As most of you who read Blogussion know, a couple of weeks ago we launched our first product. It was our first real attempt at making passive income, and we have learned a lot from doing it.
Prior to that launch, I published an article on what it really takes to make money blogging. On that list, I talked about how a product was probably one of the easiest ways to make money passively. That is, money made without putting in any effort.
This was my first experience at making money through a blog, and making money as I slept. These last few weeks of planning, developing, launching and marketing have been hectic. A lot of good has come out of this product launch, and I feel like I have learned enough from having done it that I can write about it to you in this article. I have high hopes that the information I cover here will motivate you to possibly create your own product one day, and experience the same amount of success and happiness I have these last few weeks.
Like anything else, it’s hard work
I just talked about this on Monday, to achieve success in anything, you have to earn it through hard work. The way you decide to approach your project will determine how much success you will enjoy after launch. If you get that far.
Throughout development of the Blogussion Theme, I was constantly working hard. I could sit here and give you a ton of tips for managing time and stay motivated, but I would be repeating a lot of the thing I have said in previous articles here.
The one thing you need to know about selling a product on your blog is that it requires a lot of work initially, and once it’s launched – it will really do most of the work itself. Of course, a lot of any work that remains will depend on what you are selling, but the one thing that anyone who sells a product better do is this thing called customer support.
Customer Support
I know, this goes against what I said when a product left you with no work, but it was just as much of a surprise to me when I had to come up with my customer support system. You will discover instantly that one of the best ways to sell a product is to show that you offer some sort of support system for people who buy your product. Nothing sells better than a sense of relief.
Setting up some sort of support system for your product is almost as important as the product itself! Your customers need to have a place to go if they have trouble with the thing they bought from you. I have learned this very fast, and this is very true if you are selling a theme like I am.
The way I chose to set up my customer support system was by purchasing a license of the vBulletin forum software. vBulletin is a very professional forum script, and absolutely the best in the market.
I highly recommend you use a forum if you plan on selling many copies of your product. Of course, it’s hard to predict how your product will perform. But a forum is as mind easing as it gets when it comes to customer support, and chances are, they have already joined a forum before and will know how to work it.
Another great thing about using a forum for customer support is that everything will b public. If customers have similar questions, you can always point them to where they need to go. Everything is very straightforward after setup, and if you have a great script like vBulletin powering your support forum, you will be running a very secure business.
An Opportunity for Expansion
This product has given me a great opportunity to expand the community here on Blogussion.
For one, it brought many new people to my blog who were interested in purchasing a theme. These people then signed up to the forum, and if they ever need help with the theme, they know where to go – Blogussion.com.
With the creation of the forum, it will feed off of the traffic from the main blog here, and start its own community of its own. With a side community now brewing, there will be a lot of new things we can do to better the author-to-reader interaction here. Obviously a discussion forum is a quicker and more organized way to chat about things than a blog comment is.
It goes even further than a discussion forum. Some people choose to use a mailing system to support their customers, and that is by far the best way to create relationships with other people because it’s a conversation between you and another person. It’s all about the people you know, and you never know who may have bought your product and how much respect they will gain for you if you offer them fantastic support.
Statistical Improvements
One lasting effect that I can say releasing this product has brought here is the effect on our traffic. Ever since launching, we have had abnormal spikes in traffic (now being considered normal levels of traffic) and it has remained consistent for almost three weeks now. If you can create enough hype around your product, in prelaunch AND after launch, you will definitely see these same traffic patterns.
A new traffic pattern formed after launching our product
Is it all worth it?
After reading this article, what do you think about selling a product? It definitely takes a ton of work initially to build it, and often times, even more to handle customer support. However, there is no greater feeling than waking up one morning and seeing you have earned money while you were asleep.
I have enjoyed releasing my first product to the world, and have earned plenty enough from it to want to do it again!
Have you already released a product on your blog? What was your experience with it, and would you want to eventually do it all again? How do you support your customers who need help with it? Share your experiences here, because I am still new to this whole shopping thing!
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I can relate to the “hard work” part. It’s the do or die principle of a successful product, and yes, again I’d have to say the Blogussion Theme Launch was impressive. Good job Alex!
A little bit of news on me which I think suites this topic: I just did a small launch for my new website-slash-small-business named Twarks | Twarks Dot Net. I decided to start one because I figured out how much I enjoy (love rather) designing Twitter backgrounds… and of course to finally make use of my Photoshop addiction and the looong hours I spend on it (just doing random design things. lol).
