How/Where do you actually market/sell your plugins?
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Since you mentioned you can't afford paid ads, free organic content is the way to go.
Make a single educational / entertaining video using the instrument/plugin and post it to youtube, then cut sections out of it to post as short-form content on instagram, youtube, tiktok etc.
Repeat that several times per week for several months (or until you're making enough to do paid ads).
Then take the content that works (your most successful short videos), and turn them into paid ads.
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There are some good talks on business on 'the audio developer conference'.
But you can also look at talks in business in general. You'll want to look at theory for start-up business.The successful companies are putting a lot of work into theory and business strategy in order to build a brand and audience / dominate a segment of the market.
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I think I said this in the thread Orange linked to, but if you are going to sell through a third-party, make sure that you have something in your system that requires the users to register their email address with you, so that you can build your mailing list.
Libre Wave - Freedom respecting instruments and effects
My Patreon - HISE tutorials
YouTube Channel - Public HISE tutorials -
@Morphoice I hope it turns around for you soon brotha!
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@iamlamprey Good advice, though unless you have an audience, you're likely to put a lot of work into videos that no one sees. Though just in general, I agree this is the way to go—nice one, mate.
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@d-healey Yes, capturing and creating a communication channel to your current and potential customers is helpful. Dave and some of the other developers here managed to beat the odds, and carve out a self-perpetuating market for themselves, starting from ground zero. I think those are the best people to ask (as you have here, and people are answering.) Certainly better than me.
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@Morphoice your quickest cheapest and simplest route to selling product is to use one or more of the distributors, plug in boutique, loot audio etc.
They will want 40% non exclusive or 30% exclusive. It's not so easy to get their attention these days but it will lead to some sales and a revenue stream.
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I'm fortunate that I started with a (small) audience, and I'm selling to a focussed crowd. My plugins serve a very specific niche and the producers there are always hungry for more authentic products.
I've never done any paid ads. I might do an experiment on Instagram one day. I see a lot of adverts for plugins in my feed and I'm curious how effective they are.
I sell on Gumroad. They take about 15% fee, then you pay payment processor fees. I haven't done the maths for the total cut but I'd say it's less than 20%.
It's a good deal for me because it includes basic web presence, file hosting, secure delivery, payment processing (cards, Apple Pay, Google and PayPal), email marketing and analytics.
I started selling in September 2022. I'd done a couple of free plugins before that through various platforms like SimpleGoods and SendOwl but didn't take it seriously until later.
When I started selling I posted each new product on my Facebook and Instagram accounts. The engagement was pretty good to start with but I noticed that over time, I got more results from sending emails to my ever-growing email list. When I launch a new product now, I only send it to my email list at first. Then later I post short clips to Instagram but they're supplemental to the email list.
You NEED an email list. They say "the money's in the list" and in my experience, that's 100% correct.
Free products are a great way to build your email list. Most people stay subscribed and as long as you don't flood them with emails, they're happy to receive them.
This is my email strategy:
- Launch email for every new product with 20% discount code, valid for 2 weeks
- Reminder email 48 hours before the launch discount ends
- One email per month with 20% discount off a single product, valid for 2-3 days
That's it. I don't like to bombard my list with too many emails. I'm on some Gumroad seller lists where they send continual discounts, sometimes daily. This would be way too much for me as a customer.
Gumroad includes email marketing, which is a bonus because when your list gets large things like Mailchimp, ConvertKit, etc get into the $100's/month.
I can target emails to people who have or haven't bought specific products. Very handy for offering a discount only to those who haven't bought something. Or offering a discount for a product Y to those who have already bought product X. You can also target by how much someone has spent, so you can offer extra discounts or free stuff to your most loyal customers.
Gumroad also includes extra features like affiliates (having others push your products for a % split), collaborators (where you can split a products revenue with someone else), email automations (for sending drip emails to customers - I don't use those) and upsells (recommended products at checkout).
It does have some downsides. The download links in the receipt emails sometimes don't work and you have to send a link manually to the customer (Gumroad have so far refused to acknowledge this as an issue). I also find their fees to be expensive compared to other services, but for what I get built-in I still think it's worth it for now.
