The market for online digital products is generating enormous revenue. During 2016 alone, the online courses market generated a revenue of more than 160 billion USD. And by 2022 it is expected to cross 240 billion USD.
Image Source – Statista
One couple is even making $600,000 a year just by selling digital products. So it’s no surprise that there’s a certain appeal to the industry, and you too are interested in it.
This post will talk about some digital products which can be really profitable business options. It will also guide you through how to sell and promote your digital products.
Types of digital products to sell online
You do not necessarily have to sell physical products to make money. In fact, you can make a fortune by selling digital products online.
Here are some highly profitable digital products that you should consider selling:
1. Ebooks
Due to an increase in usage of devices like Kindle, the sale of ebooks has increased significantly. Ebooks make it easier for people to self-publish their works without having to face any trouble in finding publishers.
These self-published authors are getting the deserved acknowledgment from their readers. In genres like fantasy, romance, sci-fi, and mystery self-publishing authors are outshining traditionally-published authors.
It is predicted that in 2018, ebooks will account for a quarter of global sales. And ebooks will generate a revenue of around 20 million USD.
Pressbook is one of the most widely used ebook platforms. It is somewhat similar to WordPress. If you know your way around WordPress, then getting acquainted with Pressbook will be a breeze. Apart from creating chapters, the software allows you to edit or add sections as needed. The pricing starts at $19.99, providing features like watermark removal and more.
Image Source – Pressbooks
2. Online course
Online courses have become widely popular over the past few years. The main reason for this is that they are easy to access from any part of the world. People are ready to pay for learning courses like yoga, coding, lifestyles, and more. This is all a part of knowledge commerce, which involves monetizing the process being used to share knowledge.
During 2015, online courses generated a revenue of 107 billion USD. And it is predicted to generate over 240 billion USD in 2023.
Knowledge commerce platforms like Kajabi are excellent for creating online courses easily. The best feature of creating a course in Kajabi is the platform helps you to make your programs more interactive.
Image Source – Kajabi
3. Web elements
Graphic designers are being paid a lot for creating themes, wallpapers, logos, patterns, and everything related to the web. In fact, the graphic design industry is worth 1.3 billion USD. So it’s no surprise that expert graphic designers tend to make good money.
Themes are a very popular component of web elements. Some of the themes from ThemeForest have been downloaded more than a thousand times. Those themes were within the price range of 14 to 30 USD.
Image Source – Themeforest
4. Images
They say a picture is worth of thousand words for a reason. If you are a passionate photographer and enjoy taking pictures, then you can turn your passion into a profession.
The best thing about selling images is that you do not have to create a website for it. All you need to do is take high-quality pictures with great composition, great color combination, and good lighting. And there are several websites on which you can sell your images.
Shutterstock is a popular and widely used online platform where you can sell your photos and earn good money. Shutterstock gives the deserved credit to the photographer. And you can also protect the copyrights to your work as desired.
Image source – Shutterstock
Basics of selling digital products
Below are some simple strategies which you can use to sell your digital products. It does not matter which industry you are catering to; these strategies are easy to implement irrespective of the industry.
1. Select a product
The first and most important thing to do is to decide on the product you want to develop and sell. Starting a business is an extremely tough job. Take advantage of your passion, and play to your strengths. This is the first step in figuring out what product you want to sell.
If you are a blogger and have a blog already, then it is easy to decide on which products to sell. Think of a product within your industry and which might interest your readers. This is a good place to start.
2. Developing a product
Developing a product is a back and forth process. It will take a lot of your time, energy, and effort to develop a product. You must make sure that the product is useful and relevant to users. Recheck everything again and again. Although it is a time-consuming process, it will deliver value once your users gain maximum benefit/knowledge out of it.
3. Create sales pages
After deciding on and developing your product, creating a landing page for your product is the next step. The objective of the sales page is to advertise your product. The sales page will include the image, title, price, and a brief description highlighting the best features of the product. The page will also have a “buy now” button below the price, which people can click on to purchase the product.
4. Decide on product delivery
After you create your sales page, you need to find out how a customer is going to complete their purchase. How will the product be delivered to the customer? You can use programs like GoSpaces to upload your product and set a price for it. It will also give an exclusive URL link for your product. By clicking on the buy button link of the product, you will be directed to the payment page.
5. Finalize price structure
Pricing your product is an important step, but it might be one of the most difficult things to do. The selection of a pricing model depends on your product and the competition. Refer to these pricing strategies to successfully sell your digital products.
How to successfully promote digital products
Launching and promoting your product is important for gaining the attention of customers and increasing your sales.
Here are some strategies to successfully promote your digital products:
1. Pre-launch promotions
The main objective of pre-launch promotions is to target your potential buyers or customers for your product. It is not easy to achieve success in marketing digital products. It is a time-consuming process to build and gain the trust of customers. Check out these tactics for achieving a successful pre-launch promotion.
