Listen up…. because this one is important!
I’m going to tell you why you need to sell digital products and why it’s the MOST profitable way for you to make money online.
Why you Should Sell Digital Products
So why exactly is going from physical to digital soooo important?
- FASTEST way to make money online.
- EASIEST way to make money online.
- PROFITABLE way to work from home.
These days the “secret to making money online” is all over the internet. Yet, with thousands of different ways, how are supposed to know what really works??
When I decided to sell digital products, it was the very first time I had EVER made money online. As a young, single mother this was huge.
I had tried so many different things up to this point and made nothing but a few measly cents. Yup! CENTS. Not even dollars.
So, if you’re ready to be the boss of your own money-making machine, it’s time to start creating and selling those digital goodies!
I still remember my first sale! It truly felt like the easiest money I had ever made.
I thought to myself “wow, so this is what it feels like to make money in your sleep”, because it was set-up to take payments and deliver the product, automatically. It was the closest thing to magic that I had ever witnessed.
Is it Still Profitable to Sell Digital Products?
First of all, it’s crucial for creators to have as many income streams as possible. One of the worst things you or anybody looking to make money online can do, is put all their eggs in one basket!
This applies to a lot of things in life, as I’m sure you’ve heard that statement before. However, it’s particularly important for people who are working online. Let me give you an example as to why!
Developing (and marketing!) a digital product is an excellent approach to diversify your income. Secondly, relying solely on brands or clients for income can be risky and may leave you in a feast-or-famine situation.
By creating your own digital product, you are grabbing the reigns and taking control of your income. Finally, digital products offer the opportunity to generate a scalable income.
Digital products allow you to create income that does not require a lot of time and money. In fact, the entire business model can run on autopilot and could be a set and forget system if you want it to be!
Out of all the ways to make money online, content marketing is the one that truly tickles my fancy. It’s like the Beyoncé of online moneymaking – always on top and constantly slaying the game!
In the realm of online business, digital products are like the sprinkles on my digital sundae – the results are sweet and satisfying.
Earning money online often requires an investment of your time. However, digital products operate differently. When you create a digital product, you’re producing an asset that can be sold over and over again, without any extra effort.
Really think about that for a minute, and tell me, who wouldn’t want this type of business model?? The revenue potential is practically limitless.
Types of Digital Products
FREEBIES
Now obviously, as the name suggests, freebies don’t generate revenue – not directly anyways.
But I strongly suggest you use this method, as the first product you offer to your audience!
Freebies will help you to establish credibility with your followers and demonstrate your expertise in your field. They also provide a great opportunity to increase your email list, a topic I’ll cover in another post.
DIGITAL DOWNLOADS
Moving on to the second type, we have digital downloads. This can include a diverse range of products, from photo presets to recipe eBooks to budgeting spreadsheets. The cost of a digital download usually falls below $100.
MEMBERSHIPS
The third category is memberships, which provide exclusive content to members on a regular basis. This content will often consist of educational training geared towards providing value in your niche.
Membership fees often range from $10-$100 per month for members.
With that said, if you are someone who has people regularly reaching out to you for advice in a particular area of expertise, you might want to consider creating a membership or subscription service.
Your subscribers would pay a monthly or yearly fee to be part of your group, which could include things like stock market insights, workout plans, general life advice, etc.
The best part about a membership-based digital business is that it doesn’t require a lot of startup capital. Running this type of business is relatively inexpensive, and payments are recurring, so you don’t need to continuously sell new products.
However, it may require a significant amount of time and energy, particularly if you’re offering one-on-one coaching calls.
As for the revenue potential, that’s entirely up to you. You could charge $10 per month or work hard to scale it up as high as you want. You have complete control over the subscription price, and you can even offer deals and specials throughout the year to attract more members!
So, if you’re looking for a very low-cost way to monetize your expertise, a membership-based business could be an excellent opportunity for you.
You can get as creative as you want with different package tiers and perks. Want to throw in a personalized rap about how great your members are? Go for it. Want to offer a one-on-one virtual happy hour with your subscribers? Sure, why not!
To get started, create a website for your membership and use a platform like Mighty Network to host your group. If you’re feeling fancy, you can even add an exclusive membership that includes coaching and advice, which can easily add some serious cha-ching to your course selling price.
