Are you one of those people that believes “A good product will sell itself”? Many people in the development industry have this misconception that if they have a product that has the potential to solve problems then they don’t need to invest time or money in its promotion. And some people who think otherwise, don’t even know where and how to promote WordPress plugins and themes.

You may have a problem-solving plugin or a revolutionary theme on your hands, but people will not know about your product unless you promote them.

Yes, people will buy a product that solves their problems. However, at first, you need to reach them.

Today in this article we are going to talk about how to promote WordPress plugins and themes in the right way so that you can reach your prospects.

So, sit back and grab your cup of coffee because this article will need your undivided attention.

Create a Detailed Promotion Plan – A Good Place to Start

After creating a marketable plugin/theme, you need to come up with a detailed plan to promote your plugin/theme. Otherwise, you will not reach your destination and lose your path. That is why you need to create a master plan along with appropriate goals.

Moreover, don’t forget to add a timeline to all of the tasks. That way, you can make sure you attain your goals in time.

Well, there are two key types of promotional methods you need to follow which include:

1. On-site promotional methods : Promotional methods that involves working on your site like contents, videos, affiliate programs, etc.
2. Off-site promotional methods: Methods outside of your site like partnerships, reachiing out to influencers, etc.

While covering the On-site promotional methods our main focus will be the Off-site promotional methods as they require some extensive planning and also the main ways to drive traffic. So, let’s get on with it.

How to Promote WordPress Plugins and Themes in The Best Way

The basic way to promote your WordPress plugins and themes is by updating them frequently. You should also be sure to have a clear call-to-action in your promotional material, making it easy for potential buyers to buy the product. More effective ways that you should follow to promote your WordPress products will be listed and detailed in a bit below.

So, now, as we mentioned earlier, we will start with the On-site promotional activities in this detailed guide on How to promote your WordPress plugins and themes. This is the first step in reaching your potential customers and making your product successful.

List of Top 9 Ways to Promote WordPress Plugins and Themes

5 On-Site Promotional Methods

• Create a Dedicated Website for Your Plugin: Other than WordPress.org and a premium plugin marketplace that will help you sell your plugins, you need to create a dedicated website for your plugin/theme. You have to follow various guidelines in promoting and selling your plugins/themes on third-party websites. But on your own website, you can add all the features without worrying about any guidelines and create brand value for your company.

• Fill Your Website with Contents & Videos: This is a must and a crucial On-site promotional method. You need to create relevant contents and videos related to your product that will help customers learn about your product. Also, it is a good practice to create how-to content and videos along with generic articles.

• Start an Affiliate Program: This is one of the best ways to sell and promote your plugins/theme. Your own customers can refer your products to others in exchange for a commission. By starting an affiliate program, you can start offering exactly that feature to your customers. And if you give an affiliate bonus for every sale, the existing customers will want to refer to your product even more. 

• Use the Power of Social Media: This goes without saying. This is the era of social media and if you want people to know about your products then you need to harness the power of social media. With smart planning and on-point content, you can definitely reach your target audience and will surely get more profits.

• Practice Sending Regular Email Newsletters by Creating an Email List: Collecting email leads from your user (through popups, opt-in forms, or other methods) will let you communicate directly through their inbox. And you know what? Email marketing has the single biggest ROI, a stagering 4200% ($42 for every $1 spent).

These On-site promotional methods may not have a direct impact on your sales and brand value. However, to get you started these methods are must-have strategies.

But don’t worry. With Off-site promotions, you can effectively promote your plugins/themes, reach prospective customers, build a good reputation in the industry, and increase your website authority.

4 Off-Site Promotional Methods

Consistency in Off-site promotions will help you keep your product in the market for a long time. On-site promotions lay the foundation while Off-site promotions will help you build the structure of your promotional plan.

Following are the off-site promotional methods that are most important –

1. Contact Other Website Owners & influencers, Create a Partnership
2. Take Advantages of Different Plugin Directories
3. Writing Guest Blogs to Promote Your Products
4. Getting Your Product Reviewed by Professional Authors.

Let’s get to know these methods in detail.

Contact Other Website Owners & Influencers, Create a Partnership

You can reach out to people for many reasons. But we are emphasizing two main reasons to reach out to the influencers and people in the same industry.

• Getting quality backlinks
• Creating a positive buzz about your product in the industry.

Yes, we know that there are more opportunities available in outreaching to people. But we are mainly focusing on these two reasons, why? we will get to that now.

Contacting Relevant Website Owners to Generate Backlinks

Not competitors, but you need to contact relevant website owners to generate backlinks. Backlinks are very important to increase the authority of any website and also to increase brand value.

The more backlinks a page has, the more organic traffic it gets from Google ⁽¹⁾. Also, their studies show that most top-ranking pages get ‘followed’ backlinks from new websites at a pace of +5%-14.5% per month.⁽²⁾

Ahrefs

Backlinks create credibility that you are getting recognized from other websites. Getting enough quality backlinks will send a great picture of your site to Google. This brings us back to one of the original algorithms from Google, PageRank, which is impacted by how many quality backlinks a page has.

