Back in March 2010 I wrote the Slickr Flickr WordPress Plugin which makes it easy to display your photos from Flickr on a WordPress blog either as galleries or slideshows. The plugin has been running for 9 months and each month I have supported the plugin, taken feedback and added new features. Right now we are up to version 1.19 which I released today and the plugin has had over 15,000 downloads in total and it is well received by the Flickr community.
About two months ago I decided to try and make some sort of financial return on the WordPress plugin by planning a ‘paid for’ support model. Given it took me only a couple of weeks to write the plugin in the first place (discounting the hundreds of hours of free support), I thought this would not take me very long: but I was very wrong.
Much to my business coach’s growing frustration (and mine) it has taken a couple of months to go from the free WordPress plugin model to the premium version. The plugin mind-map below gives you some idea of why it has taken so long. [The diagram is clickable so you can download the PDF if you like]
Planning the Premium WordPress Plugin
This is the breakdown of what was required:
- Support Forum and a Suggestions Forum
- Membership Site
- Slickr Flickr Pro Bonus Features (plugin development)
- Slickr Flickr Pro Bonus Videos
- Licence Key Generator
- Licence Key Checker
- Sales Funnel and Sales Page
- Payment Integration
- Promotion on WordPress
- Promotion on Forums
- Promotion on Social Media
WordPress Forum Plugin
I choose the Simple Press Forum WordPress plugin because it was highly recommended and easy to set up as a members only forum only available to existing subscribers. No custom coding was required at all.
I set up two forums: a Support forum and a Suggestions forum with the Support forum being completely private to members and the Suggestions forum allowing read only access to guests. It was a piece of proverbial cake. Simple Press rocks!
WordPress Membership Site
As for the membership site I use the infusionsoft integrated WordPress plugin infusionWP written by the awesome Bob Keen. The primary benefit of this plugin is the seamless integration with Infusionsoft, so when you sign up a member of Infusionsoft you can create a subscriber(member) automatically on your WordPress site. InfusionWP has an enormous number of features to customize the membership site.
Slickr Flickr Pro Bonus Features
As well as priority support and the forums, I wanted to create some more inducements for users to sign up for the Pro Edition. For this I tapped into the dozens of questions, issues and suggestions that had arisen in the last few months and came up with what I hoped were three good reasons to upgrade:
- Unlimited Photos – useful if you want to display more than 50 photos in a gallery or slideshow
- Automatic clearing of RSS Cache – useful for real time updates and when you are simultaneously adding photos while updating your WordPress site
- Specification of exact slideshow size – useful for non standard size photos (e,g not 4 by 3, or 3 by 4)
Slickr Flickr Pro Bonus Videos
The next thing was to put together some training on the bonus features for which I used Camtasia Studio to record 2 or 3 minute videos that demonstrate how to use the new features. Using Camtasia production I created a high definition (1280 by 768 or 16 by 9) format mp4 files and saved these on Amazon S3 and Amazon Cloudfront. The CloudPlayer Pro secure streaming plugin that is bundled with infusionWP is used to deliver the videos fast and securely to members. I also created a couple of getting started videos which will appear on the membership site and also on YouTube (e.g How To Find Your Flickr ID)
Licence Key Generator
After payment is confirmed, the system generates a random 32 character license key which I store along with its MD5 hash value in a custom table in the membership site database.
Licence Key Checker
I created a PHP script that checks the Slickr Flickr Licence key is valid and logs the domain that it is being used on and the current time. This called remotely using CURL whenever a user enters the Pro Licence key into Slickr Flickr Admin settings. On success a green tick, instead of a red cross, appears next to the key.
Sales Funnel and Sales Page
I created a short video and a simple page listing the benefits of Slickr Flickr Pro Membership and a description of the bonus features. This page has a single link through to the Upgrade page. I then added a number of links to this page, from the plugins readme.txt which appears on the WordPress Plugin directory and on relevant posts on the main Slickr Flickr site.
Next on the sales/upgrade page I placed the sales video which was recorded using Camtasia – this is a walkthrough of the membership site with the support forums and the bonus feature videos. It closes with my persuasive sales pitch which still needs a little work:
If you would like to buy then please click the button below this video.
The page is integrated with social media with a FaceBook ‘Like’ button, FaceBook comments and Twitter as well as blog comments.
Payment Integration
Payment is via a monthly subscription using PayPal. Rather than use a subscription button I am using my prototype PayPal Subscriptions for Infusionsoft WordPress plugin which integrates a PayPal Subscription with a recurring order On Infusionsoft. This uses PayPal’s Express Checkout API and its Instant Payment Notification, in conjunction with Infusionsoft’s API.
From the user standpoint they click the payment button, sign up to the subscription on Paypal’s site, and the plugin does the work behind the scenes to acknowledge the payment, set up the software licence key, set up the contact on Infusionsoft with a subscription, create the member using InfusionWP and send the welcome email before sending them to the thank you page.
