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As you would probably expect, the last few weeks of my life since launching OptinSkin have been absolutely crazy. I can’t remember a time when I’ve spent so much of my day with my head in my inbox, dealing with customers. I assumed that most of the feedback after the launch would be from people with feature requests, support questions and pre-sales curiosity.
As a team, we’ve definitely received enough of those, but the most common type of feedback I have received personally was totally unexpected. Dozens of people from around the world got in touch just to let me know how cool they thought it was that I actually got to do this. That I could spend my days working on a creative project of my choice and then finally get to show it to the world.
I’ve worked this way for a few years now, so it’s not something I really think about, but they’re totally right. It is cool; and definitely beats working in a clothes store.
But I want to dispel any misconceptions and make clear that it’s only cool because I love the project and because I really want to make a great plugin. If you’re not really passionate about what you’ve created then there’s no way you could live with personally replying to the number of emails we’ve responded to in the last month.
The difference is that I don’t just answer support emails because I have to, but because I genuinely want to know what people are having problems with or what features they might want to see in future releases. The best ideas we’ve had so far haven’t come from me, or Graeme, or the other developers we’re now working with.
But from you, the users.
And on that note, I want to peel away the surface layer, where all you see is that I launched a product and presumably made a bit of money, and show you the reality of what goes on behind a product launch. Or at least a ViperChill product launch.
It’s good to be writing again. Sit back, relax, and enjoy…
The Results of the Launch
Usually, I recommend that people follow a ‘Monday, Wednesday, Friday’ strategy when launching a product — especially when following the Blueprint method. The idea is basically that you ‘hype’ a product up on a Monday and Wednesday, then launch it on the Friday. I did it myself when I launched Cloud Living (using videos) and had a launch far bigger than anticipated.
For OptinSkin, I didn’t follow this approach at all. My real way of building up anticipation for the product was to just go about what I was doing anyways, and drop little announcements here and there. For example I would post updates about the project to Twitter and Facebook at various times during its development. In the Cloud Niche newsletter I constantly hinted that something big was coming and I also ‘set the stage’ for the upcoming launch by announcing it in my million-dollar apps article.
The end result was that the majority of my audience knew a product was coming, and that it would be a game-changer for bloggers. I guess that all went to plan since I had people tweeting and writing Facebook updates about the launch before I did. Literally the minute my blog post went live there were people writing about it.
As far as sales go, we’re on track to reach 1,000 customers within the next week or two. I don’t know if that is good or bad, but I definitely have no complaints. As you’ll read later, there were actually times when I wanted the sales to stop completely. I really didn’t have any predictions for how many sales I could make, and honestly I’m just grateful that people are giving it a chance. I’m blown away to see how many creative uses people have had for it so far.
I have done zero promotion besides the initial launch day, with no ads on this site or further posts about the product (until now). I still have around 6,000 people to email in my own audience who haven’t heard about it, and also have a friend with a large premium plugin customer list who is going to be telling them about OptinSkin next week. On top of that, I have a deal with AppSumo that should be running soon, so there are a number of upcoming things that I think will have a big affect on the sales numbers as well.
I usually hate writing about money, especially since many of you reading this have been my customers and talking about sales figures is a little like saying “here’s how much money you’ve just made me”. That’s not how I think at all. I would rather make no money and have an awesome product than make a lot for something that isn’t transforming how bloggers run their blogs. For that reason, it’s unlikely that I’ll be writing about the sales figures again; I try to be as transparent as possible here, so that’s why I’m sharing them now.
We’ve already put money into adding two more developers to the team whose first task is to look into ways we can optimise our current code even further. Features have been added almost daily since launch day as well, so existing and new customers are going to keep getting great additions without having to pay another penny.
I’m fortunate to have a large audience to share my product with, which no doubt helped my launch figures, but I still think the ‘little guy’ can do big launches as well. Hundreds of OptinSkin sales on launch week were not mine. Pat Flynn recently announced that after just 5 days he made $4,800 as an affiliate promoting the plugin. The sales page is converting very nicely right now (more on this later) and we’re always happy to send money to our affiliates.
I’ve openly admitted on this blog a few times that I’m not the best networker in the world. I might have a fairly decent-sized audience but I really don’t have “connections” with many ‘A-list bloggers’. My personal strategy has always been to just treat connecting online like I do with regular friends; to only have a few, but have a really strong relationship with them.
I only worked with Adam Baker and Pat Flynn when it came to getting people to promote the software on launch day, and hugely appreciate both of them letting me use their sites as guinea pigs. I’ve been close to both of them for quite a while now, sometimes fixing Adam’s HTML issues on the side or just chatting to Pat about his upcoming projects. Having just a few good relationships is especially useful when you’re highly focused on creating, as I am, rather than pretending you’re building ‘strong bonds’ on Twitter or elsewhere with a huge number of people.
I would say that overall the launch has been a big success, and after seeing how much the plugin has changed in just three weeks, I’m excited to see what it will look like just a few months down the road. There’s a much bigger market we can help, and a ton of additions that we’re working on to make it even better.
The end result is that regular, beginner bloggers are now doing things that professional bloggers had only dreamed of being able to do. And that’s pretty damn cool if you ask me.
Do What You Can With What You’ve Got
Many of you will know that I think of myself as a bit of a perfectionist. It’s a trait that lets me create things that (I hope) look good and work well, but it also means projects take a lot longer than they have to and I’m not necessarily focusing on the things Glen should be focusing on.
Two big tasks involved in most product launches are the design of the sales page itself (if it’s not being launched on an existing site) and the creation of a sales video. Both things that tend to take up a lot of time and require certain skills to do a good job.
Whenever I can, I always try and do design work myself. I’m not the best developer, but I know how I want certain things to look. I would honestly just have to keep asking for too many revisions if I had hired a developer, so the entire sales page for OptinSkin was created by me with help from TextWrangler, Photoshop CS3 and Firebug (for Firefox).
The base of the sales page was actually from an existing WordPress theme called Redux (non-aff). It was created by Orman Clark, founder of PremiumPixels, who is one of the best designers on the internet right now in my opinion. If not the best. In typical ViperChill fashion, I completely hacked away at the design, creating something that only has the header and footer in resemblance to the original theme.
