Piggy back Wordpress marketing

In the ever growing online world, as we move closer and closer to a time where internet access is available to everyone worldwide, creative marketing opportunities become more and more powerful. Sometimes, however, the most powerful marketing solutions are those that combine existing but otherwise uncomplimentary methods.

Producing a Wordpress theme and distributing it for free is a proven way of getting inbound links and traffic. That traffic can be used to generate an income or for practically any other purpose.

Creative professionals of all disciplines know that to succeed online they need to get their creations in front of the eyes and ears of as many people as possible.

Add to these two inescapable facts a human being’s dependable love of anything that is free and you have a winning formula.

Create a Wordpress theme and add a free gift to the zip file. Make it clear that there is a free gift and make it clear what it is, after all, this is piggy back marketing not trojan horse marketing. Honesty is the name of the game since no one likes surprises online. The spammers and scammers have forced surfers to become suspicious of everything, even if they don’t want to be.

I’ll give you an example.

Enormous is a band you may have heard me mention before. A long time ago the band split up and went their separate ways. Recently a few of the members, me included, got the band back together. And now Enormous have a new blog, powered by a Wordpress theme with the same name. That theme, in all it’s oversized typographical glory, will be released here as a free download on Monday once I’ve ironed out a few little kinks in the code. If you want to the theme now then click here and grab the beta copy. Assuming the theme is enjoyed by enough bloggers the credit link in the footer which goes back to the Enormous blog will provide a good and growing stream of traffic to the reformed band.

This in itself is nothing new. It’s similar to theme sponsorship. The only difference here is that no money changed hands since I am in the band and benefit from the exposure as well. Hopefully this lack of financial influence will mean that those directories that usually frown on sponsored themes will still link the download.

But there’s more. Happily aware of the importance of letting people hear your work, I’ve included three tracks in the zip file. Those three tracks piggy back the Wordpress theme if and when it is downloaded. The more people that download the theme, the more people get to hear the music. And that’s a very good thing for the band since it increases awareness and drives word of mouth referrals.

If you have a product that can be digitized and included in a zip file then creating a Wordpress theme and using it as a carrier might be the magic bullet that delivers your promotional material to a wider audience than you thought possible. It could be as easy as releasing your current blog design to your audience.

Click here to download the theme. Simply edit the header.php file to replace the Enormous image with one of your own and add your own text to the top and bottom of the page as necessary. As long as you keep the footer links back to Enormous and Upstart Blogger you can do whatever you like with the theme and, as always, use it as you please.

And if you enjoy the music be sure to bookmark Enormous Reloaded and subscribe to the blog.