The Beginner’s Guide to Sell Digital Products

If you’re starting an online business, one of the options that you might consider is starting your own online store. Once you decide to start an online store, you’ll then have to decide between selling physical products or digital products.

The difference between selling physical or digital products comes down to personal preference and skillset. Digital products are great for those that don’t have space to store physical inventory and for those that don’t want to deal with the logistics of shipping. However, if you’re interested in digital products, you’ll also need to have the skillset to design and create those products.

If you’re considering launching your own store to sell your digital products, here are some tips to keep in mind.

Know what you want to sell

Start thinking about what type of digital products you’re interested in selling. Whether you’re an avid musician who wants to produce jingles to play in the background of advertisements or a travel photographer who wants to sell stock images, there is a lot of room for innovation and creativity when it comes to producing digital products.

If you’re already blogging or running your own website, you might want to leverage your current reputation to sell an ebook or an educational course. Your followers already see you as an expert in your field. An ebook or an educational course would allow them to further benefit from your knowledge.

Other popular digital content includes software (such as plugins and website templates), graphic designs, and podcasts. If you have an idea for a digital product, find an existing market and figure out what the products generally sell for.

Have a production plan

Once you have a product or two in mind, think about how you’re going to actually produce that product. Think about workflow and what needs to happen.

Some products, such as an ebook or a song, can be produced once and then resold countless times. At the same time, however, you’re going to need a plan in place for producing more books or songs. Other products may require you to be more actively engaged. For example, if you’re teaching a course, you’re going to need to engage with the students. And if you’re interested in something such as producing posters, you’re going to need to set aside time to customize artwork for each client.

The more strategic you can be upfront, the better. This will allow you to create a sustainable business model.

Think about your platform

Once you know what you want to sell and how you’re going to produce it, think about what sort of platform you want to use. This is going to vary depending on what you’re creating and what your skillset is.

There are plenty of existing websites and applications where all you need to do is create a user account and start selling. These platforms are easy to find and generally already have a pool of potential customers that are looking for products just like yours.

If you already have your own website or blog, however, you might want to create an online store on your existing site. A few simple adjustments, such as adding landing pages that direct people into a sales funnel, might be all you need to start selling. Click here for a sales funnel software comparison.

Decide how to launch your product

Finally, start developing a marketing strategy. Marketing your digital products is just as challenging as marketing physical products. You can’t just upload your products to the web and start expecting to make a profit from them overnight.

Ideally, you’re selling a specific product that will appeal to a specific audience. Find ways to begin reaching this audience. This might be going onto social media groups and giving them a small teaser of what you’re selling. Or it could be using specific keywords within descriptions to build strong SEO.

Sometimes, you may have to offer a free sampling of what you’re selling to draw in potential customers. For example, if you’re selling an ebook, consider making the first few chapters free to download. Once they’re hooked into your book, there is more of a chance that they’ll pay for the remaining chapters.

Conclusion

There is profit to be made selling digital products, as long as you are strategic about what you’re selling and how you’re selling it. Start examining the existing market to see what others are selling. This will give you insight on what is (or isn’t) working for others and may give you the inspiration you need to start your own store.