Digital products have come to stay, so you can as well make the most out of them. It’s an easy way to get paid for what you know.

More so, everyone is looking for a skill to learn or something new to be excited about. That’s where your online courses, ebooks, software, tutorials, and other forms of digital products come in.

If you think you require a specific skill set or technical know-how, you’re wrong. You just need to know enough about something and be willing to teach it. Most great digital products require no more than a good plan and time to create.

In this article, we’ve highlighted all you need to know to create digital products that sell, and effective sales strategies to help you sell your digital products.

Let’s get started!

What are Digital Products?

Digital products are any products that you do not need to hold, touch, or feel to use. In other words, they are items that you can easily pay for and download/get immediately.

Although intangible, the digital product market is projected to have a revenue value of US$331.70bn in 2022.

Video games and streaming movies are some of the first answers that come to mind when you think of digital products. But the industry is bigger than this.

You can create a digital product from your skill, creativity, and knowledge. Ebooks, online courses, and how-to guides are some of the digital products you can create to sell to your audience.

Why Sell Digital Products Over Physical Products?

The most important reason is that your products are not limited by the natural forces of time, location, and distance to get to your customers.

There are lots of good reasons to sell a digital product online. They include;

1. High-Profit Margins

There is no recurring cost of goods, hence you get to keep the majority of your sales as profit.

2. Low Investments (High-potential returns)

There are lots of digital products you can put together over time without investing a large amount of money. Online e-commerce tools such as Selar are relatively inexpensive, compared to renting a traditional store. So, you can be sure to get high returns even on your little investments.

3. Low Overhead Costs

With digital products, you don’t have to pay for shipping or worry about inventories. Once uploaded to an online store, you can easily share your product with your customers.

4. Flexible products

Digital products are very flexible. You can offer free products to build your email list, monthly paid subscriptions for access to exclusive digital content, or licenses to use your digital products. There are lots of options as to how you can incorporate digital products into your business.

5. More profitable

Digital products sell at a higher margin than physical products. And its margin can increase over time because you do not spend money on producing more units.

6. Online education is the future

With more businesses and educational systems moving online, the demand for digital products is on the high. This digital product demand is projected to be worth $319+ Billion by 2025.

Also, the COVID pandemic forced us all to discover alternative ways to do business and learn. Now that we’ve all adjusted considerably, the demand for courses and ebooks is here to stay.

Don’t know which digital product to sell? Read this Online Course vs Ebook Which Should I Launch?

Disadvantages of Selling Digital Products

As much as there are lots of benefits to selling digital products, it also comes with its own challenges.

1. You’re open to piracy/theft

Because your product is online and accessible to everyone, it’s susceptible to theft. In some cases, people may replicate your product, especially ebooks, without giving you due credit.

With Selar, your digital products are protected from IP Theft.

2. You’re competing with free content

There are free alternatives to what you’re selling with digital products, especially ebooks. So, you’ll have to think of what makes your product great and more importantly, which niche has less competition.

Be safe! See 4 Surefire Ways to Prevent Your Ebook From Being Stolen

10 Best Digital Products to Sell Online.

The best digital products to sell online are;

• Ebooks
• Online courses
• Memberships
• Art items
• Music and audio
• Stock photography
• Coaching packages
• Services
• Tickets
• Digital templates and tools

Which Digital Product Should I Sell? 

Now you have a clear understanding of the best digital products to sell online, you need to make a choice on which one to sell. 

A good way to do this is by comparing it with your talents, skills, and resources. Ask yourself the following questions;

• What am I a true pro at? 
• What can I teach effortlessly?
• Do I have the time to create a digital product out of no. 2 above?
• Why will people pay money for it?
• Who is my audience?
• How do I intend to sell/host my product?
• How will I market my digital product?

Read this guide on 10 Best Digital Products to Sell Online

How to Create a Digital Product to Sell

It’s easy to decide to sell a product. What is even more difficult is creating a product that will sell massively. 

