Five ways to Sell Templates to Small Audiences
Considering design intensives? Here's a good look at what they are, how they differ from templates or fully custom designs, and which clients need them.
FIVE WAYS TO to sell templates to small audiences
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Introduction
Many designers believe that website templates are a brilliant source of passive income—at least if you could somehow manage to get a lot of eyes looking your way. To err on the side of caution, they tend to do one of two things: sell their templates on online marketplaces like Etsy or wait until they’ve amassed a sizeable audience before setting up shop.
It might surprise you that when I began Squarestylist I took neither of those options. In fact, I went ahead and launched my first template on my site with next to no followers on Instagram.
Success did not come to me spontaneously. It took months of building my audience before my templates transformed into a sustainable source of revenue on their own. Yet I found from experience that templates can support your studio in unexpected ways—ones that can work for you even while you’re still growing your reach.
Here are five interesting ideas to get the most out of your own website templates:
1. Treat templates as creative playgrounds
One upside to not having a massive following that awaits your designs at every turn is that you have space to explore what stirs your curiosity without fearing judgment. What are the colors, textures, patterns that excite you? Sketch your ideas on paper. Gather your visual inspirations on a moodboard. Or better yet, put them together in a template of your own.
Take a moment of introspection to reflect on your aesthetic skills and sensibilities so they lead you to the types of clients you want to serve—not the other way around.
Style is a design signature that you define over time the more you create, so continuous hands-on practice will only strengthen your distinct body of work. The more effort you put into this upfront, the better you will attract the attention of like-minded clientele in the future.
2. Showcase templates as portfolio pieces
Breaking into the web design industry can seem like a tangled mess of prerequisites: to get new clients, you need a portfolio; to build a portfolio, you need clients.
Like many designers before me I opted to offer my services at the lowest possible price. My first Squarespace site earned me $500. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have been surprised that this client referred me to more people who expected websites for free or cheap.
The truth is, building your portfolio is a steady act of building trust—trust that you are capable of performing the task expected of you as a professional without wasting someone’s time or resources. But there are other ways of earning that trust, especially ones that do not involve trading off your unpaid labor.
Upon promoting my templates as part of my personal project, I didn’t just get purchases from bootstrapped customers; I also received foot traffic from clients who wanted something special. Whenever I asked them for their website inspirations, they said the same thing: “I saw your template and knew that I wanted you to recreate that aesthetic for my brand.”
To their eyes, a live Squarespace demo was a more effective representation of what I can do for their business than static mockups or testimonials.
3. Utilize templates as robust foundation
Who says only your customers can use the templates you create?
A template isn’t just a digital offering for passive income; it can also be the starting point for your fully custom projects if you want it to be. Think of it as setting the tone in the staging process. Your personal template places your signature sections and go-to presets within arm’s reach so you don’t have to go through each and every toggle in the settings.
Not to mention it saves you from staring at a blank page in Figma and Squarespace alike, given that you’re just modifying a copy of your existing design prototype.
You’d be most familiar with the features and constraints of your own template—what you can and cannot change within the framework. This helps with managing client expectations all throughout. By the end of the project they’ll be delighted to receive a website that looks nothing like the template you started with, since it’s now made uniquely theirs.
Of course, you can always choose to designate your base template exclusively for internal use rather than making it available to the public.
4. Offer templates as accessible downsells
Every now and then you’d come across inquiries that do not yet have the financial capacity to work with you one-on-one. This can be a good sign that your studio is starting to gain traction in terms of audience. Instead of turning them down altogether or lowering your prices to accommodate, why not point them towards your template shop?
If they have more time than money on their hands, they’d appreciate you lending your expertise in a way that makes sense for their business.
There are more cost-efficient ways you can deliver templates to these types of prospects. For instance, you can offer template reskins then have their website ready by the end of the day (or week) via design intensives. Templates in this context grant you the flexibility to match your support with the investment they can readily commit.
5. Create templates for compelling collaborations
You may not realize it, but a website template is a digital product that lends itself to potential collaborations. Think back to your ideal client and the additional services they still need for their business to flourish. These are the service providers you’d want to keep tabs on.
The nature of your partnership would depend on their level of involvement with the project. Affiliate marketing and virtual events promote your templates to their audience in exchange for a cut of every sale. Co-creation invites them into the template design process to ensure it caters to their specific niche. Bundling features your website template alongside similar templates and guides for a more holistic service package. The choice is all yours.
Convinced that templates are the way to go?
You’ll want to check out my masterclass on this topic, Selling Squarespace Templates. It’s your short course on everything you need to know about template building, delivery, and support—along with a comprehensive template toolkit to get you started.
