You are here reading this, looking for inspiration.
Which is great, of course – but if you are looking for 100 ways to multiply your sales by 100x in 100 hours, you are in the wrong place.
What I mean is, there are no short cuts. There are no quick wins listed here.
Each of the tips that I plan to share over the next few weeks, requires you to change the way you think & behave. And if you have a team, then it is even more important to change the way every single person in your team thinks. That takes time.
I plan to share everything here that I have tried and has worked or not tried and regretted not trying it.
Let me warn you though.
You are not going to be amazed by what I have to say.
There’s nothing here that I can say, which you don’t already know. But chances are, in the chaos of running a business, some of it might have slipped down your priority list. I have been there, I understand.
So treat this as a gentle reminder, a friendly nudge if you will – to implement what you know you should.
Table of Contents
Tip #1 – Heroic After-Sales Experience
Yes, you read that right.
This series is about promotional tactics or pre-sales.
Yet, after-sales is topmost on this list.
Simply because your customers need to be the most important part of your promotional strategy. They are the ones who will bring in the most sales for you. So how you treat them after they buy your product, is extremely crucial.
They have already taken the first step towards trusting you, by making your product a part of their website. That’s a huge step forward for them, to be able to rely on you to make their business (that means the world to them) work, and work well at that.
You then need to live up to their expectations. Or better still, exceed them.
Help your customer succeed because of your plugin (not despite of!)
Treat them with the respect they deserve. Whether they have installed a free version of your plugin or the premium version, is a moot point.
If they are in fact, using your free plugin, you don’t need to give away your premium features for free, just to make them happy. No one expects that. You are running a business that needs to stay profitable after all.
What you do need to do is, to help them get the most out of your free plugin.
How do you ensure that?
Ask yourself these 3 simple questions –
[Product] Is your customer intuitively able to gain all the benefits that your (free or not) plugin offers?More often than not, you build a fantastic feature, that is genuinely useful, but hidden away in an obscure part of your product. Or your plugin is a bunch of different fields, categorised neatly into beautiful-looking tabs, but in a sequence that doesn’t make sense to your customer at all.
Your plugin should be designed in a way that is workflow-based. Your user interface should be designed around Use Cases or real-life problem scenarios that it aims to solve. The best user interface that I have seen (and envied a little) so far, is that of WP Forms. Completely customer-centric.
[Documentation] Are your customers able to find answers to basic questions easily, in a friction-less manner?
You need to provide easy-to-access, easy-to-understand documentation tutorials & videos – all of which should be easy to search through. Documentation should not just be a list of brilliant features that your developer loves describing in excruciating detail. Neither should it be just screenshots of your dashboard explaining what those settings mean. Your documentation needs to Use Case-based, in a language your customer understands.
[Support] Is your customer support helpful? Really helpful? And I mean really helpful?
You need to train, train and re-train your customer support team to always put themselves in the customers’s shoes. That needs to be the one mantra your team needs to follow. Everything else will fall into place.
Why does their success matter?
When you help your customers succeed, they in turn will be keen to see you succeed. They will tell everyone about how your plugin helps them – by way of ratings, reviews, testimonials or even writing about it on other forums or their own website.
When you make a mistake, they will share constructive feedback directly with you instead of bad-mouthing you in other forums.
Because they trust you to listen.
You simply can’t put a price on that.
For more on this, you could also watch me talk about Customer Delight in detail at WordCamp Mumbai 2016
Tip #2 – Create, Nurture, Foster a Community Blog
Tip # 2 is yet another obvious thing to do on your WordPress plugin website.
Create a blog.
Create a focussed blog.
Focussed around your niche. NOT around your plugin.
Your blog should not be an endless series of posts about your plugin.
Instead, talk about the problems that your plugin serves to solve.
Build a strong community around it.
Let your blog be a place where all those who are interested in that subject can have meaningful conversations.
Don’t be tempted to do research around random, high search volume keywords and publish posts about random topics in the hope that it may bring in random readers.
