What are digital products?
Digital products are basically anything you can create and sell onlinewithout having to ship a physical product. These include, for example
- e-books,
- online courses,
- Music, (More information on: start a music label)
- Stock photos, (More info at: Become self-employed as a photographer.)
- webinars,
- Games (More info on: Become self-employed as a game developer) or others
- applications and software.
The advantage of digital products is that you only have to create them once and then you can sell them as many times as you like, with no extra cost or storage space.
Another plus: you can quickly update or expand your digital products if needed. That means you can improve regularly to respond to customer inquiries and thus increase sales. This creates a long-term source of income that can provide you with financial stability.
THE The market for digital products has grown rapidly in recent years it is and more and more people are choosing to make their own create and sell digital content. This is also due to the fact that it is now very easy to create your own digital products and offer them online.
Selling digital products: these are the market opportunities
Indeed, the lack of a physical basis for your potential business had a number of advantages:
Less effort, more automation: save work time
For your digital products, you don't have to worry about an important part of other operations: shipping and logistics. No worries about parcel services, no worries about rising transportation costs. Storage costs are also eliminated. This saves a lot of fixed costs. And best of all, you can save a lot of time by automating the delivery of your products.
Scalable Sales: Unlimited Growth
Growth is much easier with digital products – after all, it makes no difference to you whether you provide 10 downloads a day or 10,000. Theoretically, you are scalable as you like – By the way, this goes all the way, you can even cope with a slump in demand without being crushed by excessive costs.
Flexibility in the product portfolio
As a rule, your digital products are created with manageable effort. And adjustments are made quickly. You should use this flexibility to quickly adapt your offers to customer requests. You can even customize the way you deliver.
How do I create digital products?
Of course, before you can start selling, you must first create a digital product. You should focus on your strengths and interests. For example, if you like writing, you might eBooks write. If you are good at explaining, a online course or a Web seminar a great option. There are countless possibilities, so unleash your creativity!
In addition to the actual content – be it text, image or video – presentation is essential. Your product also consists of:
- To the eBooks What matters is an eye-catching cover photo, a good layout, and compatibility with as many devices as possible, from e-readers to PCs.
- Your photos they should be available in different formats, sizes and file formats in order to appeal to the widest possible range of users.
- It's at app AND Software you have to use the different platforms (MacOS, Android, Windows) and think about the different end devices of your users.
For the Creation of digital products it's there numerous tools and programswho can help you with this. This includes
- Canvas (for e-book or graphic design),
- Teachable (for creating online courses) or
- boldness (for podcast recording).
Tools for creating e-books
- THE EBook Creator FlipHTML5with which you can also create interactive e-books and PDFs,
- the professional Scrivener writing program, which can serve you as a manager of your manuscript or even
- mugglewith which you can easily create interactive e-books.
Tools for creating audio recordings / podcasts
You can already make audio recordings with very simple programs like Audacity, ocenaudio, Apple Garageband and Windows Voice Recorder do it, but you can too use professional appsAs:
Video recording / webcasting / webinar tools
If you want to make video recordings for seminars, video courses, etc., you can do it with programs like
On which platforms can I sell digital products?
Once you've created your products, it's important to make them available to your users. This is of course also possible via your own website (see information below). However, your target group must first find them. Perhaps you prefer to use well-known platforms where you can sell your digital products. Some of the best known are:
- Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing: For selling e-books.
- Udemy: Offering online courses.
- Shutterstock: For selling stock photos.
- Gumroad: for selling e-books, software, music and more.
Website and own online store
Another way to sell your digital products is to create your own website or online store. This has the advantage that you have full control over your offer and customer communication.
The disadvantage is also obvious: like a physical store, your customers must first find your offer in the digital space (and this is even more difficult in the large global network).
Virtually everyone makes an offer webkit-Also fix the possibility to create an online store on your website and offer your products. Technically, this is possible even without programming knowledge. Again, the packaging is not irrelevant… The better the product is presented, the more likely it is to attract interest.
Build expert status
To successfully sell digital products, it's important to be perceived as an expert in your field. You can achieve this by regularly creating valuable content that helps your target audience. For example, run a blog, podcast or YouTube channel to share your knowledge and showcase your expertise. Also, participate in relevant online forums and social media groups and demonstrate that you are an expert in your field.
Get good backlinks
One particularly important aspect of building your own website and selling digital products is search engine optimization (SEO). Backlinks play a crucial role here. Backlinks are links from other websites that point to your site. They are an indicator that your website contains relevant and useful information. To get good backlinks, you can for example:
- Publish guest posts on other blogs or websites.
- Submit your website to web directories or business directories.
- Contact influencers and experts to share your content or start joint projects.
- Create quality content that others will happily link to.
Of course you can too buy strong backlinkswhich can create a significant increase in your discoverability, especially in the beginning.
Create a sales funnel
A sales funnel is a system that guides potential customers step-by-step through the buying process. A good sales funnel consists of several stages:
notoriety
interest
Decision
and purchase.
You should respond to the needs of your target group at every stage and make suitable offers to them.
For example, you can start by offering free content to draw attention to your digital products. In the next step, you can get your prospects to sign up for your newsletter with more information or a free e-book. This way you can send them regular news, offers and valuable advice to make their decision to buy your product easier.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are many ways to make money with digital products. If you want to build your online business, it's important to carefully plan and implement everything from creating and marketing your products to optimizing your website. With patience, persistence and the right strategy, you can successfully sell your digital products and generate a stable income. Good luck!