There are four important things that can help you oversee a successful pre-launch promotion.
- Partner with influencers – Influencers have a huge following, massive reach, and loyal audiences. Hence, if you want to spread your brand’s message, it is advisable to collaborate with influencers for pre-launch promotion. When relevant and trustworthy influencers vouch for you, your brand can get some loyal fans even before your product is launched. You can turn to platforms such as HYPR, Socialpeeks or Grin to discover relevant influencers who can effectively back your campaign.
- Run a contest – It is important that you create a wave of excitement and anticipation within your target audience before launching the product. One of the best ways to do this is by running a contest related to your product. But ensure that your audience will have high chances of winning the contest. This will help to increase your brand’s reach.
- Get excited – It is important that you maintain that same level of excitement within your audience. This would involve keeping your prospective customers updated about any new development and progress. Leverage your social channels to engage your followers with updates, and send email updates to your subscribers.
- Be social – You can use your social media channels to post pictures that show the number of days left for the product launch. This will help in maintaining hype for the product within the target audience before the actual product launch.
2. Product previews
You can use video as a medium to preview your product. Platforms like YouTube or blogs give you the opportunity to showcase your product to millions of people before its actual launch. A video or blog post explaining product features and benefits may catch the attention of your potential buyers.
YouTube videos appear on the first page of a Google search, so it is an excellent strategy to gain attention. Blogs are cost-effective. Also, blogs are a great platform for a business to develop and build connections with their audience.
For instance, Google has recently announced their intention to set up a Preview Program for the upcoming Google Home software. The company has stated that this preview isn’t a beta software but production quality. By having some users preview the software, Google intends to spot any bugs and fix them before the actual launch.
3. Expert reviews
Expert reviews can really increase traffic to your website. A detailed review can also convince a potential buyer to actually buy your product.
You need to look for an expert in your industry or niche area. Give the product to them for use and invite them to write a review on your product. Use the expert review to effectively promote the product on your site and on your social channels. Your sales could significantly increase when you showcase a trustworthy expert review on your website.
TechRadar is the largest review website based in the U.K. The experts from TechRadar review all kinds of cool digital products and rate them.
Steve Paris, from the team, gave an expert review and also rated the product, iBook Author. He has given a review of the Apple’s new book authoring application. In his review, he has discussed all the pros and cons of the application in detail.
Image Source – TechRadar
4. Freebies and Discounts
By giving away freebies and offering discounts to customers, you can build and gain their trust and attention. Because who doesn’t like to get free stuff? Though there are many ways of implementing this tactic. You can ask users to sign up to your mailing list or to share your post on social media.
Offering discounts on your product’s price is a tactic which can generate maximum sales and cater to new business. This tactic, if done correctly, can increase your organic reach as well as get you, long-term customers.
Avast is a very widely used antivirus and malware protection software. Avast offers a discount of nearly 50% on their Internet Security plan. Throughout the world, there are close to 500 million users, using this antivirus software.
5. Allow pre-orders
Many businesses fail to understand the importance of taking pre-orders. For some brands, there is always some true loyal customer base, who will immediately purchase products as soon as they launch it. If you have already decided on the price of the product, giving an option of pre-order to your customers would be a smart move.
Lumiar is a 4+ star photo editing tool from Skylum. It is a tool for every photographer who wants a better editing solution for their images. It is a flagship product of the company and is available for both Windows and Mac computers. The company used the pre-order tactic for their latest version of the software, Luminar 2018.
Image Source – Skylum
6. Plan a product launch event
Having a product launch event is an effective way of influencing your audience. Conducting an event to celebrate the launch of your product can often get the attention of the media as well. So you can effectively showcase and promote your product in front of the audience and media through events such as these.
Even Google had to struggle while diversifying their market and launching the Chrome browser in Thailand. To showcase all of the features, Google decided to launch and demonstrate Chrome with visual storytelling. This helped the people of Thailand to understand the best features of Chrome, without getting bored of the launch event.
After the launch, the number of Google Chrome users increased by 53% and it became Thailand’s number 1 browser.
Image Source – ProBlogger
Final thoughts
The industry for digital products is growing, and new digital products are being rapidly introduced to the world. Now that you have a better understanding of the different types of digital products, you can pick any products that you’re interested in and that are relevant to your industry.
Implement these basic but impactful strategies to sell and promote your product, and watch your sales increase. Let us know if you are using any of these strategies, and how it has turned out for you. I am sure you might have some other successful strategies to share with us, so please let us know in the comments section below.
Guest author: Brandon Leibowitz is the founder of Get Plus Followers, a social media marketing agency in Los Angeles, California and Shralpin.com skateboarding news blog. He is featured on sites such as Social Media Today, Live Chat Blog, Simply Measured, Business2Community and other popular sites. Connect with Brandon on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.