Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been seeing more and more people making money via digital products.
To be able to create something and then make sales over and over again without having to restock or ship physical products sounds like a dream come true, right?
Well, it’s not just a pipe dream anymore – with the rise of digital marketplaces and tools, anyone can turn their ideas into an income stream.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through the steps to creating and selling successful digital products.
Step 1: Identify your niche
This is always the first step in every business model. If you don’t have a niche, you won’t have an audience to sell to.
You may already have an existing audience in a niche, and if you do that’s great. If not, you need to do some deep thinking.
What’s something that interests you and that you never get tired of talking about? Whatever that thing is, that’s what you should go after.
It could be more broad, or even more specific. For example:
You could make your niche digital marketing as a whole, or you could narrow it down to strictly Instagram growth.
Whatever it is that you choose, you need to be passionate about it and have some knowledge in the area. Passion will shine through in your work and keep you motivated when things get tough (and if you don’t have an audience already, it’s going to get tough).
Step 2: Choose ONE Marketing Channel
The biggest mistake people make when trying to start a business like this is that they try and market on every single channel. The problem with that is the fact that every algorithm is different. You’re going to have to spend a lot of time learning all platforms at once in terms of what works and what doesn’t.
Your best bet would be to choose one platform, learn how to grow it, and then diversify by then going to other platforms.
Choose the platform that best caters to your niche:
- Instagram is great for visual products, such as graphic designs, photos, and templates.
- YouTube is perfect for tutorial-based digital products or anything that requires a demonstration.
- Pinterest is fantastic for home decor, printables, and recipes.
- Twitter is excellent for sharing blog content or short updates.
- LinkedIn is ideal for professional services and networking.
Also, Pay Attention To Demographic
You can’t just choose a platform because it’s the platform you like. That platform should be optimized for your audience. For example, if you’re looking to reach older parents or grandparents, Facebook is your clear way to go as the demographic is much higher in that age bracket.
If you’re looking to reach a younger audience, TikTok or Instagram is your best bet. Research which platforms your audience is most active on and focus your efforts there.
Step 3: Grow an Audience First
You have to understand that this is going to be a process. It won’t happen overnight. You need to grow an audience before you can begin to make a lot of sales.
However, what you should do is start with a lead magnet off the bat. This gives you a chance to capture emails and begin to build an email list from the very beginning.
Offer something valuable that your audience will want, such as a free e-book, guide or template related to your niche.
Having people on your email list is the best possible way to make sales. People don’t usually buy on the first interaction with a brand, so having their email allows you to continuously market and nurture the relationship until they are ready to make a purchase.
Step 4: Begin To Look For Product Ideas
The very best part about selling digital products is the fact that there are so many different ideas that you can come up with.
Some of the most popular digital products include e-books, online courses, printables, templates, and graphic designs.
Here’s my process of how I found my first digital product idea in the productivity niche.
Gummy Search. Essentially, Gummy Search is a tool that allows you to search a group of subreddit communities to find out their problems.
As you can see above this is the productivity search I did on Gummy Search. It gave me hot discussions, advice requests, solution requestions, pain & anger (frustrations), etc.)
One pain point that people had through researching Gummy Search was how to optimize their morning routine. A lot of people would ask what the best morning routine to be successful was.
So what I did was create an E-book about how to create an effective morning routine that will increase productivity and success. This product idea was inspired by real problems and pain points of my target audience, making it highly likely to resonate with them.
As you can see below, after promoting it one time in my other newsletter (Self Development Snack), I was able to get 3 sales for a profit of $15 right off the bat. I have more plans to refine it based on feedback and sell it for a little bit more money, but the ability to make money through a digital product is 100% real.
I was able to create this on Canva, which is a free graphic design platform. It was very simple to use and I highly recommend it for creating digital products. All you have to do is search the E-book there, and then you will be able to choose from nice templates and edit them.
How To Speed Up The Process To Start Making Money As Fast As Possible
If you want to do this as fast as possible, consider doing the following.
Study your competitors within the platform that you choose. A lot of people choose Instagram specifically for this process because they’re able to post stories pushing their products as well as easily send people to their email list for their products.
Study what they do and then figure out how you can model it for success. You have to study every little detail. What kind of posts are they posting, how often are they posting, what do their captions look like, how are they promoting their products, etc?
Another thing you can do is collaborate with other sellers and influencers in your niche. You could do this for the growth of your account, OR you could try and go the route where they help you get more email list subscribers.
How Long Until You Start Making Significant Money?
This is a loaded question because that depends on exactly what you consider “significant” money to be. However, if you put together a comprehensive course you could sell for $300-$400, you could make pretty good extra money even if you sell one course per week.
It depends on the need for the course and the demand for it, as well as your marketing strategy. If you create a high-quality course that solves a specific problem and markets it effectively, you could potentially start making significant money within a few months. So spend a little extra time diving into the problems of your audience and figure out which problem could be solved for the most amount of money.
My Goal With Making Money Via Digital Products
For my productivity newsletter, I’ve grown a significant audience of 500+ people. My main goal is to spend a little more time diving into the biggest pain points of my audience through speaking with them.
Once I figure that out, I’m going to put together one big product that will solve their biggest problem and market it effectively. I want to create a product that not only helps people but also generates passive income for me.
If you were to start making money with this method, what niche would you start it with?