I like to think I put my own mark on it, and the ‘interactive’ part of the sales page which received some great feedback is something I haven’t seen elsewhere. I’m frequently asked which fonts I use on the ViperChill pages here, and the answer is Aurulent Sans and Springsteel. The fonts that I used on the sales page, just in case anyone is curious, are Qlassik Bold and Chalkboard.
It probably took about four full days to create the entire thing. The actual work part could have been done much faster, but a lot of time was spent actually coming up with the layout concept. My main aim was to design a page that has the best conversion elements of a typical sales page, but doesn’t come with the spammy feel I’m sure you’ve all come across.
One good aspect of me being fairly proficient in a number of things is that I don’t have to wait for other people to do them. If I don’t like a graphic or how something is positioned, I can do it myself, and fast. For a few weeks, I looked around various product websites and saw a number of videos I liked that showed off their respective products. I didn’t have much luck however finding the people who create these very attractive ways of displayed websites and apps.
I opted to make the video myself, and while it isn’t mind-blowing by any stretch of the imagination, it’s good enough. It does the job I intended it to do, and I didn’t have to spend four-figures to make it a reality.
The creation simply involved a mix of Screenflow (for recording my screen), Photoshop (for making various graphics), Powerpoint 2008 (for the animations) and iMovie to put it all together. Below you can see a screenshot of the finished result in iMovie:
I had tried three voiceover guys on Fiverr but each one – after also being judged by Graeme – sounded too cheesy to us. Also after each one, Graeme had been pushing me to just record the voice myself, as did a few people on Twitter when I publicly mentioned my Fiverr failures. Then, out of the blue, sound file number four came in.
I had forgotten that I had purchased it. It was definitely the best I had received, and an almost perfect match for the sales video. I did try a version with my voice, and honestly prefer the recording that we chose instead. It would definitely be interesting to split-test the two further down the road though.
Be Free, and Ready to Act
I’m a big fan of minimalism, so when it came to the final sales page, I wanted to keep things as clean as possible. I probably obsessed a little too much about the spacings between each heading and the content that should actually be on there. Near the bottom I created a section with the heading: ‘The Answer to Every Question Below is Yes, It Does’. My inspiration came from 37 Signals who I mention often, who do something similar for their main product, Basecamp.
I listed all of the main questions that I thought people would ask, and I was right. People did ask them, over and over again. Since people were having to ask them, and the answers were already on the sales page, it clearly wasn’t doing a good enough job. After personally replying to about 20 comments on Pat Flynn’s site, I quickly started working on an FAQ page.
It answered all of the questions I had previously covered on the sales page, and included more which I added as they came in. I was then able to reply to more of Pat’s comments by linking to the FAQ page (with his permission), so new visitors would constantly see all of the answers in one place.
In the first 72 hours of launch our inbox was literally overflowing. New emails were coming in as fast as we were sending them out. Add to the fact that we keep experiencing a bug in Gmail which makes replies create a new thread (conversation style is turned on) and things were getting a little stressful.
We had tested OptinSkin on around 16 different websites before launch day, so had found enough bugs and conflicts (which were then fixed) to make us feel comfortable that we’ve done a thorough job in testing before the big launch. However, as it goes with software, there were things that we hadn’t noticed.
One problem, for instance, is that our code which interacts with MailChimp (one of the email providers we cater for) was conflicting with a little widget that MailChimp had already created for its users. Since around 25% of our users seem to be using the service, and about half seemed to already have that plugin installed, you can imagine just how many emails we were getting about it not working.
And when you aren’t instantly sure what the solution is, it’s not fun to see more emails rolling in. I was very close to disabling the payment button before we figured it out.
Another problem we encountered was with people who are using an “admin relocation” plugin. Basically, what this plugin does is move the location of your WP-Admin folder so that it makes hacking your blog a little more tricky, and makes you less susceptible to automated attacks. So instead of accessing your admin panel at yourdomain.com/wp-admin/, it would then be yourdomain.com/whateveryouwant/wp-admin/. It’s a great idea, but our plugin was looking for files elsewhere when people had this installed, so another workaround had to be built.
Here I have to really thank Graeme for putting in multiple 4am nights to make sure we could get a number of these conflicts fixed. If we hadn’t gotten them solved quickly we would have had a lot of unhappy customers, and I’m sure a lot of refunds to go with it.
Customer service was a huge part of this launch, so I’m going to go and let it have its own section. Heading and all…
Angry Emailers Make Friendly Skypers (And Why I Gave Unrequested Refunds)
I’ve already stated that we received hundreds of emails in a very short period of time. What I haven’t yet covered is the nature of those emails, and the types of personalities that you encounter when dealing with customer support.
Though I’m about to dissect these emails, I do want to first say that I sincerely appreciate everyone who purchased OptinSkin and supported my launch. It’s something I worked really hard on, and it’s a great feeling to see it running on blogs when I randomly browse the internet.
I have a strong belief that people should never have to email us. The end goal is to have someone download the product, install it on their blog, and have everything running perfectly. To have everything mapped so intuitively that we’ll never hear from them again. When that doesn’t happen, it sucks. The last thing you want to do when you buy a product is have to email support because something isn’t working or you don’t know how to use it.
It’s always our aim to make that happen. A common enquiry we quickly solved was that people were requesting their ‘Special Key’. You see, in the members backend people are given their License key, but on the plugin activation page it was called Special Key. They were the same thing, just worded differently.
Fixing this quickly stopped a flow of mails, and meant that more customers didn’t have to get in touch. Helping us reach our goal.
The ‘characters’ that got in touch were fascinating to see. Some people would email and say ‘Wow this is a piece of sh*t. I paid $47 and it doesn’t even work.” then email back two minutes later and apologise for having missed a character on their license key.
Since emails about the same problems kept occurring in the first few days, it was very easy to see the differences. Some people get really, really angry when something doesn’t work. Others will thank you for the work you’ve done on the plugin, give you props for the idea, and then say they’d appreciate it if you have the time to help them. The exact same problem, but two totally different ways that people are expressing it.
