A few weeks ago I covered Demo WP Pro, a service by the folks behind Ninja Forms to help WordPress product creators create demo sites for their users. Since then, they’ve launched and rebranded to Ninja Demo.
The rebranding was a great idea. Ever since they told me they rebranded, I haven’t been able to remember the old generic name at all. This is a good takeaway for other product makers: once you work hard branding one product, don’t be afraid to use that brand for your second.
Since my last post, they’ve priced the product. It’s $59 for a single install or $249 for unlimited installations and add-on access. The add-ons aren’t available yet, but they alone look worth the price of the upgrade, versus the number of installs allowed.
The add-ons include one for reports to track statistics of user behavior, another for A/B testing your product in demos, and a third for guided product tours within demos.
Ninja Demo seems to have gotten some good initial reactions from what I’ve seen. I think it can be a good product, but it is a limited market in its current form. Selling demos to product product makers limits them to that audience — WordPress product makers. And I assume only those successful enough or attuned enough to realize a need for user demos will jump, unless the WP Ninjas team really deeply penetrates that audience with this product.
Nevertheless, I look forward to seeing how many people adopt Ninja Demo and start using it. I know the team behind AffiliateWP is implementing it soon. More importantly, I look forward to hearing results from product makers about how well Ninja Demo helps them convert demo users into buyers. That’s where this product will be most interesting. If I were Kevin and James, the folks behind WP Ninjas, I’d want to establish some metrics on that as soon as possible.
Brian, I agree with you 1000% about establishing those metrics. Now we just need to figure out a good way of doing that. 🙂
I have been waiting for this. I get asked all the time for a demo version of SearchWP but that just doesn’t fit in the traditional sense. Ninja Demo is exactly what I would have built if I even thought of the idea in the first place. The fact that it makes sandboxed demo sites is absolutely essential for SearchWP; having content and settings that bleeds among demo users managing the same site wreaks havoc on demonstrating SearchWP.
I need the sandboxed environment so potential customers can essentially recreate their site exactly and see how SearchWP handles it. I love the idea and implementation and had it up and running very quickly. The hardest part will be making sure I’m strategic in setting up the demo site itself. In my opinion Ninja Demo is going to be the most powerful marketing tool I’ve got.
I haven’t been this excited about a plugin since AffiliateWP (I know… that wasn’t long ago either). I’m a Ninja Forms user and ever since I took my first look at Demo WP, I couldn’t wait to use it for my theme framework demo.
Rebranding was a wonderful idea. They should certainly run with “ninja” considering Ninja Forms is awesome and I’m positive that Ninja Demo will be too.
My framework is all about built-in flexibility. The front-end is somewhat boring and should be. So the front-end demo I’ve had up for the last 15 months did me no good. I stayed away from a back-end demo because… well… I didn’t know how to set one up and I honestly wasn’t interested in learning. Ninja Demo saves the day.
My demo is set up and ready to run. Look for it on the Ninja Demo Directory soon.
Hi Brian,
I just wonder that is there any other possible application or other use for this tool? If it’s solely about a demo solution for theme provider, IMHO, then there would be not many people into it.
Say, the big guys are already selling well so they don’t have to use this. And the new guys will not dare to show their backend for users (remember themes selling is thank to the eye-catching frontend demo?). Your thoughts about it?