How To Create Digital Products In 10 Steps

With the online world dominating everyone’s daily lives, there is no shortage of profitable digital products from which creative people can earn money.

Whether you’re sharing your professional skills through online courses or selling beautiful artwork, digital products deliver high-profit margins with low overheads.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ve broken down how to create digital products into ten easy-to-follow steps, whatever your area of interest is.

What Are Digital Products?

The definition of digital products covers a broad range of non-physical products that consumers can access and purchase online.

As they aren’t physical products, they can be produced without the high costs associated with traditional products such as manufacturing and distribution.

In recent years, the range of digital products has expanded, with e-commerce sales significantly increasing as the market continues to expand.

Everything from digital art to online courses and photography falls under the umbrella of digital product creation, with a huge market to access.

Digital products also include many forms of entertainment, from original music and video content to audiobooks and podcasts.

With its low barrier to entry and diversified consumer base, selling digital products is one of the best businesses that run themselves for passive income.

Sellers can access a range of online marketplaces to sell digital products or set up their own website with an online store to maximize revenue.

Why Sell Digital Products?

With such a broad range of digital products to sell, there are many compelling reasons why creatives should consider branching into this market.

Indeed, the digital product market size continues to grow exponentially, with new sellers and products emerging online on a daily basis.

Here are a few other compelling reasons why you should consider selling digital products and monetizing your creative process.

• Avoiding supply and demand issues. By removing the need to manufacture your inventory at scale, selling digital products avoids traditional issues with supply and demand. There’s no limit on how many products you can sell, and your inventory can be quickly updated without incurring extensive losses.
• Earning a passive income. Selling digital products is a great way to bring in passive income without having to dedicate yourself full-time to the associated responsibilities. Once you’ve set up your store and uploaded the products, you can sit back and wait for the orders to roll in.
• Exceptionally low startup costs. Since selling digital products doesn’t require a brick-and-mortar store or physical products in stock, startup costs are exceptionally low. You can try out a few ideas to see how they sell and assess demand before investing more time in additional product creation.
• Full creative freedom. Working on digital products gives you full creative freedom over the nature of your products and the future direction you want to take the business. You can also create and sell digital products at your own pace, freeing up time to spend with your family or on other passions.
• Global market reach. Another key advantage of selling digital products is the ability to reach a global audience through sales and when implementing marketing strategies. For year-round profitability, you can tailor your products and marketing to specific territories, cultural events, and holiday seasons.
• Optimal for scalability. With no limits or restrictions on the number of digital products you sell, it’s a fully scalable business concept with lots of room for growth. As your income through selling your own digital products increases, you can focus on creating new products and expanding your customer base accordingly.

Whether you’re looking for a side hustle to pay off debt or prepared to commit full-time, selling digital products has plenty of upsides to consider.

The 10 Best Digital Products To Sell

One of the appealing aspects of selling digital products is how it appeals to all types of creative people to maximize their unique, individual skill sets.

To help inspire your new venture, here are ten of the best digital products to sell, each with a proven track record of success in the marketplace:

• Digital Art. People with a traditional art or graphic design background can earn money online selling a range of art-based digital products. This covers everything from attractive digital paintings to brighten up a living room to logos and branding elements designed for businesses to promote their products and services.
• Online Courses. If you have experience in a particular subject or profession, you can transform this into a variety of online courses to help people improve their skills. You can create an online course for all levels of experience, showcasing your expertise through marketing strategies to draw in customers.
• eBooks. If you’re a good writer, you can produce eBooks on your favorite topics and sell them directly to your readers through a website. If you’re more interested in fiction, you can write short stories and novels, reaching out to genre fans on book reading forums and social media pages.
• Audiobooks. Like eBooks, audiobook sales have continued to rise in recent years, with many people preferring to listen to books in the car or at the gym. You’ll need a clear voice and microphone, and you’re ready to start producing audiobooks to sell online.
• Stock Photos. Amateur photographers often earn passive income by uploading their photos and making them available to purchase on stock photography websites. Stock photos can be sold on numerous platforms to ensure maximum reach to potential customers with minimal effort.
• Planners. Organizing a busy schedule is much easier with an effective planner, so it’s not surprising that this format of digital products has also risen in popularity in recent years. You can tailor your planners to all demographics, from busy stay-at-home mom schedules to helping CEOs manage their time.
• Mobile Applications. Mobile applications are a more in-depth and resource-intensive digital product, which can include free-to-play smartphone games or resources for freelancers. While software development is more specialized than other digital products, the potential rewards for those who successfully penetrate the marketplace are significant.
• Podcasts. As the podcast market continues to grow, it’s become one of the most popular digital products for people with specialist skills who want to share them with customers. Once you’ve got set up with a microphone and appropriate software, podcasts can be created with low overheads and generate passive income through ads or sponsorships.
• Content Templates. Digital product sellers create a wide variety of templates for their customers, ranging from job application emails and resumes to business cards and PowerPoint presentations. Corporate employees are more than happy to pay for access to these templates to save time and effort when dealing with heavy workloads.
• Photo Editing Presets. There are many digital photo editing programs on the market, and big names such as Adobe Photoshop allow third parties to create plugins to sell directly to consumers. If you have experience with photo editing tools, you can earn money online by selling presets and plugins to amateur and professional photographers.

