Promoting, Developing, and Supporting Premium Plugins and Themes – WPCAST012

In this episode, we talk about promoting, developing, and supporting premium plugins and themes, focused around David’s experience with Easy Pricing Tables.

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