Once the user confirms their email address they get the email with the log in details to the membership site where they find their Pro Licence key, the bonus videos and the forums.
Promotion on WordPress
At the time of writing Slickr Flickr happens to be appearing in the number one position of 270 Flickr plugins on WordPress. I am not sure why it is in this position having been on page 3 or 4 for many months. But the effect of this is a lot more downloads.
Promotion on Forums
I have identified forums as a source of promotion but have not done much yet in this area. I wanted to make sure the current release was stable before driving more traffic and attracting more users. Slickr Flickr Pro 1.18 has been running a week now and I have just released 1.19 with non critical three bug fixes and one new feature, a Slideshow LightBox. My usual haunts as far as forums are concerned are Thesis DIY Themes, Stompernet, Third Tribe Marketing, Warrior Forum and Flickr. I will get to work over the holidays on promoting the plugin further.
Promotion on Social Media
A Slickr Flickr FaceBook fan page is the next thing to do. I will also put all the non premium videos on You Tube in the next week.
I have a #slickrflickr tag on Twitter but the bird has not chirped for some time. I will use this to notify users of new versions of Slickr Flickr as well as Support posts and video tutorials.
Conclusions
So the easy part is completed, the premium WordPress plugin has been developed and is in the marketplace and you can buy it on the Upgrade to Slickr Flickr Pro page: all that remains is the more difficult job to promote it.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Russell, Can you explain why you need the MD5 hash value of the license key?
Hi,
I used MD5 so that it is the hash value that is transmitted rather than the plain text version of the Licence Key.
Also when I coded this I took a look at what Gravity Forms had done for their licence key and followed their lead.
Regards
Russell
Thanks Russell,
Sorry to bother you on this but I’m working on a premium plugin myself and still haven’t figured out the best way to handle the licence key issue (or whether and how I should encrypt the source code).
Other than following Gravity Forms’ lead, what advantage do you see in transmitting the hash value as opposed to the plain text version of the licence key. What does it matter to you if it’s in plain text?
Thanks,
Ben
Hi Ben,
IonCube is a good choice is you want a fully encrypted plugin.
However, Slickr Flickr is GPL, and GPL and encryption don’t really sit well together – although you can get around this by offering to sending interested parties an unencrypted version on request. Also Slickr Flickr Pro is only $2 a month so it does not make sense spending a lot of time on security.
You are right, the hashing of the key is not critical, but all I am doing is just adding a small amount of difficulty to breaching security.
It is (very vaguely) analogous to putting up a sign “No Unauthorized Entry”, locking the front door and putting the key in a locked box in the potting shed, and taking that key out on the road with you. Most people will respect the sign; a few will try the door and find it locked and give up then. If someone goes to the trouble of pinching the key and trying it in the front door then that won’t work either. Sending the key is hashed format is just another small step of obfuscation. The overall approach will stop most people but not the determined.
That’s about as much as I am willing to say about security. Carl Hancock put it much more succinctly:
Regards
Russell
Hey Russell,
On Bob Keen’s suggestion I’m interested in your paypal-infusionsoft WP plugin – it sounds great.
Are you planning to sell that as well at any stage?
Cheers
James
James Watson´s last [type] ..Killer Free Viral Traffic Tip That Anyone Can Use On Their Blog
Hi James,
Yes, I am planing on selling the plugin when it is ready.
The plugin is just installed on my own site right now and has been running for about 3 weeks with no problems.
The remaining work is mainly around creating training videos to show how to set up PayPal, Infusionsoft and the WordPress site. This setup is not trivial:
Due to complexity of setup I see two possible ways of selling the product:
The first option will be available before the second as I think I have to run through the installation on various Infusionsoft environments before I can get a good enough set of instructions together.
Finally, I would like to offer 2 versions of the plugin – one that is separate from infusionwp and another that is tightly integrated. So far I have been working on the first of these.
Since Bob has just recently implemented custom short codes with parameterisation it should be possible to grab the subscription/product definitions directly from infusionsoft rather than have to set up prices, names and descriptions in both infusionsoft and in my plugin.
So you can see I have a bit to go.
Please let me know your time scales and what type of installation make sense for your business?
Email is russell [at] wordpresswise.com
Thanks
Regards
Russell
Just so everyone know, the Infusionsoft and Paypal Recurring Payments plugin is now ready and available. Please visit http://www.infusionpp.com
Hi James,
Just a note to say the plugin that integrates PayPal Recurring Payments Integration with Infusionsoft is ready. It has been running successfully automating monthly PayPal subscriptions for Slickr Flickr Pro now for over 6 months.
Please head over to http://www.infusionpp.com to take a look.
Regards
Russell