One of the angriest people who got in touch (swearing in every email, and never happy with our responses) actually added me on my personal Skype account. I recognised their name instantly, and wasn’t expecting a pleasant chat. This person was actually the total opposite of their email self, praising us for the creation and thanking us for the personal support.
I came to the quick observation that when someone is dealing with another person, rather than just an email address they can shout at, they’ll treat you with a lot more respect. It would be interesting for companies like Hostgator to try this on their live chat, by showing a picture of the person you’re talking to. I wonder if that would increase the mood of their support team and give them incentive to provide a better service?
I believe that the support we provide is as important as the product we’ve created, so this is always something I will make a huge priority. We’ve done live Skype chats and screen-sharing conversations with dozens of customers, made custom eBook graphics for random people we wanted to help and even today Graeme is helping with support by working on the computers at the Apple store in New York, because he’s taking his first break in way too long.
And just for anyone really curious, because I’ve probably made it sound like we’re getting a ton of complaints (mistakenly), at the time of writing this there are 16 separate emails in our inbox. Not bad for almost four-figure customers. Of course, I still want it to be zero.
Dealing with Discounters & Blackhats: A Reality Check
“Do you know someone called X?” popped up on my Skype. “Yeah, they comment on the blog sometimes, why?” I replied. “Oh, just they bought the product through their own affiliate link”, typed a friend who was helping go through some sales data.
They mentioned a couple more names. Some were big bloggers making a lot of money, some people I’ve never heard of, and some I’ve been working on websites with since I was 16. All apparently buying OptinSkin through their own affiliate link to make back about $22 on the purchase. Something against the Clickbank TOS, and something we clearly advise against on our affiliates page (and have since day one).
I asked that person to email a few of them, to see if there had been a mistake, as a few of the names genuinely surprised me. I can live without making $20, but it was a matter of principle, especially when I had responded to dozens emails from some of the people, never asking for anything in return.
Here’s what interested me: Every single one of them replied, and all but one stated the same reason: “My virtual assistant bought the product for me and they didn’t know you can’t do that”. I was laughing by the last few emails as I knew what the response would be.
Again, I can live without the cash, and it’s not a huge deal, but it’s an interesting reality when it comes to owning a product on Clickbank. I’m also really surprised to learn that people ask their assistants to buy products for them, and the assistant intuitively thinks to use that persons own affiliate link 
.
I didn’t do anything in these cases, mostly because there were only a few of them. However, I’ve decided that I will terminate every membership that has been created this way in future (the affiliate username is usually a persons name) simply out of principle and fairness to other customers. And hey, maybe my stubbornness will make sure you aren’t banned from making future Clickbank accounts in your name.
One worry we had was not about whether people would try to save a few bucks buying through their own affiliate link, but that ‘crackers’ would null the licensing part of our software and release it for free. We looked into a number of solutions before we launched but we kept coming to the same conclusion: If someone wants to crack the software badly enough, they will.
Companies that have made billions of dollars by selling software like Microsoft and Adobe are unable to stop their creations freely leaking out to a wider audience, so we didn’t expect it to take too long for the “Blackhatters” to get involved in a plugin with far fewer millions having been spent on security.
On the second day the plugin went live I found it on a Blackhat forum.
I was pretty depressed about it to be honest. I knew it was going to happen, and there’s little I can do about it, but for it to happen so quickly was just disheartening. Knowing a (probable) ViperChill reader purchased the plugin with the sole intention of posting it on a forum for ‘reps’ is pretty sad, but it’s another reality of the world we live in.
I know we are never going to beat the Blackhat guys, but we can always stay one step ahead of them. The plugin available on torrent sites right now is literally the plugin we launched on day one, and there have been dozens of bug fixes and features added since then, so continuing to improve the plugin is one thing which we can always do to benefit real members.
I’m also having fun making their life a bit harder, filing DMCA requests with the various services that are illegally hosting the file. Again, I never expect to beat this, but if I can make their life harder and always stay one step ahead, I wont hesitate to do so.
Funnily (or not), people who don’t purchase your software will still ask for support, and a free copy so they can give it a review:
I spoke with Michael Dunlop not long after he launched Pop-up Domination and he was sad to see his creation all over Fiverr and other websites. Pretty much all software companies seem to have this problem, so all I can do is thank those who did show their support by purchasing the product ethically and continue to make it amazing for those who do so.
The Evolution of OptinSkin
As mentioned earlier, some of the best (and sometimes most obvious) feature ideas have actually came from our customers. Some of the additions we’ve made since launch day are:
- An option to reset all stats data for your skins (we had a “duh” moment when somebody suggested this)
- The ability to rename the ‘Enter Your Name’ or ‘Enter Your Email Address’ in form fields via the settings page. This was requested especially by people blogging in other languages
- A setting to choose the width of your form fields. We let some boxes be resizeable, but they wouldn’t always look good if you couldn’t make the form fields wider or narrower.
- Customers can now use OptinSkin with virtually any mail provider (we launched supporting just five) with our ‘Other’ option which takes the HTML from the service you use and makes it work with our plugin
We have had some other great suggestions made to us that we anticipate having in the plugin within the next few days as well. I see this as something that will still be relevant years from now, so you can be sure that I’m very focused on making it better and better over time. All customers will of course get these new releases for free and you don’t lose any Skins or data when you upgrade.
The next step now is to continue to make those changes, and then focus more on the marketing side of things. I’ve been very hesitant to promote the plugin much due to the number of emails we were dealing with, but the plugin is now running perfectly on hundreds of blogs so I’m ready to start focusing on conversions.
This means I’ll be spending quite a bit of time on split-testing, and hopefully I’ll have some interesting data to share with you all here.
Finally, thanks to Pat Flynn for easing what was quite a stressful day when we launched. His Dad found this at home, and sent it over, which gave me and Graeme a laugh:
Know Photoshop? I’m Giving Away $600
I know this has been quite a mammoth post, but I want to end it in style by announcing a mini-competition. It’s really simple. To enter the competition, simply create a design in Photoshop that we can use as a Skin for OptinSkin.