With Google constantly updating its algorithm from time to time, ensuring you have quality backlinks will give you the protective cushion you will need.

Use your LSI keywords to find websites with similar topics as using the main keyword you will end up finding your competitors. These similar websites will send relevant customers to your website who are interested in your product.

Get Quality Backlink for Your WordPress Product Site ➜

Get in Touch with Industry Influencers

Getting an influencer to talk about your plugin/theme right after launch can get you the required boost that you require.

An influencer can be a blog writer or a well-known person. They have a loyal customer base that trusts their judgment. However, involving an influencer in your marketing plan can get you into trouble if you are not careful. So, while you are reaching an influencer you need to follow these steps,

• Set a plan for your influencers’ marketing campaign. Don’t just go with what the influencers say. You know your audience, so market to them accordingly.
• Find the right influencer. Everyone wants to be an influencer these days. But finding the right one is no small task. Look for influencers who are not biased and will give the right message to your customers.
• Finding the right influencer would usually be followed by finally reaching out to the influencer. Try building a good relationship with the influencer and offer your proposal
• Now you need to involve the influencer in your marketing plan. Make sure he/she understands you product and also publish an honest opinion about your product.
• Keep track of the campaign. After launching the campaign don’t forget about it. Keep track of the process and see the results. If the result is positive then you can use this influencer for further collaborations.

You might think why would I go through all this hassle and not just run a paid ad on Google? Well, well…

According to Shopify, Influencer marketing ROI is 11x greater than banner ads.

How? That’s because influencer marketing sends in more targeted audiences than most other common marketing channels.

Take Advantage of Plugin Directories

There is a point in the On-site promotional methods where we have stated the importance of having your own site while mentioning the third-party websites that help in promoting your plugins/themes. You can take full advantage of these sites. Especially the plugin directories.

However, most of the plugin directories will cut a commission in exchange for promoting your product. However, there are sites like WP HIve that will list your plugin for free. We will talk about WP Hive later.

Plugin directories will shed new light on your plugins by providing detailed insights into the features. It increases the chance of purchase.

Write Guest Blogs to Promote Your Products

For newcomers, writing guest blogs to promote WordPress plugins and themes is highly effective. When your site is new, it is hard to get ranked in Google, and therefore the number of traffic is low. However, if you can write guest blogs on a more popular site with decent traffic, you will get noticed easily.

There are a few benefits to writing guest blogs,

• You will get backlinks to your website, which will increase your site authority and you will get some traffic as well.
• You can promote your product in a subtle way.
• Will create some long term brand value for your product.

When the social media scheduling app Buffer was new to the market, Leo Widrich the co-founder wrote approximately 150 guest posts. And managed to grow the customer base for Buffer from zero to 100k customers within 9 months.

thesocialms.com

So, you can understand the power of guest posting.

Get Your Product Reviewed by Professional Authors

With WordPress now covering 42.9% of the internet, it has become the largest way to build a website. People who are using WordPress search for effective plugins and themes to create their websites.

The best way to find plugins and themes is by reading the reviews of trusted authors. If you see the top WordPress sites that write about different plugins and themes gets thousands of visitors every month. This is an audience that is filtered and ready to be tapped in.

If you can collaborate with a top WordPress blog to write a product review on your WordPress plugin or theme, it will help you reach thousands to even millions. That is why it is probably the most popular way to promote WordPress products for the WordPress product owners who are launching new plugins or themes.

88% of customers put as much weight on online reviews as they would on personal recommendations.

Searhengine Journal

You will need to pay a one-time sum to get your product reviewed, but that small investment in the right place can give you a profit margin of thousands. And we are going to talk about that kind of site “WP Hive”.

A More Effective Way: WP Hive For WordPress Product Promotion

While WordPress.org only gives you the features, active installations, reviews, etc of a plugin, WP Hive will give you detailed insights into a plugin. It is a free WordPress plugin repository with dedicated pages for every plugin uploaded to the WordPress.org site.

If you want you can compare other plugins side by side to know how your competitors are doing or to make the right choice in the case of similar plugins.

On top of that, the WP Hive team manages one of the most resourceful and consistent blogs in the industry.

You will find detailed and unbiased reviews of plugins and themes. These reviews have helped thousands of plugins developers reach their target audience.

You can also publish a review of your plugin with affordable pricing. They have multiple product review plans that include promotion on social media and a mention in the weekly email blast. You can also write a guest post and send that to them to publish on their site.

Its Time to Take Your Plugin-Theme Promotion to the Next Level

So, we are at the end of How to promote WordPress plugins/themes. Getting a new plugin or a theme in the market and having people notice it is no easy task. The market is very saturated and you have to be very precise with your every move.

But as long as your product solves a real problem, there is a real chance of you taking the product into the limelight and creating a positive buzz.

We have shed light on two main promotional methods and their use cases. We also mentioned WP Hive, the site that you can take help from in order for your plugin/theme to reach the correct audience. Their package plans for growth are perfect for any WordPress product developers looking for a way to take their new WordPress plugins or themes to the next level.

Take the right steps to become successful!