[OpenProducer platform] FundOSS goals, desired outcomes, and messaging

[gusaus]

The following is a mashup of our funding call to action + a trimmed-down version of OpenProducer/newspack-platform#9 (comment) originally posted by @majick777.

Marketing Message

The main drive of a funding campaign is to reach those with funds interested in our collective project(s)... Perhaps this is a separate topic but for brevity we need to identify target market and marketing channels ASAP if this is going to be worth the work we are putting in here. But we need the basic project description ala https://github.com/netmix/openproducer-platform/issues/27 to build each of these particular marketing messages around.

What exactly is Open Producer - not to us, but to a newcomer? How would you/do you describe it to someone you meet in the street? I think this question could provide additional message that we want to convey as the product/project that we are funding here... and also in shaping this message to fit the different marketing channels.

How it is now

FundOSS is pulling copy from our collective's 'about' section, so the funding aims and goals should focus on maintaining, updating, and supporting the platform. I think it's fine to put the bundler and other steps needed for 1.0 release in our messaging. Just not sure how much budget we'll be able to allocate after FundOSS.

This is the current CTA on our FundOSS and collective.

Your contributions will allow OpenProducer’s core team to bundle all preceding features into a turnkey solution for media makers and into a freely available open source platform. Your support allows the team to continuously update, maintain, and bolster the project for dependability.

Marketing Channels

This is a rough list of marketing channels we can hit up over the next 2 weeks, please feel free to add to it! Again though we need to add any new items ASAP so we can prioritize which to actually do, as time flows on and we may not have time for everything here by any means. (As we know, even writing copy for something simple can take more time than you'd think.)

• Email Lists
  -- Netmix newsletter list (requires email announcement copy)
  -- AzuraCast/LibreTime contact lists and forum announcements (requires email/forum announcement copy)
  -- personal industry contacts (requires email copy for someone to "share" to their list - not expect them to write it)
• Social Media - personal posts by members, group posts, etc. (needs description copy and someone to organize contacting of OP collective members and keep encouraging of this - not just expect it to be done.)
• Reach out - are there existing news points in the WordPress space that would be interested in covering this if we reach out?
  eg. A WP Tavern article? Poststatus.com newsletter? other industry news sites etc.
• Press Release - difficult given short time frame but could be worth it (requires a writer)
• Newspack - can we make a case for getting them to do any kind of promotion?

Given we have less than 10 days left in FundOSS, I think the majority of our time spent on this project in that time should be focussed on the marketing so that we gather the funds needed to make things happen. With Radio Station Pro, we are moving from a product development phase to a marketing phase... Similarly here, we need to move to a marketing phase (hopefully in parallel) - the difference being of course that the development phase for these features will come after that.