Something else that might be of interest is that Gumroad recently made the source code available, so if there's a feature you want to add and you're handy with Ruby on Rails and JavaScript you might be able to contribute.
Meat Beats: https://meatbeats.com
Klippr Video: https://klippr.video -
I've heard the same thing from everyone, getting a big email list is super important: a mail list of paying customers is said to be the best.
Relab recently gave a talk on ADC where they discussed their strategy of selling the lexicon reverb essential plugin for dirt cheap, using ads to get people to buy. This puts them at a financial loss. But 30 days after the purchase, they send out emails to upsell the more expensive products, or crossell for bundles or alternate lines. And they make a good profit from the upsell from their mail list.
What you said intrigued me and so I checked you out, I happen to have gotten one of your plugins recently
What a coincidence. I'll have to try it out now. -
@dannytaurus Have you considered using PayHip? It's very similar to gumroad, but the fees are more reasonable and it has some different features.
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Maybe focusing on SEO might help.
Anything on your site/page content. Does the site have words and phrases that people are googling?
You might dedicate a page on your site that you optimise for search engines.
Use main topic keywords (head terms)
The phrase ‘cookie recipe’ isn’t as specific as ‘gluten free chocolate chip cookie recipe’ - the latter is a long-tail keyword.The broader the keywords the more competition you have.
Research what people are searching for then optimise content for those words and phrases.
“Buy audio plug-in”
“Best audio plug-in”
“Good synth plug-ins”
“Best synth plug-ins”You could use hash tags on social media (don’t over do it as it looks spammy)
#ableton #musicproducer #studiolife #flstudio
#audiomixing #beatsFind some YouTubers and offer them the plug in for free/a discount for their subscribers.
All the best man - you got this!
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@iamlamprey said in How/Where do you actually market/sell your plugins?:
Since you mentioned you can't afford paid ads, free organic content is the way to go.
Make a single educational / entertaining video using the instrument/plugin and post it to youtube, then cut sections out of it to post as short-form content on instagram, youtube, tiktok etc.
Repeat that several times per week for several months (or until you're making enough to do paid ads).
Then take the content that works (your most successful short videos), and turn them into paid ads.
I would add to this... use all of your resources. If you have friends/peer music producers, share your plugin with them and ask them to post about it if they like it. I'm a musician but I also have a handful of years of experience in Brand Marketing for some of the biggest island/reggae artist and we take advantage of cross promotion all the time. Gotta get creative and think of other things you can leverage in exchange for their review if money isnt available yet.
Im a believer in the power of grass roots culture. It works.
Find influencer/producers on youtube that give reviews on plugins. The good guys wont even accept your money for a review but they'll genuinely review it if they love it or hate it, but they'll never know if you dont send it. If you dont have a team behind your product, you're gonna have to be boots to the ground all by yourself until you can build a team. Outreach. Utilize social media, if you dont have many followers yourself, negotiate some deals with people that do. If you dont have the budget to pay people to review, find the ones who will do it for a free plugin/s.Personally I hope to utilize my relationships with all of my industry peers, some whom have entered into the realm of streaming product reviews and workflows etc.. in addition to what has already been suggested on the thread which is alot of good advice. I just wanted to give my personal 2 cents onnit and possibly inspire some ideas. I wish the best for you brotha!
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@cassettedeath said in How/Where do you actually market/sell your plugins?:
Maybe focusing on SEO might help.
Anything on your site/page content. Does the site have words and phrases that people are googling?
You might dedicate a page on your site that you optimise for search engines.
Use main topic keywords (head terms)
The phrase ‘cookie recipe’ isn’t as specific as ‘gluten free chocolate chip cookie recipe’ - the latter is a long-tail keyword.The broader the keywords the more competition you have.
Research what people are searching for then optimise content for those words and phrases.
“Buy audio plug-in”
“Best audio plug-in”
“Good synth plug-ins”
“Best synth plug-ins”You could use hash tags on social media (don’t over do it as it looks spammy)
#ableton #musicproducer #studiolife #flstudio
#audiomixing #beatsFind some YouTubers and offer them the plug in for free/a discount for their subscribers.
All the best man - you got this!