So another key I’d like to share to this is finding your connection with your product… because most people who develop products, or businesses for that matter, only do so because of the profit opportunity. It’s vital that you have a strong personal connection with your product first.. something that you ca and will be willing to do even f you’re not paid for it.
I love this post. Alex, keep it up!
Liane´s last blog ..Rebuilding Lives: Continuous Support is Needed for Haiti Disaster Relief Operations
Thanks Liane, I appreciate the kind words there. I couldn’t be happier with the theme launch myself!
I don’t see too many Twitter background services out there, that’s awesome you’re getting into it. Sounds like the beginning of any great startup – starting something you love doing. Best of luck with it.
The “connection” thing is something I didn’t go into at all in the post, but I really agree with you on it. It was easy for me to connect with the theme because I designed the original theme, and I love looking at it even to today. I guess that’s why I didn’t feel very stressed while working on it for so long.
Hey Liane, I just left a comment at your place and subscribed to your blog….thought you should know though, your Twarks link gives me a page not found error; it only has 2 “W’s”.
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..Blog Move Is Imminent ! I’m Looking For Launch Partners…
Congratulations on a successful product launch. I had no idea this blog had a forum! My first product launch was an ebook that I sold for (I think) $10 each. It sold about 15 copies and for my first product I was quite happy. Now I am looking for an opportunity for something bigger.
Tom | Build That List´s last blog ..Squeeze Page Tutorial
Congrats on being a product producer! Let us all know what your next product will be and if we can help in any way.
Hey Alex! This is an awesome follow-up post. I was wondering how your launch went. I’m still wondering more of the specifics, like, how many people purchased, when they purchased, if they purchased after the 10th. But I’m not sure you’re willing to release that information
.
Anyway, congrats on the successful launch. I didn’t even think about how the forum is driving more traffic to the blog. Cool post!
Nick Tart | JuniorBiz´s last blog ..Target Your Customers Like You Eat Your Pizza
I’ll tell you that I made a pretty big profit, and made back my initial investment. The theme and PSD have sold over 120+ combined. Went very well man, but maybe we’ll go into more details in the interview.
Alex I was expecting some more details from you.
When I read the title I was eager to read what steps and factors you tried but I was really disappointed first time.
ZK @ Web Marketing Blog´s last blog ..Online Profits – Learn Online Marketing from Top Internet Marketers & Bloggers
I can always write a followup post – what kind of information were you looking for specifically?
Basically I was looking for what factors you consider for marketing … how you manage them all. How do you manage your social media specially for this launch …
I mean everything and every factors you consider for marketing.
Wow, the post was amazing, Alex you are really impressive…. I hope you will give your little experiences to the world ..
you had inspired me a lot ..
regards
Anil Chopra
Thanks Anil, glad this article has helped you!
I would also just add that patience with your customers is absolutely essential. It goes a long way in relieving the concerns of those who are HTML/CSS challenged and in making us feel welcome.
Thanks for all of the help.
Definitely Kevin, I have definitely learned that from freelancing and have brought that lesson into the forums.
Thanks for lunching your product. Hard work and customer support is major key to lunch product successful. Customer support is more important then hard work. Coz customer will suggest what’s wrong or right. They give few or more suggestion which will be easy to us to make our product more useful.
Without customers, your product really wouldn’t serve much purpose to you right? Everything depends on the people who use the things you have to offer, so you have to pay attention to them!
Thanks for sharing your experiences. As a newbie, I can use all the help I can get.
The best part of getting succeded with any prodct wether its launch or selling is PROMOTION.The more people get ur product noticed the more successful it will be.But it sould be worth for the cost they spend else all our efforts will be wasted & success moves far away from us….
Krish´s last blog ..Tools to Track Your Social Network /Brand / Product/ Website Popularity
Good marketing is important for anything you have, that’s for sure.
I have never had my own product but I would surely love to create one. After reading your experience, I have learn some new things.
I believe you need to have good promotion to sell your product and a good support to keep it selling more.
Agent Deepak´s last blog ..SELL Your Blog to Your Readers
It’s actually really exciting to get your first product up. I really had a great time doing this, and learned a ton.
I’ve managed and produced many products in my corporate life but never as a blogger. With my experience, one would think that it would be easy for me. However, those experiences simply managed my expectations so I actually don’t want to launch my own product. It’s more work than I’d like to take on at this moment.
That said, I can certainly appreciate the time, energy, and stress it takes to kicking off a new product. Kudos to you for making it happen!
