How/Where do you actually market/sell your plugins?

[d.healey]

@ustk ah that's bad, I hate these faceless companies. Maybe there's an alternative to ses.

[Lindon]

@ustk said in How/Where do you actually market/sell your plugins?:

Volume & Scaling
Current estimated volume: ~1,500 emails/day (will scale with user growth).

Here might be your problem:

Volume & Scaling
Current estimated volume: ~1,500 emails/day (will scale with user growth).

What transaction web site doing these:

Account verification emails (double opt-in)
Password reset links
Order/payment confirmations
Critical system notifications (e.g., security alerts)

needs this many per day straight out of the gate? You have clearly found some magic formula for subscription and sales...

[Orvillain]

Marketing and selling plugins is one of the big challenges today; much more so than 18 years ago when I first got into the industry. I remember the early days of fxpansion, where we'd have 1000's of boxes in the office of BFD2 and various boxed expansion packs. I was the fresh faced 22 year old posting out boxed copies of "B.O.M.B" using Royal Mail - probably should've re-thought that product title!!!

These days, the various digital platforms that all eat massively into your revenue. I don't really know how anyone new is really making a success of selling plugins right now. Innovation is not really being rewarded because of this reseller system - imo.

[ustk]

@Lindon said in How/Where do you actually market/sell your plugins?:

@ustk said in How/Where do you actually market/sell your plugins?:

Volume & Scaling
Current estimated volume: ~1,500 emails/day (will scale with user growth).

Here might be your problem:

Volume & Scaling
Current estimated volume: ~1,500 emails/day (will scale with user growth).

What transaction web site doing these:

Account verification emails (double opt-in)
Password reset links
Order/payment confirmations
Critical system notifications (e.g., security alerts)

needs this many per day straight out of the gate? You have clearly found some magic formula for subscription and sales...

I'm not selling for a long time, but the website and some communications are running for several years. So over the time I gathered 1500+ subscribers even if the real sell is just starting. So 1500/day is what I need, even if only once per month.

Of course, I don't need SES for the transactional emails, but since it has been advised online (by professionals) not to talk about marketing, transactional emails are the only thing I can speak about technically. And they are affirmative, they want technical explanation and I gave them everything I have, with several screenshots of the configurations.

I have pushed to a support yesterday, and the guy seemed to understand the situation and pushed it further for a new assessment. In the waiting I provided even more stuff, screen copy of the CRM, DNS config, hook links, verified badges, and also tested their bounce and complaint simulator so they see it works...

I am ready to receive any advice but they are staying silent, their "security politics" is to not give any clue on what you are doing bad... no assistance...

At this point I am not confident it'll change anything. So I'll probably hire someone on Fiverr specialised with SES and moving out of sandbox + email limit.

I haven't yet found another cheap system that is not relying on SES, except maybe SendGrid at 20$/m

[d.healey]

@ustk said in How/Where do you actually market/sell your plugins?:

So 1500/day

You need 1500/30 if it's just one day per month, no?

[ustk]

@d-healey Hmmm… good point…

But since the original limit they give is 200/day, I’m pretty sure it’s not a monthly average and you trigger the security with the first newsletter

[virtuscapeaudio]

@JulesV AND they don't get you the customer's email which is why I stopped working with them. Joe at Audio Plugin Deals on the other hand is great to work with and I've had some good results as a brand new developer.

[JulesV]

@virtuscapeaudio said in How/Where do you actually market/sell your plugins?:

@JulesV AND they don't get you the customer's email which is why I stopped working with them.

Therefore, when working with resellers, there must be a proper licensing system. In other words, the customer who buys from them must register on your site.

If the plugin is using simple copy protection (offline serial number method), good luck, it will be difficult to get back the customers you sell to later.

[d.healey]

@JulesV Yes this.

Before I used a serial key system I would provide the reseller with coupon codes that provided 100% discount that they sell to their customers, and the customer redeems it on my site.

[lifesubstance36]

Have seen a few people mention this, but TikTok and Instagram are great free marketing tools. Instagram now has a 'Trial Reels' feature where if you use the correct hashtags, your content can be pushed out to a totally new audience. I would recommend talking about it yourself with maybe a green screen of the plugin rather than just a video of the plugin itself as that's always more engaging.

As for selling, I haven't seen anyone mention MuseHub, but they pretty much do all of the legwork like pricing and all you have to do is essentially upload your products.

Selling your VSTs on platforms like that and others also provides various marketing opportunities they may have internally.

Best of luck!