How Lead Player Makes Money

Oh this is another delicious case study!  Lead Player is a WordPress plugin – so software – which allows users to embed their Youtube clips on their website and then put opt in boxes or calls to actions during the videos.  Brilliant!  So freaking simple too from a conceptual level too.  And well, the idea is killing it.

Clay, one of it’s co-creators, used to be big into info products and during his interview with Corbett Barr over at Think Traffic he shared some big ideas on earning passive income from software versus info products, and much more.

Before I share those point, let’s just ideate on Lead Player a bit more.  It’s a fairly simple plugin, but it sells for $107, and if you want it unbranded and on multiple blogs (probably 80% of people), you pay an extra $40 for this.

Hello premium pricing!  It’s a WordPress plugin let us not forget.  If this doesn’t make you think twice about the money earning potential of WP plugins I don’t know what will.  Not everyone has to resort to asking for freaking donations on their free WP plugins.  Awesome.

So how can Clay charge such a price?  From my own thinking, I’d say for starters, he’s solving a big pain…the kind of pain that if solved, can earn people the price of the plugin back literally overnight.  I am of course talking about turning eyeballs into subscribers or paying customers.  Pretty much any product aimed at the online business world can fetch a premium price if it can bring the buyer more sales.  And Clay’s trading on this ‘software as a small investment’ idea.

I mean, even I look at this and think hey $140 something dollars, is nothing – a 10% increase (let alone 500% increase) in subscribers for one week would make the plugin worth it.  Really try to think about what ideas you have that can help people earn more money, because when you lock onto one and then niche down, you have a license to print money.

It’s precisely why I love my careers advice membership site.  Students are ready to throw money at a product that can increase their chances of landing a $100,000+ job – a couple hundred bucks to them is literally nothing in comparison to the potential results they can achieve from it.

Anyway, what else can we learn?  Software rules!  If you can team up with the right people to make it and there is a need for it out there, you can earn a lot more money than by making info products…on average.  But you really do need to get a lot of things right and there is some risk (although you should be mitigating this like crazy).

Also, I don’t want Clay’s example to fool you into thinking, hey I’ll make a WordPress Plugin that helps people do xyz and then I can retire.  You see, I personally think a big part of Clay’s success – and I believe he mentions this somewhere – comes from the fact that he had a massive online following prior to this from all his days blogging and creating info products, and he has built up a huge network of supporters, especially supporters in the Internet Marketing world, who helped him get the word out about this product (which is so highly relevant to their audiences).  Ie you have years of hard work behind the success.

I hope this case study shows you that software is as attractive as it is challenging.  And don’t underestimate how much time Clay puts into this product (or at least pays other to, in terms of support etc).  Buuuuut, I guess it’s the same with anything really; I mean even an info product needs the same foundational audience to be a big success.  PS I should note here that one of the best niches to create software for is indeed the online business building niche; ie to help other people grow their businesses, increase their sales etc.  Everyone sees everything as an investment they can’t afford not to make…hello customers!

Visit Lead Player or check out Think Traffic where case study originally spotted