And if you’re a blogger, check out Substack to get your subscription model up and running with little to no effort. Just set up your blog, name your subscription price, and start pumping out articles to attract new subscribers.
In short, with a little bit of humor, personal touch and/or some creativity, you can turn your expertise into a profitable membership-based business that your subscribers will love. Overall, recurring subscriptions like this are popular to say the least and are just an awesome way to build a cash flowing business!
ONLINE COURSES
The fourth option available is an online course, which aims to guide students through a significant transformation, such as boosting their Instagram following or adopting the keto diet to achieve better health.
The cost of online courses can vary, ranging from $200-$2,000. Heck, I just saw $5,000 recently! Many people prefer selling online courses as they are priced higher than other digital products.
In my experience, it’s the most profitable digital product on the market. I truly believe that creating online courses is the way of the future and one of the best digital products you can sell.
One of the great things about selling online courses is that you can use platforms like Mighty Network to create an evergreen course that sells on autopilot, giving you a fantastic opportunity to earn significant passive income.
Mighty Network is different from other course creation platforms because they have a very distinct way of making students stay engaged! When people are interested, they learn more, they feel better about what they’re doing, and the program can grow faster. Happier customers are paying customers!
I’ve had several people tell me about the insane success they’ve been having with Mighty Network. In fact, this is how I found out about Mighty Network in the first place.
Personally, I find that Mighty Network makes the whole course creation process super seamless and easy, and it’s a single platform that can host unlimited courses for you.
So, if you’re looking for a way to make money online and have a skill or knowledge you can teach, creating an online course might just be the perfect fit for you!
The first step in creating an online course is to identify a skill you possess; anything from productivity to photography to SEO. The possibilities are seriously endless!
Hmmm, how possible you ask? Well, it just so happens I recently talked to a woman I met through here, named Lisa (name changed for privacy). According to what Lisa told me, she is not a techy person whatsoever.
Yet, she still managed to create a simple online course out of her favorite hobby…. photography!
When Lisa told me how much she was currently earning, it practically knocked my socks off! In just 9 months she started to make $10K a month! Now, she earns almost $20,000 each month. INSANE, right!?!?
Aside from Lisa’s story, I know tons of successful course creators and it’s a formula that just works.
So, once you’ve pinpointed your area of expertise, you’ll want to package that knowledge into a series of videos, assignments, quizzes, and other types of lessons that will guide your clients from start to finish.
So yeah, if you want to take advantage of this shift in education, I highly recommend trying Might Network. The best part is they have an awesome plan that is 100% free.
Once you’ve developed your course, it’s essential to build an audience by providing free value on social media. This audience will serve as a great starting point for generating sales for your course.
So, take this method and crush it!
Although, like I said, if you’re new to creating digital products I highly suggest starting with a freebie before considering any of the paid options.
However, the question remains: how do you determine the subject matter for your digital product? In other words, what’s your niche?
Your product needs to solve a problem that your audience has within your niche. Then, give them a clear step-by-step solution. That’s all there is to it! Easier said than done? Haha, yes of course….as with most things. But it doesn’t have to be difficult. So let me simplify it for you.
There needs to be motivation for your audience to buy your product. This is best done when your product addresses a pain point that your audience has and then helps them to solve it!
The Best Digital Products to Sell
PHOTO PRESETS:
Selling photo presets is a great way to make some cash in the photography world. I’ve been an amateur photographer for over a decade, and let me tell you, editing presets can be a game-changer.
If you have a signature preset that people are always asking about, then selling it in the form of a template could be a gold mine.
Take Noble Presets, for example. They are absolutely killing it in the industry and raking in hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars per year. The best part? You don’t have to keep creating new presets to keep making sales.
If you have a handful of presets that work for different photography styles, you can sell them over and over again to countless customers.
So, if you’ve developed a unique look with your photography, that’s your secret sauce! Trust me, other photographers are willing to pay for it.
As for pricing, Lightroom presets usually go for around $25 per preset, and preset packages can range from $25 to $300.
If you’ve got a decent following in the photography world, you can easily rake in some extra cash with photo presets.
And let’s not forget about the phone editors out there – you can totally target them too! It’s not just for the pros. To sell these bad boys, you can use a marketplace like Filtergrade to take care of all the marketing and selling for you.
