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WPblab EP72 – WordPress Plugins – If you build it, will they come? w/ Russell Aaron

Russell Aaron – Web Dev Studios
Bridget – Actions do things, Filters change things
What’s a plugin? – File inside directory. Adds or enhance website, or de-enhance, Simmer down down.
Finish plugin, ship it and call it a day!
Built & tested and released, people are installing and then white screen the site
First step in marketing, believe in product. Use it every day. Plugin solves his own problem.
His marketing – let me to take it to a competition at a WordCamp ( Plugin-a-Palooza ) and get an idea of who is my core demographic
How do you promote?
No good marketing thing on the repo… The repo has copy… Real people don’t know repo. Directory good compromise for users.
Have a good call to action. Make sense in your copy. Have someone else write the copy. Don’t use terms dev terms. Use words your audience will understand.
No one is looking for the product by your name.
Users look for Automatic scheduling twitter. “Revival posts” not the name you’re searching for.
Use descriptive copy in the repository listing… it may sound like an infomercial but you need to use words that the audience will easily understand.
Listen to people in meetup groups. People want to see a top level view of their site, top “query all the posts types” came up.

What are people saying about your plugins and how do you tap into that?
Get close to pain points essential to marketing. Finding the thing that people ask about over and over again is a good guide to what you should be talking / posting about.
Word of Mouth. People willing to try things. WordCamp people will experiment about things and new products.
Intro with “Hi my name is russ and you might like my plugin ‘query all the post types’”
Use your community to make your plugin better.
User feedback. Take it to meetup group. Discounts for early adopters
First step of marketing is help evolve the plugin
“I need something to do – how can I solve a problem?” Combine those things together and a plugin is born!
Don’t get too used car salesman. Somewhere between peace corps and something…..
If you make a plugin and put it in the repo, you’re going to get a lot of questions and suggestions for changes to make it better
For a tweet about styling gravity forms. Meghan said “shutup and take my money”. Had an idea and built a plugin to just enqueue a stylesheet.
Don’t wait tooo long to make premium version of plugin
You need a marketing brief – Set achievable, measureable goals. I want 10 downloads a month.
Goal 500 or 1000 active installs – figure out how to get that.

* Get on twitter.
* Tweet 3 times a day.
* Make sure to hit ‘reply’.
* Be a human being
* Organic content marketing
* Community advertising
* Be on every front possible
* 4 times a week posts on the blog

Have a strategy

Tell people you exist. You won't make a living for at least 3 years on only the plugin.
Russell: If you write something that solves a problem and you tweet it with the right hashtags and get it in front of the right people – it can almost promote itself! People are going to share it.
Bridget: Be a Human Being. Develop relationships. Then it will matter to people when you share projects you are working on.
James Law ( Ninja Forms ) charge what it is. Don’t do discounts.

* Plugins Admin Bar – WordPress Plugin Adding Plugin Link To WP Admin Bar Sub Menu
* Hashtag URL Placeholder
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