advertising a theme

[rezzy]

Hello guys,

I am selling a few Wordpress themes and wanted to know any methods of increasing the number of people who come across? This theme is specially marketed towards ministries, ie) churches.

Any helpful ideas?

[bacterozoid]

Pray ;)


_____

[Harold Mansfield]

Hello guys,

I am selling a few Wordpress themes and wanted to know any methods of increasing the number of people who come across? This theme is specially marketed towards ministries, ie) churches.

Any helpful ideas?

First things first, it should be on an optimized page or it's own site to capture possible searches, then I would see if I could get other people who write about Wordpress issues and themes to blog about it.

Usually themes are on some kind of affiliate program, which is how and why there are so many theme blogs, but of course that would require you to give up some pf the profits.

If you want to do it all yourself...good old fashioned SEO, press releases, and other bloggers are your ticket.

If you are not a member of any blogging or WP forums, you really need to be if you want to get known as a theme designer.
WPTavern.com and Bloggeries come to mind..I think they both have sections for listing themes both free and for sale.

The biggest sites for theme designers are Theme Forest, Template Monster they list thousands of themes for just about every platform...but they get a cut and your support has to be in order..but there are a few others as well.

You should also look out for design contests. Just an entry still gets it seen.

[vangogh]

What eborg said. This is also one reason why I suggested making the theme GPL. That way you can get listed in the WordPress repository and gain the advantage of their distribution.

You're probably going to need to become more active in the WordPress community. Blog more about WordPress, get to know some of the other people who blog about WordPress, join WordPress specific forums, and maybe even give away a free theme or plugin.

You can also do anything you would do to promote any product.

[rezzy]

At this point, the theme is selling quite well. But I am curious about making the next step. And beating the downward slope.

I have considered selling it via other channels, but want to maintain my own channels. For instance, themeforst, charges you an extra fee if you are selling a product elsewhere. Which is equates to a punishment for not exclusively selling with them. However, I will start joining other forums.... and posting on blogs.

Steve does your delicious have good sources?

[vangogh]

Depends. Sources for what? I've probably bookmarked just about every blog I read on WordPress so if you search that tag and visit some of the sites you should be able to quickly see who is and isn't a player in the WordPress community. Send me an email to remind me and I'll send you some links you may find useful.

[KarenB]

Great blog, rezzy.

Are your posts also linked to Twitter? (twitterfeed.com : feed your blog to twitter (http://twitterfeed.com) is great for that.)

A lot of folks search for services every day on there.

[vivianrollins]

Have you consider selling your themes on other websites such as DP or SP?

[rezzy]

No, I havent really considered selling them through other websites. I dont like the idea of passing a portion of my sales to another business. I am still doing quite well without their networks.

[billbenson]

If you are going to do more of this, why not blop up a quick wp site. Sell other themes on it, but feature yours. A few affiliate ads in the mix, might be a nice site over time.

[vangogh]

I dont like the idea of passing a portion of my sales to another business.

Your not really passing on a portion of your sales. You're paying a fee for the use of their distribution system.

Say you can sell 10 themes in a month at $100 each. So you make $1,000 a month

Now say you give half that money to a site with a large distribution network. You might end up selling 100 themes at $50 each to you, which would be $5,000 a month. True that other site does get $5,000 too, but they earned that money by building the system of distribution.

[rezzy]

If you are going to do more of this, why not blop up a quick wp site. Sell other themes on it, but feature yours. A few affiliate ads in the mix, might be a nice site over time.

Its interesting you mention that, thats exactly what I have been thinking about starting. I was trying to think of a good domain name. Have any ideas, please pm them! :)

Ive tried using a few keywords and domain searching tool, but havent seen anything that makes me want to buy yet...

[billbenson]

what key words are you thinking of for a domain? If you don't want to make them public, send me a pm. Otherwise its kind of hard for me to think of any domain names.