You don’t have to code it or make it customisable or anything like that. Just create an opt-in form design in Photoshop, Gimp or whatever design programs you use and send it over to us. Myself and Graeme will then look at the submissions and pick our winners. There are five prizes up for grabs, as highlighted below:
- 1st Place: $200
- 4 Runners Up: $100 each
Each person can submit multiple entries, but you can only win one prize. If more than one of your designs is good enough to win, we’ll just choose the best one. By entering the competition, you agree to let us add the design to OptinSkin. For this reason, you’ll also need to ensure it is 100% your creation.
You benefit by getting some easy cash, I benefit by improving my plugin, and OptinSkin owners get new designs to use from talented designers. I don’t even know if five people will enter, so if you do have some skills, I doubt you will have too much competition.
It’s totally up to you which style of opt-in form that you choose. Please note that if your design is heavy on graphics, our customisation potential will be limited or possibly non-existant. However, we are more than happy for designs to be totally reliant on graphics. We have enough that are customisable. Choosing between the two will not change your chances of winning.
Please email all entries to HQ @ viperchill.com by March 30th. Good luck!
P.S. If you haven’t purchased OptinSkin yet, it’s apparently my job to convince you to do so. It’s really cool, honest!
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Fascinating post Glen, and it’s good to hear the success stories.
I’ve recently launched a Premium WordPress Plugin, and starting getting a few review requests. I usually find “buy it, review it, ask for a refund” sorts out the ones interested in reviewing it and making cash rather than those looking for free stuff.
(You’d be surprised how many people who do the latter process don’t use an affiliate link!)
Hey Rhys,
Had a few of those, but yeah, it was especially funny when they come from someone using a cracked version of your software.
That’s an interesting approach though
Thanks for the comment!
Whao, what a long post. Had to take my good time to read it word for word and its so sad seeing those guys at BHW sharing the file and i love the approach you are giving to that as well.
So how much did you spend to create this plugin?
Sheyi
Enough
I sure know you won’t reveal that.
Maybe when you come on my show at ivblogger.com you’d tell readers that.
How’s Asia?
Sheyi
Glen wonderful post and something many people don’t get to experience. It’s nice of you to take the time to provide us with more insight into the behind the scenes work involved.
It’s not just sitting on the beach and watching money roll into your PayPal account!
Sorry to hear about your plugin getting posted on a Blackhat forum. I guess that is one of the realities of the world we live in
Hey Stephen,
Thanks a lot for the comment
Good to see that people were interested in leaning a little more about what really goes on.
Really great plugin Glen. I noticed you included my tweet in the image you posted lol
I’m actually following your blueprint method right now and just created my squeeze page and emails.
I should be going live pretty soon and making some money.
Let me know if you’re interested in seeing my website and i’ll send you a link to it for feedback
All the best
Hey Onder,
Let me know when you’re ready to share, and I’ll show you where the private community is
Top work man. I’ve found you’re support first class on the questions I had.
One thing I wouldn’t mind is like a changelog or something with what’s been added/fixed? Might already be available I just haven’t found it…
Hey Jonathan,
That’s not something we have at the moment but I was asked for it yesterday on Twitter as well so I’ll make sure it’s included when we release the next update
Glad you’ve enjoyed working with us!
Thanks for your plugin Glen, and especially for the “enter your email/name” feature. I don’t know how many foreign bloggers are using it but it’s cool to upgrade OptinSkin for us.
Good luck with the email flood
Alex
Thanks Alexandre,
Surprisingly, there are quite a few. Most have been french if I remember correctly.
Appreciate it
“If someone wants to crack the software badly enough, they will.”
Yes, this is sadly true. I always view it like car security: you can add a steering lock, an immobiliser etc. but you can’t stop the real “professionals” — the ones who jack cars everyday. All you can do is put measures in place to keep honest people honest.
I’m really happy it worked out well so far, Glen. Here’s to many more sales!
Hah, nice example.
Thank you David!
Just to add to this… most software publishers these days also just focus on delaying the inevitable crack past the point of the launch hype (even just 5 days is worth it), since that is where the bulk of sales usually come from.
The only other option is some kind of regular ‘phone home’ mechanism, like unique API keys, but that introduces all kinds of support issues and will eventually get hacked out anyway.
Really though, the support and updates you offer are well worth buying a legit version! There’s always a sub-species of society that want to something valuable for free.
Real roller coaster of a post Glen, at least you were able to take the bumps in stride.
That’s pretty sad about people outright lying about buying through they’re affiliate link.
I remember buying one product through my ShareASale link BY ACCIDENT because I was testing to make sure the link actually worked. A few days later I bought the product direct from the sales page, but the cookies remained and credited me with the affiliate sale as well. I contacted the company but they said no sweat, and thanked me for reporting the issue.
I guess the optimist in me wants to hope that’s the case for a few of those, but most likely not.
Anyway, I’m liking the competition idea, as an owner of this product the one thing I’d like to see more of is designs, for sure. Especially “email only” designs (as I rarely ask for names), stuff like this works really well: http://graphicriver.net/item/subscribe-form-for-newsletter/1737966
Great product & launch, thanks in particular for going over the video details
Damn, I love that design. There’s quite a few on ThemeForest that I’m a fan of.
In all honesty, I don’t know if some were paid for by assistants, so I’m not going to worry about it too much. Let’s just say I think the coincidence was interesting.
Appreciate the comment. Cheers Gregory
Hey Glen,
I just came to your website today to buy Optin ID and happened to see this post. I am really pleased to see that optin ID has been such a success for you and indeed really sorry to hear about the black hatters and idiots buying it through clickbank on their own affiliate id.
It’s tempting to think about getting it for half price but I think we should all not well on a mere $20 and remember the fact that we are personally giving you the money for this product and you deserve that money if not more.
I already recommended it on G+ and will continue to do so and I have no plans to even use an affiliate id, I get rewarded by reputation, not $20. I make enough money as a web marketer not to worry about going around trying to make a few bucks off of other webmarketers.
I can’t remember who you use for your list, is it Awber or Mailchimp? I’m with mailchimp and have had a few people tell me they are unable to suscribe and it’s kind of annoyed me. Mailchimp have said some corporate firewalls are just a bit too heavy but that doesn’t appease me. What’s you experience in this?