Here are some tips to help you create a digital product worth selling; 

• Have an idea. What do you want to sell? There are lots of options for you. Ebooks, online courses, membership sites, etc.
• Choose the right tools. What do you need to create and sell the product? Selar is a great tool to sell your product. If you’re considering ebooks, here’s a guide that shows you how to create an ebook that sells. Online courses are a great idea too!
• Start production. Now you’ve decided, it’s time to start creating the product. Whether an ebook, online course, membership site, coaching service, etc. Work on it every day and ensure you make it worthwhile. 
• Find testers/editors. Choose people that will go over the product and give you constructive feedback. 
• Pre-launch your product. If you have a community, build anticipation by pre-launching your product. Let people know that something is cooking and that it will either 5X their income or make their life easier. Selar allows you to collect payments for products even while it’s still in the works. 
• Set the price. Carry out market research to determine the suitable price for your product.
• Do a soft release. Share your final product to a small group of people and et feedback. 
• Make Improvements. Adjust your products based on the feedback you’ve gotten from your soft release. 
• Do a hard release. It’s time to go all out. Release your digital product to your audience and watch its performance.
• Market your product. Do giveaways, run ads, make use of affiliates, etc. 

How to Sell Digital Products Online

High-performing digital products have one thing in common – a good sales strategy. Making numerous sales is a reward for the effort you put into creating a digital product, that is why you just have to get it right.

Here is how to sell a digital product online to make massive sales.

1. Find market fit

Simply put, how does your product provide solutions to the needs of the market -your audience? In 2020, over 191 million e-books were sold in the United States and the number of readers is expected to amount to 1,182.8m users by 2026.

So how does your digital product satisfy these users? Buyers don’t buy products, they buy the promise of a feeling, result, output, or achievement. For example, I have an ebook with the title “The Safest Way to Have glowing skin in one week.”

Now, I understand that my audience would be anyone looking to have glowing skin and I’d sell to them the idea of having glowing skin without consequences because the ideas in my book are the safest ways.

One way to have market fit is to look out for a product in demand in a growing niche. Afterward, be sure that you can compete with others in that market.

Once that’s settled, the next thing is to position yourself to customers that will benefit from your product.

This is where your brand message comes in. your message needs to be clear on what your product provides to the user. Don’t exaggerate it. Don’t over-promise. Instead, state your solutions clearly.

Remember, when the market needs your product, you’d naturally make sales because everyone “needs” to have your product.

2. Create an online store

If you want to make the most out of your online business, then you need to have an online store where customers can see your products.

Selar is the easiest and most reliable way to sell your digital products. You don’t need any tech experience, you just need a product. Setting up an online store is free and easy, and you can complete it in five minutes.

Digital creators prefer to use Selar because it has lots of unique features, some of which include;

• Ability to easily set up your unique custom branded domain name eg; mybrandname.com
• Manage all your customer information directly on your dashboard. With its CRM you can send emails directly from your Selar dashboard to your customers.
• Extract more value from your customers with product upsell (order bump) and cross-sells. Recommend products on checkout and show customers frequently bought products.
• Selar lets you accept payment in more than 8 currencies [NGN, USD, GHS, ZAR, KES, TZS, GBP]. Enable your currencies, make more sales and get your funds settled in your local bank account stress-free.
• Create custom sales/landing pages for your products. Descriptive sales pages drive more conversions.
• Set up your own affiliate marketing system, and give a commission to anyone that facilitates a sale for your store.

Ready to sell digital products? See How to create an online store on Selar. 

3. Drive traffic

Once you’ve established a market fit for your product, the next step is to drive traffic to the product you’re selling.

Since you’re just starting, you need to maximize all the marketing strategies for your product.

Firstly, you may want to consider SEO. SEO is a good way to generate traffic to your online store when done properly through content marketing. However, the downside to this method is that it takes time. It may take months before you get a large number of people to view your products.

So, aside from SEO, other ways to generate traffic to your online store include;

• Social Media ads. More than half of the world is on social media, that’s about 4.62 billion people. Run ads targeting your audience to generate traffic to your product.
• Influencer marketing. People either believe in something or they love it. If you can’t use what they believe in, the better option is to explore what/who they love.
• Digital Marketing. Go all out with your digital marketing tactics. From email marketing to SEM and video marketing, use all forms of digital marketing to drive traffic to your product.

