Who else is doing WordPress plugins?
Hey IH friends,
I just wanted to extend my antennas and get a general consensus for everyone here who's also released WordPress plugins...
What traction have you seen within 1-3 months following your plugin's launch?
Have you used the plugin as leadgen fodder?
Or, from a business perspective, does your plugin primarily stand on its own feet?
If you've launched a plugin, what has been your approach to getting the word out and marketing the plugin?
Curious to get a feel for who's doing similar WordPress-related things ;)
If you want to learn about developing, marketing and selling WordPress plugins, and will excuse my shameless plug, check out my site The Plugin Economy. I'll be posting my 50th interview this week so there's a lot of material to work through.
Brian, very cool site. Plugin submission sent :) How long ago have you been running your site? I've added the feed to Pocket Casts, will be tuning in soon.
The one year anniversary was some time this month. My goal was 52 interviews in a year but I fell just a bit short.
Your site is awesome! I've been on there a bit. I've started working on my plugin side project. Do you charge for submissions? Hopefully I can grow enough to be submitted 😄
No charge. I just post them first come, first serve, so if you are ever ready get in touch.
I once built (2014) a WordPress plugin that was in my mind a simpler alternative to existing e-commerce platforms (WooCommerce in particular).
It didn't gain any traction in the first few months and after a while I pulled the plug.
I thought the WP plugins directory could drive a bit more visibility to the plugin, but I was wrong. You hear many success stories, but there's also tons of plugins that are barely used by a few people.
Luckily I didn't invest a lot of time and money into it, as it was basically a port from another existing product I made, and so most of the code was shared.
I don't think that a lack of traction necessarily means the plugin doesn't serve a purpose, but I hear exactly what you're saying.
I also built a plugin, which eventually I pulled from the repo about five months later.
LOL cringe this was the actual demo video (for my first plugin ever): https://youtu.be/pJP8lKccrd8
It had about 3K downloads within the first 3 months, purely from the WP directory. I even had people calling my mobile asking me for help.
I'm still amazed how people even found it in the first place, but they did.
Getting the word out is a pretty huge deal. Otherwise, you're lacking active installs, which is major factor in getting the plugin ranked where people can find it.
Great site with well written content.
I'm a fellow plugin developer! Below are my answers:
What traction in a 1-3 month timeframe?
I've had plugins that didn't generate any sales in 3 months, and I've had plugins that generated steady sales from the 1st month. I think it depends on how unique your plugin is. As you may have noticed, the market is big & saturated so making yet another plugin that does X will be harder to sell in the beginning.
Have you used the plugin as leadgen?
No.
Does your plugin stand on its own feet?
I'd say yes because my plugins don't require external products/services and are not a leadgen to another product. But I'm not sure what you mean with this question so I might be answering this wrong 😄.
How to market the plugin?
I only have 1 marketing tactic: launch a free version on the WP plugin repo. It does wonders for me (so far).
Now it's your turn: what are you building/have you built? :-)