Rockettheme

Case Study 1 - ROCKETTHEME: THRIVING ON THE WEB

  When it comes to doing global digital business, RocketTheme sells digital products in the form of templates and extensions that are used with the open source content management system (CMS) Joomla. The Joomla CMS allows anyone with at least a limited knowledge pf Website construction or internet technologies to start a Web site. Joomla essentially puts advanced Web technology at the fingertips of ‘newbies’. Current estimates suggest that Joomla is being used on 1.5 to 2 million Web sites globally.

  Andy Miller, a former member of the core developer group of the award winning Joomla CMS, started the RocketTheme template club with the goal of making professional-looking Web sites available to the average Internet user. Competition in the industry is fierce. However, RocketTheme attempts to differentiate itself from other template clubs through originally, a user-oriented focus, and flexibility of design. Currently, it is branching out into other different CMS markets, providing templates for other open source CMS solutions, such as Drupal, WordPress, and phpBB3.

  RocketTheme sells its products directly to its customers through a membership system. Growth of the club is mainly organic. For each type of membership, RocketTheme charges a different fee. Members are differentiate by whether they are light or heavy users (e.g., regular members vs. developer members), which is visible through the pricing schedule. Marketing efforts are targeted at the online community. To attract new customers, RocketTheme uses an affiliate system and makes use of Google ads.

  The RocketTheme template club was launched in 2006 and has experience exponential growth. According to Miller, “ I started the RocketTheme Template Club with a whopping three templates in the inventory. Membership has steadily grown since that time probably due to the increase in number of available templates. It’s been a relatively consistent ride and I...