Pro Dreams

 

“How can I increase my sales?”

“How do I make an income on IMVU?”

 

This guide was originally written for IMVU’s old Professional Developer Program which ended in 2007. While that program is no more the goals one needed to reach those income levels are still valid for those looking to make an income in IMVU.

 

This guide is aimed at those wanting to increase their product sales and credit income to a greater level. While this guide will help you with your core metrics this guide is not written for those wanting to gain tier points under the new Tiers system to get the ‘Pro’ tag. If you are wanting to just earn higher tier points please read my Guide to Tiers.

 

Remember those with the ‘Pro’ label are not necessarily profitable, they actually can be very much in the red.  And some without the ‘Pro’ can be very profitable indeed. The 'Pro' tag has no direct relevance to one’s profitability.

 

-Profit is is a combination of Time and Cost in, to Credits earned.  

-Profit has nothing to do with your Tier metrics.

 

Analyze


If Profit is your goal and your sales are not increasing with the population then you should take some time and honestly evaluate your catalog.

 

Good friends who you trust who can TRULY be honest with you are your best tool for this. (no ‘ohh it’s soo beautiful!’ types) Friends who are not developers but are just shoppers are great for this as they don’t know what its like to be a developer and won’t be developer biased. Be ready to take real advice and not get overly defensive at what they might say. They are only saying what is true to them and if it is true to them it is most likely true to many of your other potential customers. They ARE your customers, LISTEN TO THEM!

 

Now, Look at the existing CONISTANT top sellers. Ignore the flash in the pan types who may have just bought their way to the bestsellers list, look for the devs who constantly have high placing items.

 

-Why do they get the sales?

 

-What is different between what they are offering and what you are offering?

 

-How do they market themselves? On their product pages? On their homepages, On the forums? In Groups?

 

-How is their Pricing compared to yours?

 

Now be honest, how does your catalog compare? Where are you lacking? Where can you improve? Many times just a simple thing as better icons, product pages and cross promotion can change the credit tide.

 

For most getting consistent sales was not easy, it took persistence, hard work, and talent.

 

Actions

 

-Master your software: If you have a lesser program invest in a better one and LEARN IT. There are so many amazing tools at your fingertips, take the time to learn them. Ultimately the time spent in learning will be a HUGE timesaver in making products once you’ve mastered them. Talent without skill with your tools is useless.


-Be ORIGINAL!: Make what no one else has yet. You won’t get pro on making the same hair everyone else is. Think new, think outside the box.

 

-Make better not more. Don’t skimp to hurry something to market, so what if you can only make one product or so a week. Time invested to fine tune something to perfection will always earn you more in sales and customer retention than a rush job in 500 colors. (once you’ve got your texture to amazing only then think of more colors)

 

-Evaluate your pricing. Cheap does not mean more sales, quality does. Do not undervalue your work. If your work is good folks will pay a reasonable price for it. Underpricing your products gives the air of cheapness to them and trends to attract users looking for cheap freebies, IE Promo Credit users. That said, don’t completely price yourself out of the market, you want to charge a reasonable fee but if your changing twice as much as everyone else, and your stuff isn’t obviously twice as good your sales will suffer.

 

-Marketing Marketing Marketing. One should spend a SIGNIFICANT part of their product development time on marketing. In the beginning plan on spending at least an hour or more per item or product line to design its icon(s) and product page(s). As you get a system down this time can lesson, but it is a critical step that should never be skipped or skimped.


-Ions are the first, and most of the time only, impression a customer will get of both you as a creator and your product. What are your icons saying about you and your products? Sloppy? Basic? Boring? Cheap? Confusing? If your icons are lacking It’s well worth it to take a day off creating products and focus in on coming up with an icon template that will brand you and your style as well as show a product off it its best light.  Aim for…


Constancy: Icons should blend together well when looking at them on mass.


Branding: Your icons should have a look that is distinctively your own, so a shopper identifies the icon look with the developer without even having to look at the developer’s name.


Legibility: Make sure you are cleanly and clearly displaying the product. In a 1 second glance can the consumer tell what it is you are selling? A shopper is not going to waste their time puzzling out what it is you are trying to sell, they have already skimmed on you your competition. Likewise if making animated icons don’t go so nuts with the animation that it become impossible to focus in on the product.

 

-Product pages are an often neglected great palace to market items, not just for the item they clicked on to find out more about but other related items in your catalog. If a user had enough interest to read more about one item what else would they be interested in? Always cross promote your products, if it’s a room, what furniture match? If it’s an top, what bottoms and shoes match?

 

-Gifting can be powerful tool or an utter waist of credits. How to make gifting work is know your audience and who you are gifting to. Random gifting and you may as well be throwing you credits away. Get involved in groups that would use your products, only gift your items to folks who would use them AND use the IMVU client often. The aim is to get your products out there and IN USE so they are seen by like styled users.

 

-Participate in IMVU! Its very easy for a creator to get totally detached from the product they are designing for and then wonder why their amazing thing is not popular or stopped selling. Get out there in the client and jump around to various rooms and casually meet users. See what they use, see what the wear, see how they use the client. IMVU is constantly evolving, what it was a year ago is not what it is today.

 

 

 

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