Gabe | freebloghelp.com´s last blog ..Stop struggling — 54 article ideas for ANY niche
That’s great you had experience. I wish I could have said the same thing when I started with this theme launch. Probably would have saved me from making a few mistakes – but it all mad a good learning experience.
It seems like you guys have been busy, but congratulations on starting to make some real money!
Thanks Eric, it was a great experience and has been very beneficial to this site.
Great article you wrote here Alex. One thing that instantly caught my eye, and I’m truly glad you added it was “Customer Support” I have seen and it has become a proven fact to myself that customer support is the #1 key in a quality business, the product is #2. Because you can have a wonderful product, but bad customer support and your product is almost guaranteed to fail.
A great addition to running a forum is it gives your customers a opportunity to build relationship with you and other people within the forums.
All of out Gchat discussions really made me think over the whole customer support thing. I probably wouldn’t have gone with vBulletin if you didn’t make me realize how important customer support was, so yeah man, thanks.
The forum has definitely been interesting to run. I really want to evolve it into something greater later, but there is still plenty to be done first.
OK then, now you have to write up why you chose vBulletin over others.
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..Blog Move Is Imminent ! I’m Looking For Launch Partners…
I imagine that selling your own products would take a lot of work, much more than just regular marketing and also you have to always worry about your reputation.
It does take a lot of planning and hard work, but it was definitely worth it.
I’ve found that, depending on the type of product, extensive testing is a huge essential… a couple of times I’ve been part of a release that wasn’t quite ready, and the results are predictably disastrous. On the other hand, I’ve launched a couple of products that were well tested in a variety of conditions, and the response was like a breath of fresh air. Customers love not having to contact you for support.
Thanks, Alex, for your sharing your experience and tips with us!
I made sure to do as many tests as possible, but people still found things that needed fixing! Nothing is perfect I guess is what I learned here, no matter how much you think it might be.
That’s true, the less they have to talk to you the better I suppose. But it’s always reassuring to know they have somewhere to go to if they need help.
Absolutely! I agree… and I use a forum for support as well- people seem to like it because they are able to see up front what kind of support they can expect to receive. It also provides a little extra incentive for me to treat customers with respect, even if they are difficult, because I know that many more eyes are watching.
Steven Corbett´s last blog ..Free Flash Contact Mod for PHPmotion
Nothing will be 100% on launch (ask Microsoft), otherwise the word BETA wouldn’t exist.
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..Blog Move Is Imminent ! I’m Looking For Launch Partners…
Glad to hear your first product launched was successful, I am sure you are working on the next one now!
Keith´s last blog ..Why Blog For Business
Unfortunately I have to take a lot of time off to do school things. But I want to jump into my next project ASAP as I had a lot of success with this one.
You will be unique in my eyes if you’re actually in the forum. Just the mention of “support forum” when I go to buy something makes me cringe…it’s usually an easy way for the product creator to skip out on support hoping others in the forum will respond to questions.
So true! I’ve seen this numerous times, and I completely agree.
Steven Corbett´s last blog ..Free Flash Contact Mod for PHPmotion
I’m all over the support forum man. I check it all of the time and reply to every support thread. I’m doing good there, believe me.
But hey, if other people help – that’s awesome! A few people have helped me, and I certainly won’t discourage it.
Oh by no means did I mean for you to discourage it. It’s like threaded comments when others jump in to help, it’s awesome.
I just think it’s great that you’re actually doing support yourself as well, there are so many that use forums to avoid it….like the “help-desk” that takes 3 weeks for a response. lol
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..Blog Move Is Imminent ! I’m Looking For Launch Partners…
You guys in Blogussion are rocks! Maybe I can be like you someday, but as fast as you did, language is my only obstacle for blogging.
Reza Winandar´s last blog ..This is blog is now Do Follow
We all have our obstacles to overcome Reza…you’ll get there in no time, just keep studying.
Enjoyed the article you provide some great info here, but I would like to add the importance of establishing rapport and credibility with your targeted customers. If they percieve you as having credibility, then theyre much moe likely to buy your product. More info on how credibility relates to the internet and launching products can be found at Internet Credibility
Sarah´s last blog ..What is Credibiliy and what can it do for me?
I like to think we are pretty creditable as we are basically selling our own image and have received many requests to sell the theme already.
I realize from your article that the main key factor for a product launch is the customer support.
product feed ´s last blog ..Intecca 3.0 is nearing its production release