Thread: Starting a Theme Selling Business From Zero

I don't feel like doing any design work today (although I totally should), so instead I'm working on my marketing and sharing some (hopefully) helpful stuff with you.

Please note that I'm a complete newbie in regards to what I preach, so use my advice only if it makes sense to you.

Files your theme MUST have
I'm not only talking about the PSDs you must offer, but also about the page types that MUST work properly inside your theme so that buyers won't have trouble creating a certain kind of page.

Here is the list:

• Home page (preferably with image slider included)
• Simple page with sidebar (on the right, on the left, and on both sides)
• About us page
• Team page (preferably with team members having some kind of "vcard" on the page, a short description about them, and links to their social media profiles)
• Hiring page (with a contact form, maybe)
• Pricing page (with one or two types of pricing tables for the buyer to chose from, "Sign up" button, and maybe also a little signup form)
• Blog page (posts, sidebar, page numbers, stuff like that)
• Single post (sidebar, comments, share buttons)
• Portfolio / Image Gallery
• Single portfolio item (quite optional, but good to offer)
• Page with a minimalist footer (instead of 3 columns with content, make it just a "Copyright" and maybe a small website navigation and "go to top" button)
• Whatever else you think someone might need. Think for yourself. Because this isn't exactly a blueprint, and I don't have enough experience for you to follow me too closely, I'm just trying to help.

How I plan to promote my themes with Pinterest
I have recently joined Dribbble and Pinterest. For Dribbble (name is 3dy - but I still don't have an invite yet[/URL], but I managed to get a Pinterest account (and you should too).

I've read some stuff about Pinterest on teh internetz and this is how I'm going to try to get followers and also make more people sign up to my mailing list for free themes / special offers / kangaroos...

Strategy

• Make a Pinterest account (seriously, did I really have to mention this?...)
• Create a board called "Themes" to upload screenshots of my upcoming themes. I also made sure to arrange all my boards so that this is the first one, and it has a link to join my mailing list in the description of every screenshot I pin.
• Also created a Portfolio board right next to the Themes board, because why the hell not.
• Create various boards related to your industry. I made Websites, Logos, User Interfaces, Illustrations, Business Cards, 3D, Flyers, Icons, and a bunch of more boards.
• I'm gradually uploading pics of my Passia theme in the Themes board, maybe one pic a day or even less.
• THIS IS WHAT I DO DAILY: Repin 10 images from various people to my Websites board, and 5 to each of my other boards.
• I also leave 10-20 comments a day to some of those who I repinned, telling them that I love X about their pin and I repinned it to my X board. This attracts followers - hopefully.
• I also (daily too) follow roughly 100 people, but NOT at random. I look for those who follow more people than they have followers, so that they will most likely follow me back. Don't look just after having followers while not following anyone if you want to promote yourself!
• Repeat everyday until rich, and regularly advertise your own stuff (but not TOO regularly).

You can see how this looks at pinterest.com/3dyro (not a link, but who cares anyway...). It's pretty much like this, but you'd better see it live:

Screenshot-11.jpg

That's pretty much it. As you can see, I'm trying to build audience from 3 main sources (and a few secondary ones): Twitter, forums, and Pinterest.

Also: pretty please, since you see that I can't post too much on IMT due to the lack of time, I would really appreciate if you rate this thread and maybe me too, it will help me get rid of this restricted rank faster and I can post links and real images.

And now you guys go work on your own stuff. Good luck.

First of all, thank you guys for rating this thread (it used to have 4 stars, now it has 5!) and giving me Thanks for my posts. I'm soon going to not have so many limits anymore, edit my posts and, of course, post images. Which you want to see. So keep rating!

Back to the journal now... I decided to make some changes to my business strategy, and I'll explain them to you right now.

10 PSDs instead of 15
Why? Because I just don't feel they are important enough to make a PSD for them. Sure, they should exist in your theme demo (I'm talking about the HTML, WordPress, and whatever others may be), but it's useless to create a special PSD for each because all the elements already exist somewhere else.

Red stuff must die:

• Home page (preferably with image slider included)
• Simple page with sidebar (on the right, on the left, and on both sides)
• About us page - Because it looks like a homepage without the image slider
• Team page - Because it's exactly the same as the About us page, plus the member cards that can be found in the UI kit.
• Hiring page - Same reason.
• Pricing page - Unless you are going to make it really special, forget about it. It's the same as the others I removed, plus a pricing table that's available in the UI kit.
• Blog page (posts, sidebar, page numbers, stuff like that)
• Single post (sidebar, comments, share buttons)
• Portfolio / Image Gallery
• Single portfolio item - Not really removed, but merged with the Single post, because it's almost the exact same thing (plus comments).
• Page with a minimalist footer (instead of 3 columns with content, make it just a "Copyright" and maybe a small website navigation and "go to top" button)

• But Eduard, I really feel like I need to make a separate page for each thing you told me to forget about!!!
Then make it. Simple. You don't have to follow what I say, pick up just what you think it's good for your business.

Find a niche
I know, I KNOW (oh, just shut up!) that I have previously said that my themes will be all-purpose because I believe my design is so heavenly that people would buy it regardless of what site they want to build.

And I still believe this. I will, however, join a niche that I think would fit my themes the best. In my case, it's one-page portfolios (and blogs, which won't have just one page, but bear with me).

I kind of start believing that, even in theme building, niches beat all-purpose stuff. I have analyzed the top theme sellers and, while they don't sell themes for a specific niche (ex: fitness, restaurants, etc.), each one of their themes fits one purpose. There are almost no "this theme does everything" pieces in their portfolios, and each one of their themes appeals more to a niche than the others (photography blog, electronics store, etc.).

So what I suggest you? Well...

1. Create themes for something you are interested in / know would sell well / there aren't many themes for (ex: fitness, churches, animals, educational institutions, web hosting companies, forums, weddings, whatever the hell you wanna make).
2. Focus on a specific type of theme (vCard, ecommerce, CMS-specific themes, photo galleries, responsive designs, minimalist sites, etc.)
3. Experiment. Make each theme of yours appeal to a specific niche.

Pick just one of the 3 things above. Or hell, do whatever you want, these are just suggestions. After all, you know your target market better than I do (and if your target market is "everyone that needs a site"... good luck).

I will come with more ideas for you, since I had to think of lots of them before finding what appeals to me the most. I'll share my lists of ideas with you all, eventually. Just keep this thread up for anyone to see (but don't exaggerate, because the mods would probably kill my a*s for it).

That's it for today, and I really hope it helps someone. Maybe. I go work on my own stuff now, and you should too (I know, I say this all the time).

From my reading of this post I think you are probably moving in the right direction.

I think that having all the options is probably more important to a design shop. The more unique designs they can offer to their customers the better. Customizing a theme that you are familiar with is easier than learning how different theme builders accomplished specific things in the theme.

For the general user the customization options are less important. They are likely to pick something that they like and go with it. Many have no interest in working on the theme, they just want to get on with adding content.

It appears to me that WP has recognized this. Since 3.0 they have been releasing new themes on a regular schedule. They originally expected people to dig in and customize their themes, but if you look around you see many sites that are built on the default theme with no customization.

best of luck and want to heard more from you

really enjoyed reading you, you know where you go and it's important.

You have started and progressed well. I am very much eager to know the current standings of your business.

@ 3dy - We have not heard from you a long time. Have you success with your template?