Thanks
Chris
I guess the problem with mailchimp is inputing affiliate id in mails. guess it won’t deliver to inbox.
Sheyi
Hey Chris,
Sorry I got to this so late!
Really appreciate the feedback and support. I use Aweber, yeah. In all honesty I’m not too sure if Aweber have problems with that. I haven’t had anyone say this to me…
Cool post. Will be submitting a design or two
Awesome, I dig the design of your site!
Stellar!
This is why I love your stuff, Glen!
This post is as in-depth and honest as it could be, and those Blackhat guys could be a problem. It’s funny, as I just saw someone replicate my custom site design (that I did for $3,000) on his blog a few days ago, so you’ll almost definitely experience people like that.
One thing is sure, though, your plugin works! And more people will get it for that reason.
I just launched my free ebook this week using OptinSkin as the form of my choice. The result? A 57.47% conversion rate! I still can’t believe it, but that’s what OptinSkin says and it’s a testament to the power of OptinSkin.
Best Regards,
Bamidele
Wow Bami your site has improved a lot since I last checked it. Good work man.
Thanks, Tim!
Hey Oni,
Appreciate the kind words! I’ve had that happen with a few elements of this design too, people stealing my header graphics and even my sidebar category buttons…heh.
Sorry to hear it happened to you to.
That result is awesome. Thanks for sharing
- G
Glen
your plugins rock brother, plugin id is superb, your launches always cause a buzz in the marketing world
Thanks Kenny!
I’m glad to see the plugin sales are going so well.
Congrats Glen!
Thanks Cristina!
Hope all is well your side…
This popup looks really good and I might consider buying it for my websites.
Hey Mark,
We actually built OptinSkin as an alternative to pop-ups, for those of us who hate them, so there are no features for that
A bit long post, but interesting non the less :0
Glen,
You had an amazing launch and I’m sure you are ready for a well-deserved breather! Thanks for sharing the highs and lows of the launch – really educational and don’t forget to give your;sef a huge pat on the back for everything you’ve achieved
Cathy
Thanks Cathy, I appreciate your support.
Still no breaks yet, but it’s coming soon
Shit there’s a torrent of your plugin and I’ve bought it? Damn!
Glen, anyway awesome post and the plugin just rocks. It’s always good to read background stories like that. That’s why I come here.
We’ll see if my photoshop skills are up to par for the challenge.
Is there maybe anyone from the community that doesn’t have the skills but an itch to scratch? I was thinking of a design that’s focused on the cooking/food niche and maybe someone says “man I need a beer themed design” or something similar.
Just reply to this comment if you have any requests.
Ha ha!
It’ll be right next to your torrent of Desperate Housewives
Thanks for the entries in the competition too!
As ever, a great honest post about something which i’m sure you’ll look back on as being a fantastic experience. Well done for the launch and good luck for the sales !
I also must admit that the plugin is extremely reasonably priced for the features it provides : I have not bought yet but do have a niche site i’m currently working on (in French) and I think it will come in very handy…
David
Thanks David,
Much appreciated!
Look forward to having you on board
Great to see that you had success in the launch. I didn’t have time until today to buy it or play with it. To avoid getting problems with my affiliate link, I bought it with Chrome incognito (I could have deleted the cookies). I will create a design for your contest hopefully I can get it done by the deadline. Good luck Glen.
Thanks Ricardo,
Looking forward to seeing it!
Hey Glen – just want to say that I really appreciate all your hard work and personally love your plugin!
Don’t get disheartened by all the cheapscates out there – they will always be there and they shouldn’t be your focus.
You have a steady and growing loyal fan-base that are there for you! And I for one can’t wait for your next product
Hey Sandra,
I love that you’re always so positive
Thanks for the support!
Great post – I love the “moving” images on this post! Amazing…
A lot of my sites are HTML i.e. not WordPress.
Is there any way that your plugin can be used on these types of sites. I know that by the very word of plugin screams WordPress but I’d still like to get this clarified.
Cheers
Cris
Thanks Cris,
Me too! I’m amazed that you’re the first person to mention them.
There isn’t right now unfortunately, but it’s something we’re thinking about for the future.
I noticed those images too – the newspaper guy creeped me out a bit only because it felt kind of like a ghost…
In any event, love the stuff you do. Glad to see ViperChill is active again. I stumbled upon you a few years back – glad to see you are growing and making things happen. Keep it up.
Thanks David!
That would be fantastic and it would also mean more income for you – so win win!
Yes those pics are just mind blowing – my hubby agrees too.
This is great Glenn, you’ve created a fine example of how business should be established here in the information age. Great verbal communication backed up by honesty and love for the product, not the money. Love it man.
Thank you Tyler,
Appreciate the feedback!
Glen, well done with the plugin and thanks for laying out the launch sequence and steps you’ve taken! Not using it myself (yet) but the product looks great and it’s good to learn what’s being done in the background during launches like this.
Actually, the main reason I’m commenting here right now is the picture on the post – the one with the girl. It caught my attention – I would never expect to see a photo of St. Petersburg’s subway (the one I take to office every day) on a blog like this. Cool stuff.
Hey Slava,
Thanks for the comment.
Hah! That’s very cool, I actually have no idea where it’s from, I just loved the animation style. Out of curiosity, what makes you recognise it? (I assume they look pretty much the same everywhere…)
Wow… that was a pretty long post but honestly, I enjoyed reading it because now I can see what to expect if I decide to do anything similar someday. I’m glad everything goes well and I already found some people blogging about your plugin.
Keep up the good work Glen (and your team)
Hah, that’s very cool.
Glad you enjoyed it Nikola; thanks for the comment!
Hi Glen,
Thanks for sharing “behind the scenes stuff”
I am still on the fence about your product which is kinda related to the stuff below.
Regarding your copy writing on the site (I have an interest in copywriting on sale pages)
Why not at the top of the sales page, instead of saying “add gorgeous opt in forms…” Talk about the real problem your product provides the solution too.
If there is more than one problem it provides a solution to, maybe have them rotating like a slide show of sentences. Trigger peoples emotions, struggles.