This is just a small but popular selection of commonly sold digital products with proven track records of generating ongoing revenue streams.

Sellers offer plenty of other profitable digital products to their customers, so make sure you research before starting your business.

How To Create Digital Products In 10 Easy Steps

We’ve looked at many of the core reasons why people opt to sell digital products online to earn a passive income through their unique talents.

Now, let’s walk through the process of creating digital products in ten easy-to-follow steps, from assessing your creativity to successful marketing.

Step 1: Assess Your Creative Skills

Before deciding which digital products to sell, you need to assess your particular skills and experience and see how they can be applied.

Two main measures can achieve this: your professional background and work experience, as well as your hobbies and interests.

The former is optimal for selling online courses and other educational content, while the latter is more applicable to art and other creative products.

There are plenty of great resources to help you tap into your creativity, so you should consider spending time honing your skills beforehand.

If you already have a successful hobby with an established body of work, consider using this as a launchpad for your digital product creation.

For example, if you’re savvy with photography as a side hustle, you can use your content for digital products with minimal effort.

The assessment will also help you to determine your particular niche and better understand its feasibility in terms of generating a revenue stream.

You can then determine the level of competition you’ll face and how your skills and experience can help you dominate the marketplace.

Step 2: Research The Competition

Once you’ve assessed your creative and professional skills and decided on your niche, it’s time to research the competition thoroughly.

Whether you have a background in craft business ideas or experience as an online tutor, this research is a vital process to becoming a success.

First, research the existing digital products in your field to see what other sellers offer their customers.

Throughout this research stage, you should accumulate extensive reference material that covers rival products and how sellers present themselves online.

You should also read many customer reviews to get a firmer impression of what customers are looking for in a particular digital product.

This research should be directly tailored to your niche; for example, if you’re selling online courses, you’ll need to review competitors in your subject.

On the other hand, checking out the best artists’ websites will help you market your digital art effectively through high-quality assets.

Checking out the social media channels of other sellers is also important to help you better approach marketing and engagement with your customers.

Consider joining Facebook groups and starting conversations with their members to stay current on the latest news and trends.

Finally, use online tools to streamline your research process, such as using Google Trends and Google Keyword Planner for keyword optimization.

Step 3: Identify Your Target Audience

Through the process of conducting competitor research, you’ll no doubt notice that a certain target audience is commonly linked to specific product types.

The next phase in the process of selling digital products is to dive deeper into your target audience demographics to understand their needs fully.

Researching your target audience also means gaining insights into the goals, challenges, and priorities of the customers you’re hoping to attract.

This information will prove to be invaluable as you establish your online business, both in terms of your chosen products and digital marketing strategy.

On a basic level, target audience demographics can be broken down into the following core categories:

• Age
• Gender
• Location
• Income level
• Profession

These high-level categories can then be combined with various other variables to help you determine the best products to offer online.

One example of these refined data points can be found in the online course market, as well as an understanding of the techniques used to close the skills gap.

By understanding what consumers expect when signing up for an online course, you can create educational resources that fulfill their needs.

Ask yourself what motivates your customers’ consumer decisions and what values they have when deciding whether or not to purchase a digital product.

While getting these insights can be challenging, there are many online forums and groups where your target audience discusses related topics.

If you have a social media presence, you can use this to reach out to your followers and gather feedback on your digital product concepts.

You can also consider creating an email list and sending surveys and questionnaires to learn what products your audience is looking for.

Step 4: Write A Business Plan

Whether you’re setting up a conventional business or looking to sell digital products online, creating a business plan is crucial for achieving success.

Your business plan should incorporate all aspects of the process, from the methods used when creating digital products to marketing and customer support.

It should also cover your online presence, from a detailed website design timeline to scheduling social media posts for effective customer engagement.

Successful digital product sellers use a range of marketing initiatives to help them reach their target audience and enjoy consistent business growth.

Content marketing is one way to achieve this, so if you plan on taking this approach, write up a comprehensive blog post checklist in your plan.

Here’s a brief overview of the core elements to consider to help you create a business plan for your digital products:

• Executive summary. Your business plan should begin with a concise overview of your business, including its core mission, target audience, and competitive advantage.
• Market analysis. In this section, you should compile the findings from your competitor and target audience research to demonstrate the viability of your business concept and your approach to pricing and marketing strategies.
• Digital product overview. Next, write a complete outline of the products you plan on selling, highlighting what makes them unique and the personal skills you’ll draw on when creating them.
• Operational costs and procedures. This section should clearly outline your process for creating digital products, including the technology you need and the approximate time this will take. Ongoing costs should also be factored into this equation for a complete projected budget.
• Website creation and selling platforms. In this section, outline the costs associated with setting up a personal website and an overview of fees and other charges you anticipate if you’re selling on a third-party platform.
• Marketing and sales strategy. Your business plan should also detail your marketing and sales strategy, covering your budget range for running ads and other promotions. It can also include any influencers you plan on reaching out to to help with these efforts.
• Customer support. Responding to customer feedback and complaints requires implementing certain systems, which you can outline in this section of your business plan.
• Key milestones and metrics. Lastly, your business plan should include all the key milestones you aim to hit when you start to create digital products to sell, from initial product launches to future updates.

