Envato Newsletters
by David HawkinsSo this update begins on Nov 14th, I'm a little late updating it here. During the afternoon I noticed my traffic suddenly swelled. Looking at my analytics I could see it was coming from VideoHive.net, where I sell Dokyu.
Looking into my analytics over there I notice that the traffic is designated as 'Envato Mailing List'. As it turns out, the senior VH reviewer I often speak with nominated Dokyu for a mailing list feature. And it was approved! Hooray.
Since then, someone else from Envato, a 'Customer Group Team Assistant,' has reached out to ask if I'd like to be involved in a promotional newsletter during December. Yes please!
I'll be honest, I've been pulling my hair out about finding the best way to promote Dokyu. I'm reasonably happy with my automated newsletter series now, and then interspersing that with custom-written promotions as and when; i.e. Black Friday.
But as for the best way to target my audience in order to attract them to my website in order to get to the sales funnel in the first place, well, I'm still working on that one.
So Envato arranging outbound promotions for Dokyu is effectively filling in my weak-spot right now.
But these are just one-offs and no reason to get complacent, so I'm still experimenting with a variety of organic (link-building, SEO) and paid routes (newsletter sponsorships, paid posts).
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Just curious, how many sales (in nb or +%) have you done because of this promotion in the newsletter ?
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Sorry for delay, Tim!
I got 3 sales total from the email promotion, which represents 30% of my total sales on the Envato marketplace after a year. However, the version that I consider complete (1500+ templates vs 30 templates) has only been available since August of this year; 3 months. I launched too early, really.
Envato is a tough nut to crack. It’s the challenge of getting noticed in a sea of quality template products, plus there’s now Envato’s own subscription model that usually gets promoted on the header/footer of every page.
I’ve had more success on other platforms, but their reach is so great that I’d rather stay exclusive there and work my arse off to get noticed. No fat allowed on the bone here, but that’s good for the product (and the customer!).
Thanks for the question.
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I'm selling stuff too in codecanyon, and I see that every year, my sales are reducing (year after year)
Well, to be honest, i didn't renew my scripts, but I'm not sure it's the reason why.
I guess that there so many items out there, and also , envato is pushing more his own product (envato elements), than the items in the marketplace.
Also, the envato mess completely when they changed their affiliate program, so many publishers left envato affiliation and didn't promote envato anymore.
Anyway good luck for your sales
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Thanks Tim.
Yeah, among other things I think these big marketplaces have a winner-takes-all problem. I imagine it's the same with the app stores these days. Most people fade into obscurity. I like to think there's some meritocracy still, but people don't see the value in your product like you do, especially with so many distractions.
I don't love marketing my products but it seems to me that it's now important to not only build a great product, but very clearly convince people on a number of difference occasions why your product is so great. Again, not something I'd want to do ideally, but I don't think there's a choice today. The idea of 'effective frequency' is a powerful idea. I don't think of marketing and advertising, but rather figuring out whether I've built a sales funnel that exposes people to my product enough. Making sure to provide value along the way as well.
I used to get sales organically through VH, now I'm finding most of my sales are through my email list with a number of promotions.
Yeah, I also think there's a bit of a recency bias as well, especially as the product pages list the most recent update in the right column!
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yes!
Also, letting them 50% of the sales is a bit high compare to all the work we have to do as seller.And speaking of product with support (themeforest, codecanyon...), it's barely impossible to provide support with a low selling price.
But it still one of the best plateform to find buyers...
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