E.g.
1.”Are you tried of optin forms, that are hard to edit? You make an edit and then real optin form looks totally ugly in real life. Urrgh”
2.”You have heard that you should split test your email option forms but you have put it is in the “too hard basket” – Well not anymore”
3.”If you use wordpress and have an email optin form. YOU NEED this plugin. As its the best and easiest plugin to optimize your email campaign on the entire internet. We know we have tried them all and made ours the best by a long shot and we even guarantee it! read below…
4.”Customers from beta testing have been getting an average 3% more people to signing up.” In the longrun that is $1000′s of more dollars in YOUR own pocket each year – thank to optinskin”
Two cents worth
Guess, you don’t agree?
Hey Ross,
Sorry for the late reply on this.
I definitely like your angle, and it is something I need to test more. Right now I think those headings are a bit too long to fill the space there, but that might be my fault with how I’ve positioned the design.
I’m going to be doing a lot of testing on the page – there’s no excuse not to – so I will be trying the problem angle as well. I have a good feeling it will do quite well.
Thanks for your suggestions, and apologies again for the slow response
That’s okay.
By the way did you photo shop those photos above with the moving newspaper? Is there a name of it ?
Hey Glen,
Very cool post (and great fun those moving pictures!)
Very in-dept post and very cool to see more on the background.
I know I’ve kept Greame quite busy for a few things
I’ve told you (and others) that I love the plugin as it just works the way it should.
period.
All the best!
Hey Ralph,
You kept me busy as well
Thanks for your support and positivity as always. It is appreciated!
I simply love your honesty, Glen. You are probably one of the best examples of a ‘non-hype monster’ in this industry yet made it work! Main reason why whenever you appear on my inbox I always oblige myself to read it despite being pretty tight myself working on my site. This is as of yet the longest post of yours but it’s worth it. Me purchasing this plug-in before launching my website seems inevitable now after having read this. Just a thought I have in mind- though it may be one long shot- is the possibility of incorporating a ‘floating, welcome page’ like that of the whitehouse’s website. I find it very appealing since it’s not a pop-up (heck, we all know how much people hate pop-ups) and very modern, too. You might want to check it to describe it for yourself.
Great to see you have a little time off. Enjoy it. You know it won’t be too long. Cheers, mate!
My Best,
N
Hey Nilmar,
That’s a really kind comment. Thanks!
Wow, that’s a pretty neat idea. Since they’re doing it, it’s obviously possible. I actually don’t imagine it to be that difficult
Scrap that.
I’ll do what I can to add this to OptinSkin.
Hi Glen ,
Thanks for this Mind-Blowing post because i know every time you do something obviously you reveal the results about that , in this post i have learned one more thing that is Product launching is not make sense though how you market it will does matter , You unleashed that you had JV with Pat Flynn and i think it is the right decision for you because pat know how to promote something very Sensibly.
Any way i have a question in my mind “How much did you banked with this launch ??”
(Just for inspiration . if you can)
Thanks
Praveen kumar
Hey Praveen,
I revealed the customer numbers, so besides $4 a sale that goes to Clickbank and 100-200 affiliate sales, I’m sure you can have a good idea about the figures
Really glad you enjoyed it, and thanks a lot for the support!
Hi Glen, I’m really glad I read this post because I probably would’ve asked for a refund for OptinSkin instead of emailing support otherwise — my reasoning being that I shouldn’t *have to* email support for such a pricey plug-in. As you say, it should just work. However, you sound genuinely responsive and motivated to make OptinSkin better. So instead, I’ve decided I’ll continue using the plugin, keep an eye out for the updates, and email you a big long feedback email a few weeks before my money-back guarantee period expires (oh, and I promise not to be irate).
I really hope you’re as responsive with customer support as you say because it would just be too too galling to have to request tech support from my programmer partner for a plugin I paid so much money for!
Hey Katherine,
Quite surprised as the ‘pricey’ comments post. I looked around at other plugins before pricing OptinSkin, such as Premise, OPtimizePress, Pop-up Domination and so on. All are more expensive than OptinSkin, with Pop-Up Dom costing $77 and OptimizePress costing $97. We’re half the price of that.
At the end of the day, this is something we put months of work into and if people want to use it (because we think it’s really valuable, and some see that too) then they’ll pick up a copy. Also, I view this as something quite critical to my own blogging efforts, and what price can you put on something that is helping to improve my conversion rates, which increases the size of my audience? I’ll personally be getting a lot more value out of it then fifty bucks, but it does depend on whether you use it or not.
Anyways, thank you for the feedback and for sticking with us, though you’re more than welcome to request a refund
Thanks for the comment!
Hehe, I can so appreciate you being sensitive about my opinion of the price – my partner works on apps for months and months and then sells them for a couple of bucks on the app store, yet still he gets people complaining about the price! I’ll explain. This is what was going through my head at the time of purchasing your plugin – “I’m so sick of free plugins which have had the bare minimum of work put into them, which I then need to ask my partner to fix. I don’t want to keep hassling him every time I make a change to my blog. I’d prefer to pay money and just have something that works”. Your plugin was the first plugin I’ve ever spent money on… and then it didn’t just work. So yeah, I was a bit miffed about the price.
Whether something is experienced as “cheap” or “expensive” is purely subjective. You have no idea where that person is coming from when they express an opinion on the cost of your product (just as they have no idea what’s gone into making it, which might therefore justify the price). My point being, don’t take it personally
Thanks for mentioning “Optimize Press”, by the way. That looks like a good product to know about.
Hi Katherine,
I highly encourage everyone to email support. I’m sure that you’ll find it to be a very pleasant experience; we’re very helpful in many aspects and we love hearing feedback from people. Many service providers hire other people to handle their support (which is something that many successful entrepreneurs would say is critical for efficiency), but we decided that we really wanted to handle this ourselves. The reason is that whenever we receive an email from someone about a feature that is difficult to use, or a conflict with another plugin, it’s quite distressful for us as we really want to create an amazing and flawless product. That makes a big impression on us after a while, and it really makes us want to optimize our work for the next release. If I didn’t have to personally respond to about 50 people who put in the incorrect MailChimp ID, I wouldn’t have been as motivated to create an easier solution for people in future releases (I wish that the developers of MailChimp themselves actually had to see these so that they would put that information in a more prominent position in their settings!). And if those people hadn’t emailed support, not only would that update not have happened, but the customers would have gone away thinking that there was actually something wrong with the plugin. I think that’s why Glen is absolutely right when he says that our support service is an absolutely critical part of the development of the product itself, as important as any other part. It’s from answering support emails that we train ourselves to be better product creators.
