I officially started Ministry of Testing in 2011, though it had been going as an online community since 2007. I've always handled the community & marketing side of things.
Here is my reflection (ie brain dump) of my efforts. Happy to answer any questions.
- I never lost focus that it was all about the community first
- I never lost focus that it was about improving the testing industry
- I always asked myself if what I was doing would be helpful
- I listened to the community
- I never did surveys
- I made decisions based on what I felt the community wanted
- I focused on things one day at a time
- I kept doing what worked, dropped what wasn't
- I experimented lots with the community, some things worked, others not so much.
- We co-created many things - from forum posts, to articles, to events and a testing card deck!
- I started a weekly newsletter before most people were doing it
- I kept at the newsletter even when it made me proper stressed some days
- I collected blogs from the community and shared them in an automated way
- I stole ideas from across the web/globe that I thought would be a good fit for the community
- I stayed mindful that some tactics work for others wouldn't work for us
- Always did my best to remain an ethical business
- I focused on doing good things that I thought were valuable
- Always thought marketing activities with a specific ROI sucked, too many things can't be measured.
- I showed up, every single day.
- We made it a safe place, cut out the spam and bad vibes.
- Never got too obsessed with analytics or data, with community, you can see when things are working, or not.
- I looked for win-win scenarios
- We grew sustainably
- Never spent money on ads
- Ignored the competition
- Sucked at SEO
- We did well on social
- Built a real community, on and offline
- Looked for opportunities to help testers grow
- Built a brand that testers loved
- Invested in keeping a community forum going even when things were quiet
- Sporadically posted to Quora and Reddit
- Created a FlipBoard which drives almost as much traffic as social networks
- Created a LinkedIn group in the early days which drove a lot of early members
- Linked Group was great as another message/email marketing tool (functionality no longer exists)
- Cried with the moderation I had to do with said LinkedIn group
- Created 30 day challenges for the community to participate in
- Regularly publish articles from the community
- Became a place where testers want to speak
- Always paid all our conference speakers travel expenses
- Allowed members to host meet ups with our brand, current count is now over 60.
- Always avoided being salesy, but didn't hesitate to shout about the things we were doing.
- Learned over time, that whilst our customers were testers, mostly it was their employers who paid the bills. This means we had a constant steady flow of sales, rather than huge spikes.
- Never used the company to elevate my personal brand
- Connected with other testers on LinkedIn
- Created events that I believed testers wanted and needed
- Recorded all talks from all our conferences, these became the later foundation of our online learning SaaS/community platform.
- Hacked things together in the beginning from hosted platforms and Wordpress just to get things done.
- Over time moved away to building our own thing.
- Started a testers slack group and moderate it with love. Almost 8k members.
- Started a separate Ministry of Testing slack group where we talk testing but also promote all the things we do. 4k members.
- Intercom, Mailchimp, Buffer, Discourse, Slack are our main tools for marketing.
- Started an online/Shopify store to sell swag.
- Created (via a collaboration) a TestSphere card deck - we sell it via our store and at events.
- TestSphere card deck is used at meetups and events across the globe.
- Gave away t-shirts at conferences. Testers would wear them in many other places, including competitors events :D
- Gave away stickers for laptops 'n' what not.
- Create back packs as gifts for speakers.
- Created a scholarship programme where testers can donate their fees to instead of taking the money. We would match fund it.
- Our conferences grew from guidance and support from active community members.
- Always remind myself that people are humans who need to be respected and cared for.
Thanks for getting this far :)
That's awesome!
If you had to build a new community today, what would your top ~5 points be from the list above?
Oh good question. Hard one too, obviously depends on the biz/product/community...not necessarily on the list above, I would focus on:
1 - great content long term content
2- creating real connections
3 - Instagram
4 - owning/building all the content and tech from the start
5 - a slack or a simplified forum
Nice, thanks!
Thanks for sharing with us Rosie. This is why we need a bookmark feature on indiehackers to save some stuffs for later 😂
One day…
cc @csallen :)
Thanks for all the details Rosie! Sure I'll be putting many of these things to use haha! :)
Thank you Rosie for this awesome list!
Astonishing list! Thanks for sharing.