In this episode, we talk about promoting, developing, and supporting premium plugins and themes, focused around David’s experience with Easy Pricing Tables.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:24 — 27.9MB)
The Changelog
- David migrated to Drip “lightweight marketing automation”
- Doug’s initial thoughts on Flywheel are positive
The Core
Thanks Dan Cameron (launching Sprout Invoices) for the email that inspired this episode!
Sales
- Easy Pricing Tables (free) was already on WordPress.org, so sales were immediate.
- Monthly revenue has been pretty stable and predictable.
- Expected renewal rate (for yearly licenses) is 15-20%, based on similar products.
- Using Easy Digital Downloads for software licenses, etc.
Promoting
- Easy Pricing Tables is an “aspirin” business – success with WordPress.org
- SEO
- Retargeting
- Content marketing, such as weekly blog posts or podcast episodes
- Affiliate program (built with AffiliateWP)
- Paid reviews
- Outreach to popular blogs
- Reference posts about promoting plugins on Listly, WPScoop, and FatCat Apps
Developing
- Private Bitbucket repository for tracking changes (commits)
- Especially useful for working with a team
- Separate repositories with Easy Pricing Tables
- Handle new features and improvements – Trello boards
Supporting
- David – initially by himself, then hired a full-time developer who’s also running support
- SupportBee for email-based support (Doug uses a similar product called HelpScout)
- WordPress.org tickets and SupportBee emails send push notifications to Slack
Tips & Tricks
- Sketch – Professional digital design for Mac
- Skype Call Recorder for Mac – Records Skype calls, can split sides of conversation
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:24 — 27.9MB)
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Thanks for taking my questions!
Some great advice here.
Good cast guys. I’ve been wanting to author a WordPress plugin for a few months now. Can’t quite find a problem to solve or a feature to ad that i feel is useful or important. Any tips for how to get started in the plugin business? Seems to be a difficult step for people like me wanting to start creating plugins. Thanks!
Thanks for sending in your question! Keep us updated how things go with you business.
Great question.
If there’s no obvious pain point that you’re having, maybe look at what kind of plugins there is a lot of demand for. Maybe you can identify some kind of niche where you think you can do a better job or take a different approach then everyone else.
I built Easy Pricing Tables both because it was a pain point that I was having, but also because it looked like there was decent demand and I didn’t like any of the existing solutions.
Okay thanks! I’ll keep that in mind. I use wordpress everyday for several different websites. Should be fairly easy to find a “pain point” I would think. Thanks David!