But, if you want to keep all the profits for yourself, sell ’em on your own website or e-commerce shop.
Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
SOCIAL MEDIA TEMPLATES:
Let’s talk about selling social media templates! These are basically pre-made designs that you can use on your social media accounts to make them look awesome.
You can sell templates for things like Instagram stories or content creator media kits. These are super helpful for people who don’t want to spend a lot of time designing their own posts. Some people think you need to be a pro with fancy software like Photoshop to make cool posts, but that’s not true!
Even with free platforms like Canva, it can take a lot of time to design your own posts. So, if you’re good at making designs, you can sell your templates to people who need them. This can be especially helpful for real estate agents who want to make their property ads look better on social media.
As more and more professionals join social media, the demand for these templates will keep going up.
To make money selling digital products, you have to put in time to create the templates first. But once they’re made, you can sell them again and again without having to spend more money.
People love these templates because they save a lot of time trying to make their own social media posts. This means you can charge a good price for them.
You don’t have to be an expert in design to make templates using Canva, which is a program with easy-to-use tools that you can just click and drag. Other programs like Photoshop and Illustrator take more time to learn, so if you want the easiest option, Canva is the way to go.
It’s just had SO many different uses for me – talk about return on investment!
Certainly, Canva been one of my best subscription purchases, for my business (hey nothing beats Netflix right? Ha-ha) over the last 7 years, easily!
Another cash cow tip is to make templates for specific groups of people/niches. For instance, you could make Instagram story templates just for real estate agents, loan originators, and other business owners.
You see, these professionals are joining social media to promote their work and will be looking for templates to help them make their posts look good.
If they buy a template from you, they can put in their own words and pictures to make a post in less than a minute. Send them a demo, along with an enticing script and they’re sure to be putty in your hands.
FONTS:
Let’s talk about fonts!
Did you know that you can make your own font and sell it as a product?
People are always looking for new fonts because they’re constantly changing their preferences. And with over 600,000 new businesses starting every year, there’s a big demand for new fonts.
If you’re into graphic design, this can be a great way to use your creativity and make some money on the side. You can sell your font for about $30 on average, and if you sell 100 of them each month, you can make up to $3,000!
If you don’t mind giving up some of your sales to get more people to see your font, you can also sell it on a website like Creative Market. They’ll take a cut, but you could still make a lot of money if you work hard at it.
Making a font is hard work and takes practice, but once you create it, you can sell it all day, every day to people all over the world.
SPREADSHEETS:
Another digital product is spreadsheets.
These are helpful tools that let you do math and keep track of things like bookkeeping, budgeting, expenses and more. Lots of people use spreadsheets every day, so you can make a lot of money by selling them.
EBOOKS:
And finally, we have eBooks! Where people can make money from their knowledge and expertise in basically any niche. This was my favorite digital product to sell for many, many years. It still is among my favorite digital products to create to make money online.
This was my first “set and forget” product. The fact that I could create something ONCE and make money from it forever, was a concept that blew my mind!
For example, you can write an eBook on topics like relationships, weight loss, investing and much more.
Most of the bestselling eBooks online are pretty much anything that starts with “How-to”. Such as “How to get your ex back”, “How to lose fat” or “How to build a chicken coop” <—- believe it or not, this one right here is one of Clickbank’s top selling digital eBook’s of all time!
As you can see, you have endless possibilities here. The niches will vary and range from A-Z because you can really write an eBook on anything!
But the best eBooks to write are the ones that SOLVE A PROBLEM. What kind of problems? Whatever you can think of!
Thirteen years ago, I wrote an eBook for the Clickbank Marketplace called “How to stop blushing”. Boy did that one do well! The best part is that I had affiliates selling the ebook for me, so I didn’t have to lift a finger. I discuss affiliate marketing in another post, so be sure not to miss out!
See for yourself what a great source of income eBooks can be, which is easily distributed throughout the internet in the form of a downloadable link. It doesn’t get any easier than that!
It is super easy and doesn’t cost much because it’s all on a computer – aka digital. This helps you save money on things like paper, ink, and shipping.
If you want to sell an eBook online, you can put it on a marketplace that sells eBooks, such as Clickbank.
But they do take a cut so expect some of the money you make to be taken before you even get it. Also, there are already a lot of eBooks in places like that so it might be hard to get people to find it.
