New innovators: WP Applied

WP Applied is a new online training programme aimed at teaching small business owners essential digital marketing skills in a fast, easy to grasp way.

The programme has been created by software developer, Brian Duffy, who spent over 10 years in web design and development before becoming head of web and multimedia studies at Ballsbridge College in Dublin.

“Having worked closely with small business owners over many years I realised that most were not getting full value from their websites,” he says.

“Most had no idea how to make their websites really work for their business and were actually getting a very poor return on their investment.

Duffy says he realised the answer lay in targeted education. “I began developing a ‘cut-to-the-chase’ training programme that would teach them the skills they required quickly and effectively without costing a fortune.”

Interactive lessons

The result is WP Applied, a series of short interactive lessons that let users gain hands-on experience on a practice website, using the full range of tools and strategies employed by digital marketers.

The training covers key areas from setting up a website, to driving traffic, content and social media marketing, analytics, e-commerce and affiliate marketing.

“We teach these skills significantly faster than alternative training methods and at a fraction of the cost,” Duffy says. “We have 20 lessons, each focused on a single skill that take approximately 30-40 minutes to complete.

“All of the lessons focus on website management, getting traffic and generating sales online.

“For other training providers, the focus is on certification and, while that appeals to a certain type of individual, in my experience most small business owners want results.

Technical software

“Until recently, teaching these skills to ‘ordinary’ people was hampered by the fact that website software was too technical for your average person,” Duffy adds.

“With the recent explosion in the popularity of WordPress (it powers about 70 million websites globally and about 50 per cent of sites in Ireland), these skills are now accessible to anyone.

“WordPress is free and you can use it to build any type of website. It also supports our training platform. As a result, the cost of building our platform in terms of euro spent was low, but thousands of hours went into researching the material and fine-tuning the user experience.

“The system has a simple user interface but is complex under the hood. Building a high impact e-learning product to our level of refinement is a huge challenge and it took over four years. Ultimately, our aim is to become the number one WordPress trainer globally.”

WP Applied has been piloted at various third-level colleges around Ireland and will go on sale to the public later this month.The programme costs €299. This includes three months access to lessons, support, a practice website and software tools. Duffy's target customers are website owners and small businesses globally.

Employees

Once sales begin to flow the business will start taking on employees and Duffy expects to have a staff of about 10 people within two years.

The project has been self-funded so far, but Duffy has participated in the High Start entrepreneur programme jointly supported by Dublin City and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown enterprise boards. This provided him with the services of a mentor to help develop his business plan.

“Before starting work on WP Applied,” he says, “ I spoke to numerous small businesses that had spent a lot of money on training courses and were very disappointed with the lack of real results.

“At the end of the day, this type of training should be all about the results and we have the knowledge, skills and product to deliver them.”