Don’t forget to kickstart SEO while working on these other methods of marketing so it gradually builds up over time.

4. Offer something for free

Before you start selling something to your audience, offer free value first. When people see your free value as beneficial, they become willing to buy whatever you sell.

You may consider building an online community where you share helpful and valuable content with them.

If you use email marketing, you may want to first offer value in exchange for their email addresses. For instance, you don’t just say ‘subscribe to my newsletter.” Start by offering something for free. Then watch your email list grow 10X.

Learn How to Create a Valuable Free Resource to Grow Your Online Business

5. Give discounts

The next best thing after free products is discounts. Notice how you go for products that offer discounts? Good. Offer the same feeling to your audience. Don’t think about how much you are losing at the moment, this is not the time for it. Instead, see it as a means to get and retain a customer. One who is happy can bring 2 more customers to you.

Offering discounts comes after you’ve offered something for free and have generated leads. To warm your relationship, you can now offer them a product at a discount.

The aim is to convert as many leads as possible to customers. As they check out, you can offer them a one-click upsell of your main product. Selar allows you to cross-sell and upsell, check it out here.

6. Bring in your main product

Your audience has now fallen for the bait from the free offers and discounts. You’ve successfully built a relationship with them. Now, it’s time to give them the whole cake. This is where you offer your main product.

At this point, we suggest that you lower the price of your digital product a bit to drive more sales. Don’t get me wrong, of course, you can decide to make a profit from your products but you don’t have to just yet.

And no, nobody is asking you to undersell your product. This is where you just rope your customers in finally.

Your competitors get it wrong at this point – trying to make profit from their first core offer. You can leverage this and acquire more loyal customers.

Of course, this process is entirely subjective. You may decide to just give free discounts and move on to selling the real price of your product.

Struggling with sales? See How To Market A Product In 6 Easy Ways

7. Maximize the customer’s lifetime value

Now you’ve got the real wheat from the chaff. At this point, you increase your price and make more profit with loyal customers.

The goal here is to sell more of your products. Think of it as what you offer to immediately raise transaction value.

You can use one-click upsells, subscriptions, and membership packages. You can also use cross-sells.

An upsell is getting more for a lower price. It can be the same product or a different product that’s related to the product you’re selling. E.g: A boutique has clothes as its core product but can decide to sell shoes, bags, and sunglasses.

A cross-sell is offering a different product. However, the more related they are, the closer your chances of selling. E.g: If you’re selling an ebook for baking, your cross-sell could be an ebook on marketing your baking business.

This is the holy grail of selling because you can expand your revenue to other sources.

8. Automate the process

At this point, you automate the entire marketing process. The goal is to drive people to your sales funnel. Then convert leads to customers and customers to loyal buyers.

Using email marketing automation, you can notify your leads/customers of new products, discounts, and free offers.

However, don’t make the mistake of sending just offers and product notifications to your customers. Switch things up sometimes, offer tips, guides, stories, etc.

Marketing automation makes it easier to scale sales in a short period of time.

Where to Sell Digital Products Online

When choosing a platform to sell digital products online, there are two things to consider;

• Mode of payment
• Accessibility to Product

If these things are simplified, then the platform is ideal for your digital product.

Here are the best places to sell digital products online;

• Selar
• Gumroad
• Sellfy
• Amazon
• Kajabi

Selling ebooks? See the 10 Best Places To Sell eBooks Online For Free In Nigeria

FAQs on How to Sell Digital Products Online

Start Selling Your Digital Products Online

Selling digital products doesn’t have to be a struggle. As long as you have the right product, a great platform, and a good marketing strategy, you’re good to go.

Once your product is ready, you can sell it on Selar, a platform that is designed for digital products. Afterward, the next step is to promote your product. Here are effective steps to take to promote your digital product and make more sales.

Of course, there are lots of platforms where you can sell digital products online. But with a platform such as Selar, you are sure of using the right tool.