However, like I said, I didn’t do any advertising at all and was making good money. I think it just takes 1-2 affiliates to start selling your eBook for others to start to take notice.
That is why I do prefer places like Clilckbank, because they don’t just sell your eBook to your customers, but they advertise to affiliates who are looking for good digital products to promote for a commission.
Note, you really have to give your affiliates a big ‘ol commission because that’s just how the game is played. So, something along the lines of 50-75% is not uncommon for eBooks. But you must remember, these are sales that you wouldn’t have normally gotten, so it’s still like effortless money on your part because your entire system is automated.
It’s common for eBooks to sell by the hundreds and sometimes even thousands, every day – if you have affiliates promoting it that is! So, make it worth their while and you will be rewarded big time!
Now there are four ways I recommend finding the topic of your digital product.
Digital Product Ideas
1. Consider the transformation you’ve created for yourself or for others.
For example, maybe you had a weight loss transformation of your own and now you’re ready to help others who want to achieve the same goal.
Perhaps you’re a financial advisor and the transformation you offer others is to help them get out of debt.
If you offer a solution to someone’s problem, you will have no problem making your digital product a huge success!
2. Listen to what potential customers in the generalized niche really want. This is an excellent way to really “niche-down”.
Use social media tools such as polls and quizzes on Instagram stories to receive live feedback.
This can provide insightful information on what your audience wants to learn from you. For instance, you can ask questions like:
“What do you want to learn the most about (insert your niche here)?” or “What are your biggest struggles with (insert your niche here)?”
3. Additionally, it’s worth examining feedback you may have already received.
This could include comments on blog posts, social media posts, messages, and emails from your audience. These channels can offer useful insights that you can leverage to improve your content and better serve your audience. It will help guide you to a topic for your digital product.
4. Review the content that has already performed well for you on social media or your blog.
This can provide valuable insights into the topics that resonate most with your audience and help guide your digital product creation process.
By focusing on these popular topics, you can create content that is more likely to engage and appeal to your audience.
Once you have gathered this information, you are ready to create your first digital product.
How to Find a Niche for Digital Products
You heard me already say it. “Niching down” is a common piece of advice given to creators and business owners, but it can be challenging if you’re just starting out and have numerous ideas to explore.
The traditional advice on niching down may not always be effective or applicable in today’s digital landscape. That’s why I’m excited to share a different approach that can help you confidently choose a direction for your channel or business.
Having a clear understanding of what you’re offering and who it serves is essential for profitability. While traditional advice on niching down may not be effective, it’s important to note why clarity and specificity are so crucial.
When you are clear about what you do, it is easier for potential customers to determine if your product is right for them.
We want people to immediately recognize that your content is a good fit for them. This will increase their likelihood of returning and seeing you as an important part of their lives. Secondly, being specific makes you memorable.
Let me paint you a picture, imagine your friend says, “I need a doctor” and you’re like “Sure, I got a guy.” But if they say, “I need a pediatric dermatologist who specializes in eczema” and you know someone, you’re basically a hero. That’s the power of specificity.
You want to be the hero your ideal clients turn to when they need your specific expertise. Getting clear on what you do will make you unforgettable and the go-to person in your industry. Plus, when you know what you’re selling, you’ll attract your future buyers like a magnet.
Listen up, if you’re confusing people, you’re basically losing people!
It’s like trying to sell steak to vegans. No bueno. So, it’s essential to get crystal clear on what you do and who you serve.
But let’s address the elephant in the room – traditional niche-down advice can be a bit meh.
Why?
Traditional advice tells you to either focus on a specific topic or a specific audience, but honestly, that’s not specific enough.
Take fitness, for example. Yoga for hip pain is completely different from yoga for new moms. So, who you’re serving matters.
But if you’re starting out and feeling overwhelmed by all the different topics and interests you want to cover, my advice is to pick one ideal audience member and tailor all your content to them.
Think of it as having a one-person audience, but hey, at least they’re really interested in what you have to say.
Ultimately, that is why audience building, I think, should be the real focus of content marketing. It’s also a little bit more freeing because it means you don’t have to be limited by choosing just one topic.
So, there we have it! Serve your audience, not your topic.
Don’t choose a topic first.
Choose your audience first and foremost!
I guarantee, the rest will flow from there.
