How To Market Your Plugin


How To Market Your Plugin:

A Framework for the Sleep-Deprived Developer

Easy, Actionable Steps

Released March 2021

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If you have the Kindle App and Alexa, she’ll read the Kindle Version to you.

Forward by Adrian Tobey, CEO Groundhogg

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HOW DO YOU GET

PLUGIN DOWNLOADS

Familiar. Approachable. Satisfying.

Are you looking for tips and tricks on how to market your WordPress Plugin? Maybe you’re building a new WordPress slider, contact form, page builder plugin, member plugin, or even a calendar plugin. That’s awesome!

There’s plenty of space in the WP plugins market for new plugins. Even Chris Lema’s blog post about the blue ocean talks about the advantage of the second-mover market. As long as WordPress gains market share, there’s plenty of room for new plugins.

So, you know what to build, right? How do you get people to download your WordPress plugin from the directory? What business model is best for your plugin? How do you get people to buy your WordPress plugin?

Plugin marketing is like any digital product marketing; where it’s different is in understanding the WordPress community and ecosystem.

With this book, you get a clear plan on how to budget for advertising, maximize your presence at a WordCamp, anchor your pricing, and more!

The top WordPress plugins marketed in the dark.

You don’t have to.

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This is the Book You Didn’t Know You Needed!

“It would have been great to have this book before we launched a couple of years ago! We searched and searched the internet for ‘how to’s’ and didn’t really find anything. Just one or two sparse articles. Great idea Bridget! Much needed!” GroundhoggWP

“Relatively short, but very info-dense. Lots of practical tips we’ll be putting in place on our own projects soon.” Keanan Koppenhaver CTO Alpha Particle

“Good read. Wish something like this would have existed when I started with plugins, 3 1/2 years ago.” Cristian Raiber, Goodreads

“This is an excellent book. Why? Because most of the men and women developing plugins are technicians. They build a tool to fit a need. That is an amazing thing! Here is a book for them, by an author who uses the tools, understands the tools, and most importantly, knows how to sell the tools.” Warren Laine-Naida, Amazon

“Awesome idea, our industry needs this book! You’re def the person to write this and make sure it’s full of goodies.” Vito Peleg

“This Book really helped me with new plans and idea, which i can execute for better growth of my plugins.” Aditya Sharma

“Oh, you’re very well positioned, of course, to talk about this not just an author but a doer which is fantastic.

And, you know, to have a project you worked on like [GiveWP] and I know Matt very well and respect and I actually didn’t, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten [to meet Devin Walker].

But that’s a tremendous feather in your cap to participate in that, you know, in their journey, and to be a part of that and all the other things you referenced. We’re really glad to have you here today.” of WPEngine on the PressThis Podcast

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HOW DO I

SELL MY PLUGIN?

WP Marketing Made Easier

This is the premise of this book. It’s a culmination of my experience as a content marketer since 2009 and work in the WordPress ecosystem since 2015.

This book will help you market while you’re building your plugin instead of treating marketing as a last resort.

You mastered programming; you can learn marketing!

Programming is about computer behavior. Marketing is about human behavior. Fortunately for us, both are fairly predictable. 

How to Market Your Plugin includes actionable documents like a sample marketing brief.

Topics Include:

Do you want more downloads?

Does your product have a blog?

What about a lifetime license?

Chris Eglington — Hapity.com

“Highly recommended. Does some great marketing for Hapity and enthusiastic too.”

Table of Contents

 

Foreward by Adrien Tobey

Chapter 1: How is Marketing Similar To Building?

Chapter 2: Why Would I Outsource Marketing?

Chapter 3: An Overall Marketing Brief

Chapter 4: One Website to Rule them All

Chapter 5: What Project Management Software Should I use?

Chapter 6: Did You Test Your Plugin?

Chapter 7: Build a Landing Page for Beta Signups

Chapter 8: Documentation and Marketing

Chapter 9: Should My Plugin Be in the WordPress Plugin Directory?

Chapter 10: What Business Model is Best?

Chapter 11: Is a Lifetime License a Good Idea for Your WordPress Product?

Chapter 12: What Should My Marketing Budget Be?

Chapter 13: Create Brand Guidelines 

Chapter 14: You Are Not Your Audience

Chapter 15: Accounting for Affiliates

Chapter 16: Social Media Overview

Chapter 17: Represent Your Product by Attending Meetups and WordCamps

Chapter 18: Sponsoring WordCamps

Chapter 19: Nonprofits and Hackathons 

Chapter 20: Scaling Will Increase Support Tickets

Chapter 21: It’s Totally Normal to Market In Phases

Chapter 22: Discounts and Rice Christians

Chapter 23: How Do I Approach Content Marketing?

Chapter 24: When Developing Your Plugin Isn’t 

Fun Anymore

Add-on 1: Three Year Plugin Marketing Framework

Add-on 2: Sample Marketing Brief

Add-on 3: If You Don’t Mind Your Business Who Will?

Bibliography

Warren photo of book at his desk for Amazon Review

About the Author

Bridget Willard is known for marketing products and services for Pressable, GiveWP, StagingPilot, Hapity, Postmatic, MediaRon LLC, Ninja Forms, Vendor Fuel, PressHero, Castos, Barn2, Design Frame Solutions, Ginger Soul Plugins, Amplify Plugins, Cipher Development, codemiq, Codebrain Media, Press Captain, Big Orange Heart, as well as leading the Make WordPress Marketing Team for two years. 

Photo of Bridget Willard