubecart is then used for eCommerce, but there are lots of solutions. I would say, if your small, don’t try to support many different CMS solutions. Its better to be an expert in one, rather than just average in many. (and more fun)

Strategy: I speak to lots of independant web designers and there are lots of talented people out there but they are not always successful at winning new business. You have to market well and able to communicate at the right business level and be pro-active, its key. Strong Design and HTML skills is not enough on its own. But once your user base is growing then, providing your doing a good job, you will get recommedations and everything gets easier.

I hardly get time to post anything these days as our own order book always seems to extend to the next 3-4 months. But there is a lot of opportuntity and Modx is an excellent CMS tool for both small and medium sized businesses and organisations. As long as you stay within reasonable guidelines I dont think you will have any problems with marketing Modx. Just make sure you sell the benefits and not the features, customers care about Return On Investment (ROI), Reliability, Ease-of-use.

You also have to have strong USP’s. In any business you are supplying a solution to solve a problem or address a need and there is a lot of commpetition - Understand 100% what your target customers want, how much they are prepared to pay and once you have all the facts, you will answer your own questions and then you can work out your business model and run it by Modx as appropiate

All the best for the future

Thanks again for posting your experiences and suggestions folks.

Talking of getting a client base established, I was wondering if anyone wanted to share their experiences of what methods of marketing work and what doesn’t?

Straying slightly from the MODx theme I started with, but I’m picking up some really good info here

Sales calls and referrals. Face-to-face time and have a stack of cool business cards.

Yes I am with Ryan here.

Dont think that becuase you develop a nice website you will get lots of business you won’t... there are 1000’s of competitor sites

Traditional marketing still rules

I’m currently trying out letters and neat leaflets through the letterbox with a nice friendly intro, howwever as with most of these things it’s proving to generate something like 2% leads from all the bits and pieces sent out.

There’s just too much mail dropping through people’s letterboxes nowadays and even printing some catchy stuff on the outside of your envelopes doesn’t seem to help much any more.

I very much look forward to a point where more of my business comes from referrals

That’s about a standard direct response rate for mailpieces Pete... maybe a bit on the high side actually. Network, network, network.