Don’t publish unrelated posts about Instagram (unless you have an Instagram plugin) just because it is trending and might bring in more visitors.
Sure, it probably will, but that doesn’t help you or them for that matter.
Just stay focussed on your niche.
So if you have a security WordPress plugin, then write content strictly about security.
Become a reputed authority on security. Be known as a security expert. Your plugin should be incidental.
Build a following. Build a community.
Let users know that if they ever need a helping hand with website security, you are the one they can rely on.
Yes, some of your posts might mention your plugin and how it can help solve a particular issue. But do that only if it makes sense to include that as part of your post. And again that is not what your post should revolve around. For e.g. a ‘How to solve your website’s problem’ is far better than ‘How to use my awesome’s plugin’s awesome feature’
And needless to say, post consistently. Maintain a steady rhythm.
That’s really it. With a focussed blog, your readers won’t be confused about what you do. Neither will Google.
Note how many times I used the word ‘focussed’?
Tip #3 – Collect meaningful testimonials (not just random, flattering words)
Ask for and publish testimonials that can actually reveal more about your product than just the fact that it is grrrreat.
A product with 1000 5-star ratings tells me nothing really other than the fact that, your product is grrrreat.
But how do I know if it is right for me?
Not clear?
Say for example, I am looking for a place to stay for my next family vacation.
I head to TripAdvisor and look for the top 10 hotels with the highest traveller rating.
But then, I don’t just blindly go on to pick one of those randomly.
I go on to read through the happy reviews to find out what they liked about this place. Because, yes, you guessed it- it may not necessarily be what I like (family-run kind of place with a local touch, in case you were wondering).
I also read through the negative 1-star ones, to see what they didn’t like – maybe they wanted a place bang in the middle of the city, but the hotel was far away from the crowds (which is a positive aspect for people like me).
So when you ask for reviews, simply ask your customers to name their top 2 business problems that this product was able to solve.
No lengthy survey. No form to fill.
Such testimonials can be of real value to others who might be looking for similar solutions.
Tip #4 – Share Review Copies of your Product
Find at least 100 experts in your niche and reach out to them. Wherever they are. Via their website, via social media, or better still, catch up with them face-to-face at conferences (in a nice, friendly way – not creepy, stalker style).
Share review copies (you can give access for say a month, if not more?) and request them for honest feedback.
Should they choose to write a review or tutorial about your product, make sure you help promote that article.
Go all out to make sure you help generate as much traffic as possible for that post.
Share it on your social media.
Add it to your newsletter.
You have to really help your affiliates succeed.
If a review points out flaws in your product, take that opportunity to thank the reviewer and either gently explain why you can’t fix that (if there is a genuine reason you won’t) or share a tentative timeline by which you plan to fix it.
Always respond to feedback, good or bad.
Tip #5 – Guest Blog Diligently
I cannot emphasize this one enough.
Guest blog as much as you can, on websites that are visited regularly by your customers.
Even if you don’t always get link juice, it will establish your presence as an expert in your field.
If you do get do-follow back links, make sure you use them wisely.
Don’t create random links to random posts or pages on your website.
Create a list of the most important (around 10) posts or pages on your beforehand.
Decide at least 5 most important keywords for each of these 10 pages.
These keywords should be your anchor text, when you create back links via your guest posts.
Make sure you give your guest post content your best shot, just as you would for content on your own website.
Irrespective of where the content gets published, it is your reputation that is on the line. Don’t take it lightly.
Again, guest blog as often as you can.
Tip #6 – Look for a million ways to help your potential customers
Join open user forums where your target audience highlights their problems and seeks help.
Go out of your way to help anyone who needs it in your niche.
Attend any meet ups or conferences where you might meet your potential customers.
Don’t be in a hurry to sell your product to them yet.
Simply listen and help as much as possible. For now, that’s enough.
In Conclusion
Did you find any of these tips helpful? Have you tried something else that has worked for you or failed miserably? Would love to hear from you.