Anyway, I’ve had three customer reps at the Apple store (Glen wasn’t lying, that’s really what I’m doing on my break
) check in on me in the last hour as I’ve been emailing Glen about new updates I’ve thought of in the last few days, so I’m going to wrap up and head out. Thanks for all your support everyone.
I second that, your support rocks!
I remember having a problem and emailing support, I got a response in a few minutes and the problem was resolved.
I absolutely will Graeme! I’m just waiting until I have a good amount of experience with the plugin so I can batch it and do one big long email instead of sending several as I think of things.
Glad I’m not the only one who had difficulty finding their Mail Chimp ID!
Very interesting post Glen, especially your love for OptiSkin which transpires more or less on every word you write. I’ts great to see someone so proud and happy of what he’s done. I haven’t bought the plugin yet but it’s on my to buy list as I already know it works great. I’ve had an idea for a useful plugin too and when I’ll have enough resources, and if someone doesn’t do something similar before me, I’m going to follow your steps, so to speak.
Anyway I’ve been pretty tricked by those big bloggers using their affiliate link to spare 20 bucks, that’s more or less incredible. Might it be that they are not making the money they boast and they need those 20 bucks to remain in their pockets?
Have a great weekend!
Hey Andrea,
Thanks for the comment!
Yeah, I was surprised myself too, but I guess that’s the nature of this business sometimes.
Appreciate the support
You too
Seen it all over blackhat sites and also could have sign up as an affiliate to swipe a copy for myself and save some $ but I thought f%^&k that!
I am given my guy Glen the monies since it is well deserved.
Show me a hand full of successful online marketers that have put this much trouble in a plugin that delivers on this magnitude?
Look at this way Glen. There is reports that adobe allowed pirated copies of photoshop as it got it everywhere. And if you stand by your tool then it will get a lot of green light. (statistically the most music is bought by those who pirate)
I have just added to the site today and will be showing a wordpress user group.
Hey Azzam,
Appreciate your support. Glad you like what we’ve made
“There is reports that adobe allowed pirated copies of photoshop as it got it everywhere.”
Hmm really? If true that’s pretty interesting, as I assumed they put a LOT of money into protecting it
Thanks for the comment!
Glenn,
What a hassle and a half launching a paid plugin seems to be!
I don’t quite understand why you would even bother when you apparently make wads of money from other of your internet endeavours that do not involve dealing with tons of emails, people stealing your code, and otherwise.
It almost makes you seem like a glutton for punishment.
I am not trying to say you are not a cool dude Glenn. I love your writing and follow it religiously. You have given me hope that I can make some money over the internet so by all means keep up the GREAT work! I just don’t understand why you got involved in this paid plugin business.
Sure sounds like a hassle!
Carlos
Hey Carlos,
We’ll my first big argument against is that we didn’t expect so many
. Once we get to the point where it’s just 2-3 emails per day – which we will – then that will only take 10 – 15 minutes to process at the most. And, it’s not something I have to do myself.
I appreciate the comment, and the honesty!
And the other big reason is that I just really wanted to make it. I saw a big gap in the market and decided that it would be cool to make a plugin that fills it. Plus, it’s pretty cool to see it on random blogs as I’m browsing the web.
Finally, I needed it myself
Carlos, Glen is a nice guy and he must do this so people can appreciate him! If he does not create this plugin, many people won’t have gotten thousands of more subscribers.
Sheyi
Hi Glenn,
Thanks for the post and the plugin. Just one quick question: I purchased it on day 1 and when I log in to my members area I can see that the current version is still v1.0 and when I try to update it from WP it doesn’t do anything. I would very much like to edit the field’s name and adjust a few things (like removing the name field). Am I doing something wrong that I don’t get the updates?
Thanks!
Hi Baaltazar,
As explained in one of the comments, we have the same version number for security reasons at the moment, and because we only want to really change it when we have a big update to offer – meaning more features at once. We have been recommending it to members who get in touch, but I didn’t want to annoy everyone with a big announcement when there’s still lots of things we want to add over the next week or so.
So, it’s the same file name / URL but different code
If you have any more questions about OS, please email hello@optinskin.com. Thanks!
The plugin is a huge value for those of us who don’t have any design skills. As usual your posts are great, but this particular one had me amazed with the animated gif’s they’re awesome! How can I make those? They add a lot of quality to the post, at least to me they do.
Hey Ark,
I just found them on the web, you can see the image credit link on the first one from a random site
I believe they’re called ‘Cinemagraphs’
Thanks for the comment!
Hey Glen,
Awesome work with you did with this plugin..I am going to buy it very soon when I launch my niche site. Don’t worry about blackhat boys, even them buy the product after some time.
Also I have one concern if you could enlighten me since you are an expert on this and I think you have the potential to guide me to the right way..and if you do I’ll follow your advice closely Glenn
I’ve been selling ebooks based on quick cash methods and it was going very well.. but after I’ve got into Personal Development and got studying how big stuff works..
The problem is I can’t find a passion that I can write as being an expert. Even If I would write about “personal development”, I couldn’t lie about my experiences and since I don’t have a high level of sucess I can’t write about how to be succesful right? I recognize Brian Tracy as an expert but I can’t write like him because I don’t have the proof part..
It may be low self-esteem or perfectionism but I can’t find something that I’m good at and write about it using my experiences..
So I was thinking to find someone who is EXPERT on something ..ex fishing..and partner up with him to do the marketing part.. (maybe marketing is my passion? ) May this be the solution or maybe Internet Marketing isn’t for me? Somehow I can’t think of ways on where to find an expert on something..