So.... not wanting to be a nay-sayer - but being one anyway.... I've found any and all SEO efforts to be a complete waste of time, Googling for a generic plugin type isnt something I've found potential customers do, they seem to be following links from reviews mostly, speaking of which....
I've also found any YouTuber worth getting your product reviewed by wont be doing it for free, or for a free copy of your plugin.
Always interested in peoples counter experiences...
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@Lindon said in How/Where do you actually market/sell your plugins?:
've also found any YouTuber worth getting your product reviewed by wont be doing it for free, or for a free copy of your plugin.
You get what you pay for.
As for SEO, for example I have a page which neatly lists ranges of orchestral instruments in MIDI and standard notation. This gets a decent amount of traffic and guess what, you can buy them right now! I know it's hard to find a trumpet that goes super high or a horn that extends very low, but I got one for you right here!
It's a very small piece and I guess the idea is that you have many such small components.
Once your products start being the talk on forums, you need to be showing up on Google's number one spot, though.
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@Chazrox said in How/Where do you actually market/sell your plugins?:
would add to this... use all of your resources. If you have friends/peer music producers, share your plugin with them and ask them to post about it if they like it
Everything everyone said is correct....the truth is there is no ONE WAY to success but rather the combination of all of these things mentioned...I quoted this line is because this proved to be the big starting point when you literally have nothing...you need to rally and lean in on your relationships and network...get your people to hop in and help by doing a video or 2 in exchange for the plugin... or incentivize by giving them a small percentage of sales- like 5-10% (have them use a coupon code so you can track it) ....another strategy ive found is to simply Go Live on Facebook, YouTube using something as simple as OBS(it's Free) showcase your plugin via screen sharing and clean and clear audio...Just go live and create and spend a couple hours just doing that...even if NO ONE is watching...that's not the point...the point is after you are done to take that long live video and chop it down into smaller pieces of content- Reels, Youtube Shorts, and even shorter 3-5 min landscape videos showcasing the plugin and all it's features...from my experience a good planned hour long live video can easily be repurposed into close to a dozen pieces of micro-content...take all of that and repost them ad-noseum on every platform...wash rinse and repeat the process until sales come in and you build up your mailing list and then as someone also said take the best stuff and run ads on it...My metric for running ads has been at bare minimum put in as much as your charge for the plugin...so if you sell it for $100...put $100 into an ad to get started...worse case you make one sale and make your money back...best case you make 10 sales and make $1000...then you just wash rinse repeat the process....
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I must definitely warn you about resellers, never work with ADSR Sounds!
From what I have heard from my acquaintances, they have a really bad reputation. They have unpaid invoices for developers for months, they are the kind of people who exploit people's labor.
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@griffinboy Don't judge any of my current plugins too harshly
They were all built with Maize Sampler so the features are very limited and there are several bugs and annoyances.That's why I'm moving to HISE, so I can get more features and more stable plugins.
Regarding the paying portion of a mailing list, I agree and I can tell you my list is about 10% payers and 90% folks who came via the freebies. But being able to market your paid plugins to folks who came in through freebies is great, especially if there's an upgraded paid version of the freebie, as is the case with several of mine.
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Currently prospecting/applying for days for resellers and working on my online presence, ads, FB...
RANTING MODE ON
Found one that is asking for a 50/50 split, and the transaction fees of 5% on your side...
Question: Should I work for other people while I can barely eat?
Ok they help you to build your online presence... But multiplied with the amount of plugins on their catalog, I am not sure the total time and effort they spend on your promotion can compete with the 12h/day your product required during months...
Anyone thinking there's a honest reason behind or are they just sipping a cocktail on the beach? "Yeah... no prob... cocktail's on me bro..."
RANTING MODE OFF -
@ustk said in How/Where do you actually market/sell your plugins?:
Found one that is asking for a 50/50 split
That's steep, highest I've accepted is 60/40 in my favour, and I think that's steep too. In my opinion 25% (after taxes/fees) should be the maximum but I'm not sure of any resellers who are that reasonable.
Libre Wave - Freedom respecting instruments and effects
My Patreon - HISE tutorials
YouTube Channel - Public HISE tutorials
