7 Simplified Steps To Create And Sell Digital Products

How to create and sell digital products like ebooks

If you have been searching for digital products like ebooks to create and sell or would love to try out different digital products aside from ebooks, then this is what you need to get started.

Whatever your reason is, there is no cause for alarm because there are tons of digital products you can create out there.

If you are in the dark about what a digital product is, let’s dip a toe into its definition real quick.

Table of Contents

What Is A Digital Product?

Digital products are any form of products that are in digital form. Ranging from ebooks to apps, to digital arts to any product you can think of in this form.

Most people’s thoughts run over to ebooks when digital products are mentioned; if you fall in this category, you will find it interesting that there are other forms of digital products in the virtual world.

Without further ado, let’s get the wheels of how to create and sell digital products like ebooks rolling.

But before moving on to selling digital products, which is actually the juiciest, let’s cover how you should create your digital products.

Not just any digital products, but digital products that would sell themselves!

3 Steps To Create And Sell Digital Products That Convert

If you take your time to peruse different marketplaces for digital products, you’ll notice something similar across them.

” The fact that you’re not the only one selling that digital product”

Let’s use ebooks as a case study.

If you log into Amazon and would love to get a book on living a fulfilled life. Once you input your keyword on Amazon’s search bar, you’ll notice in the picture below that there are a handful of books with steady reviews.

Now let’s say you aren’t much of an authority on this topic or a well-known person in the online space and you end up creating a book on this topic on Amazon, will it sell?

The short answer is NO.

The long answer? You might sell, after a lot of huffing and puffing plus sleepless nights trying to get things right.

You will sell out without any stress thou, if you have your audience or have the time to build an audience.

But if you are the type that wants to create digital products as a side hustle, you also know you don’t have all day to invest in your business not to mention competing in a saturated market.

So what to do?

This brings us to the first and unskippable step in creating a digital product that sells.

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Market Research

Market research sounds a little bit… hmm, technical, right? But it isn’t.

You don’t need to be a marketer and analyze millions of data to perform your market research. All that needs to be done is thorough and intensive research on the product you’d love to create.

This step helps you to separate what will sell out and what won’t in the market.

You can check if your product idea is in demand or not by using Google Trends, Google AdWords, or social media platforms to check the number of people searching or talking about things related to your product.

Let’s say you’re creating a video course on how to manage finances and budgets as your choice digital product, the first thing would be to move over to platforms like Google Trends to check if it’s actually in demand.

Using the keyword “how to manage finances” as a case study. You should check the past 3-5 months for the data. If the traffic is high or steadily increasing, then that’s a cue that your product is in demand.

But if the traffic is deteriorating or zero, it’s an inkling that you should switch to another keyword within your niche. Once you find a keyword with decent traffic, this is a yellow light that you could go ahead.

Yes, a yellow light because you still need one more step to hit the green light – competitors research

Competitors Research

Let’s say you’ve settled for a video course on “how to manage finances and budgets as a student”, and you’ve gotten your go-ahead by checking the demand and traffic.

Next would be to check your choice marketplaces for saturation.

If you plan on using Udemy as your sales platform and there are tons of courses already on how to manage finances and budgets…. This makes it harder for you to sell out.

But if you move a step further and create something like, “how to manage your finances and budgets as a college student“. Now, you’ve just niched down to something most people aren’t doing.

And what more?

There’s a huge chance that you’d also rank for how to manage your finances and budgets, so you aren’t exactly limiting your reach or audience.

Once you’ve figured out what exactly to create…. What should come next?

Create Your Digital Product

Well, well, well… the 3 steps to creating your digital product wouldn’t be complete without actually creating your product, would it?

It’s also the section most sellers jump onto once they have an idea, which explains why tons fail to make any sales, not to mention profits on their products.

While creating your digital product, you just don’t want to create your product without making it spicy enough for it to sell itself to people. You want to make your product an irresistible offer to your target audience.

How do you achieve this?

It’s quite simple. Once you’re done creating your product, the next would be to move over to the platform you plan on selling your digital product and check your competitor’s outline and reviews.

If you aren’t listing your product on any marketplace and are selling to your audience, that’s okay too. The main idea here is to use what others are putting out there, their customers’ reviews on that, and use that data to improve yours.

You should also check social media platforms for what problems people have regarding products like yours and address that solution in your product.

Now, we’re done with the heavy lifting, which is the creating process. What’s left is to sell your already sellable digital products.

Reason this. If you keep the lids of a honey bottle tight, there’s no way ants will come visit right?

But if you open it up and place it in the middle of the forest what would happen?

Right! The bottle would be swarmed by different species of ants.

So how do you open your product’s lid, so customers start swarming your product?

Let’s get into the process.

4 Tips On How To Sell Your Digital Products

Select A Platform

That platform where you researched? Yes, that same place is where you’d go ahead to list your product. But if you’re interested in touching a wider market, you can research other online market platforms where you can sell your digital products

You’ve added your product now, the sales should start trickling in right?

Nah. You’re far from it.

It’s just like taking your honey bottle to a forest, which is filled with ants without opening the lid. How will the ants swarm the honey?

Drive Traffic To The Platform

Once your online business is up and running on your chosen online platform, it’s time to sprinkle some honey and lead them to your product – You can do this in different ways.

From using email marketing strategies to content marketing, influencer marketing, SEO, or any form of exposure that’d drive traffic to your brand. Getting people’s eyes on your product is key to selling your products.

You could also drive traffic by creating a lead magnet – a freebie – that is relevant to the digital product you’re selling online. And if people love your lead magnet, the chances of them buying your paid product are higher than ever.

But you shouldn’t stop here. Driving traffic is a huge step to making those sales, but you still need to give your prospects that little push off the cliff to crown all your efforts and maximize your sales.

And that’s what the next tip is for.

Sales Tactics

Do you know the tricky but understandable aspect of most online marketplaces? Successful digital products will always be recommended to potential clients before newer digital products like yours.

Not because your online product isn’t good enough, but because it lacks credibility especially if that’s the first digital product you’re selling online.

Using Udemy as a case study, most creators give out their services for free in exchange for reviews to build authority and credibility.

Just like you would sprinkle some honey on the floor to attract nearby ants. Before you know it, other ants in distant areas will move over too. It’s the same with online products too.

Aside from sprinkling honey on the floor by giving out your services for free, there are other sales and marketing tactics you could use to attract clients or drive traffic to your product.

Sales tactics like;

Selling for free in exchange for reviews

Using influencer marketing

Making it super affordable, and increasing the price as you get more customers and reviews

Running Friday promos or holiday promos to make extra sales

Meeting your potential customers where they are – could be on Facebook groups, Twitter posts, or any social media your customers reside – and marketing your product to them

Adding extra perks (bonuses you can give away for free) they wouldn’t get anywhere else

You can google search for marketing strategies you can use to stay on top of your game and employ that on whichever platform you choose to sell on.

For example, if you’re selling videos on Udemy, you can go to Google and search for top marketing strategies to sell your product on Udemy. I’m certain you’ll find more specialized solutions to selling your product on your chosen platforms.

Timing

The last thing we would be covering on how to sell your digital product is the season – the timing. You do not create a guide on “how to not catch the flu” in summer when it’s steaming hot and expect to sell out.

As such, you should ensure your timing is just right for your product and ensure your product aligns with the seasons.

You should also research what sells better on a particular platform, so you don’t end up selling food-related recipes on a platform well-known for selling car-related services. This is cause your target audience is most likely not there.

And that’s on how to create and sell your digital products online in 7 steps.