I’m sorry for this long post but I think you are the person who can guide me on my sucess. I’ll follow your advice closely if you would give me here or maybe on my email adress
Thanks in advance,
Tony
“If you’re not really passionate about what you’ve created then there’s no way you could live with personally replying to the number of emails we’ve responded to in the last month.”<—–yeah, definitely. Another way to look at it, is – your product doesn't have to be that exciting to you, but the difference it makes – in the lives of those for whom it was created – makes it awesome. right? that's the definition of an awesome product; you can have the best writing, or graphics or whatever, in the world, but if the product isn't meeting the needs of the customers it still sucks.
On the same note: "The best ideas we’ve had so far haven’t come from me, or Graeme, or the other developers we’re now working with.
But from you, the users". awesome man:).
Glen, congratulations on the success of the plugin thus far, I hope the sales graph continues to head towards North-East.
Thank you for the tip about voice-overs, I often wondered whether there were cheaper options to hiring someone and Fiver never came to mind; despite the lack of success, I don’t think a 25% success rate is too shabby and I’ll definitely look into this for future product launches.
Take care.
Hey Chris,
Thanks for the support buddy.
Glad I could help!
- G
Love, love, LOVE…the idea behind this plugin. I’ll definitely be testing this out and think it’ll do great.
As for what you said about PremiumPixels – love his work too.
Thanks for the support Susan!
Look forward to having you on board
This is by far one of the most honest, and in depth reflections of a launch that I have ever seen.
It’s both refreshing, and a little disheartening (because of the hackers/crackers issue) but at the same time, it’s real.
And that’s all we can really ask for.
Your honesty is 100% appreciated.
One question I have though, how do you deal with the continuing development of the product, and at what point do you say it’s time for 2.0?
And what do you think would be included in a 2.0? or is it too early to tell?
Great job sharing this. I can’t believe I’ve never heard of this plugin. I got to this post from someone I follow sharing it on Twitter.
Going to have to get my hands on it for sure.
Anyways, thanks for sharing this and I wanted to tell you I love your work, especially with Could Blueprint. Whenever any of my Subs get stumped on list building (some say I’m a little too advanced for them lol) I send them to Cloud Blueprint and they can’t thank me enough lol.
Keep doing what you’re doing and I’m gonna pick up Optin Skin Real soon
Leo
You really are the KING of mammoth, high quality posts! The ideas you share, the concepts your dig into in clear detail are always worth reading and employing. I’m a long-time reader and a loyal, enthusiastic fan who appreciates the value you contribute to the Internet community. Outstanding!
Glen, first congratulations on your new baby!
I might use it myself soon, it looks like a great product. I also loved this post / podcast, it was great to listen! I enjoy and learn from your podcasts very much. Tnx and keep up the good work! Best, Igor
I love who you have that animated GIF, your bringing old school back. We did animated gifs way back in the day. Congrats on the baby, I also have my first baby on the way!
I’m loving your writing Glen.. Will surely check your product.best of Wishes.
Awesome post – you gave me an appreciation for all the work & thought that goes into it. I’m constantly amazed by your helpfulness!
Sadly I have a WordPress.com blog so I can’t use any of your plugins. Any way that will change in the future?
Great website, where’d you get the pictures?
Great post. You went above and beyond with content here. I am very intersted in the plugin as well. Will be buying it in the next few weeks as I finish up on my projects that would use this well.
Thanks again.
Well, Im going to finally leave my first comment here on ViperChill. Stellar content as usual Glen!
To bad the contest is up, I was a bit to late. Congrats on your accomplishment and success with OptinSkin.
Hi Glen,
I don’t know if you’ll respond but I wanted to reach out to you for advice. I currently own a blog in which i started back up again after a long break. I was hoping to get some of your input on the site and if you had any ideas on how to monetize it in the future when and if i get more views. Anyways, I’ve been reading your blog for awhile now. Thanks
Mac
Hi there!
Please Reply.
Can I just ask you how many web properties do you have? I just got your podcast “How Would I ….from scratch” . Amazing Work done.I’m a starter and hope to learn a lot lot lot from you.Bookmarked
Hi there!
Please Reply.
Can I just ask you how many web properties do you have?BTW, is this thing WordPress? I just got your podcast “How Would I ….from scratch” . Amazing Work done.I’m a starter and hope to learn a lot lot lot from you.Bookmarked
Hey man Looks like you’ve made it now. I just got a promo for for OptinSkin from Ryan Deiss! Good for you man.
Keep up the good work man
Hope there will be more updates for sites that have less than 600px space under the post soon!
We love you, Glen. : )
This is a great concept. Exciting news. Can’t wait to try it out. I really enjoy how your market yourself. How do you embed flash pictures in your posts?
wow, i cant believe people were trying to distribute you files so quickly after it was released… Glad you are doing what you can to annoy and hinder them!
Interesting post, Glen, thanks for sharing.
We’re working on a few products we’d like to launch ourselves in the not-too-distant future, so reading about your experiences was helpful. (and encouraging)
I think its smart you tried not to worry too much about the Blackhat cracks too much. You’re right, I think…there’s not too much you can do about that and you just have to move on. I wonder if it’s really even worth your time chasing them down at all with DMCA requests, honestly…you might be better off just promoting your product and creating new ones?
Great post and just picked up OptinSkin. Looking forward to it.
I see that support “customers-part” was one of the hardest to maintain.
Have you ever tought about move this from Gmail to support software with ticket service?
I’m sure would save you tons of time to finding previous emails, give fast responses etc.
Cheers,
Matt
Great post I´m using optinskin. Very good product
“The ‘characters’ that got in touch were fascinating to see. Some people would email and say ‘Wow this is a piece of sh*t. I paid $47 and it doesn’t even work.” then email back two minutes later and apologise for having missed a character on their license key.”
Wow. Just wow. lol
Thanks for documenting your process Glenn. Its fascinating to read, and enthralling to follow you through the process of creating a wonderful digital product.
Keep it up
hey Glenn,
great post !!!
Where did you find those moving images ???
Interesting Blog, although I think I got lost somwhere on the way!!!!
Animated images are cool.
Thanks for sharing it.
Mark