As you begin to implement the various stages of your business plan, you can refer to it throughout the process and ensure you stay on the right track.

Step 5: Design & Create Digital Products

With your business plan completed, it’s time to begin designing and creating digital products for sale online.

You can use many excellent creative tools to do this, and the best ones for you will depend largely on the products you’re making.

For example, if you’re focused on creating digital art, you can choose from a large selection of free-to-use and paid art and graphic design packages.

Other programs are optimal for creating templates for everything from email marketing to daily planners to sell through your online stores.

Here are some options to consider that cater to a wide range of budgets and levels of user experience:

• Adobe Photoshop. This hugely popular professional-level photo editing program has extensive tools for all types of digital products. You can use it to create original digital art or edit photos to sell on platforms that sell stock photos.
• GIMP. A free-to-use Photoshop alternative, this is a surprisingly comprehensive image editing program with a feature-rich approach to creativity, albeit with a more difficult learning curve compared to Adobe’s products.
• Canva. Commonly used by content marketing professionals, Canva is a great tool for quickly putting together templates of all types. It has a neat and intuitive user interface and a great selection of assets. It’s also handy if you need to design a logo but don’t have the necessary background in graphic design to do this on your own.
• Google Workspace. You can use Google Workspace to help streamline the implementation of your business plan and ensure you’re staying on track. Use it to share Google Docs, spreadsheets, presentations, and surveys with clients and customers.
• Teachable. A platform dedicated to helping educators create impressive online courses, Teachable has plenty of customization options and is ideal for people looking to upload content for sale on Udemy and elsewhere.

Many more programs are available to help with your digital product creation, monitor sales, and manage posting schedules on social media platforms.

For more inspiration, check out some of the best freelance business ideas related to your products and make notes on the tools used to achieve success.

Step 6: Choose Selling Platforms

Digital product creators have various options to consider when it comes to selling their products to customers around the world.

The first option is to choose a pre-existing online platform that allows sellers to upload their designs to a profile and reach their user base.

As with selecting the best tools to create digital products, choosing the appropriate selling platform will depend on the nature of the product you’re offering.

For digital artists, the best places to sell art online offer competitive fees, easy processes for uploading assets, and a diverse selection of merchandise.

Such platforms include Etsy, Zazzle, Redbubble, and Amazon Handmade, with additional artist-selling websites for more niche interests.

In addition to allowing people to sell art prints and posters, many of these sites also allow sellers to add designs to accessories and clothing.

As such, it’s important to refer back to the business plan and see which product types are best for your art style and collection of designs.

Selling educational courses can be done through different websites, such as Skillshare and Podia, two popular alternatives to Teachable and Udemy.

These sites also have their own fees, as well as tools to help you put your courses together with presentation templates for your prospective customers.

Step 7: Create Your Own Website

While pre-existing online selling platforms make selling digital products easy, creating your own website offers an exceptional level of freedom.

The rise of the website builder market is a testament to how popular this option is for putting together customizable personal sites for all types of digital products.

If you choose to go down this route, you don’t need any web development experience, as most website builders offer a variety of templates to start with.

These templates can be easily modified with different website themes, allowing you to change the use of colors, fonts, and your site’s layout.

You can also tailor the site’s page structure to your liking, and you can even create an online store to sell digital products directly to your customers.

You’ll need to use an e-commerce builder to accomplish this, and these tools include full integration of payment processing, such as PayPal.

They can also be used to track your inventory and shipping of physical products, such as merchandise with your artwork and designs.

Running a website for your digital products also helps with sales through processes such as search engine optimization through keywords.

You can increase your website’s visibility through content marketing and writing regular blog posts with relevant keywords that inform your customers.

Step 8: Market Your Digital Products

The best digital products will struggle to sell if they aren’t promoted online through a variety of marketing initiatives to reach your target audience.

While large companies use marketing budgets running into the millions of dollars, you don’t need a huge investment to get your products out there.

We’ve touched briefly on using a blog builder to post regular articles optimized for search engines that increase a website’s visibility.

In addition to writing your own blogs, you can contact affiliates and see if they would be interested in promoting your products on their channels.

Likewise, you can return the favor by promoting other products related to your own as guest posts on your site in exchange for your own coverage.

Your social media accounts should also be used to schedule frequent posts that promote your products and serve as a means of customer engagement.

This means scheduling posts on platforms including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and elsewhere, using paid ads for any unique events.

Social media content creators can also help with your marketing, so promote your products to influencers on Instagram and TikTok.

Remember, creating and selling digital products is an ongoing process, so keep refining your marketing strategy as you figure out what works best.

Step 9: Gather Customer Feedback

Feedback is the key to progress in most aspects of life, whether you’re learning new work-related skills or launching a digital product website.

This means implementing systems to gather feedback and data that can help you identify ways to improve your digital product business.

There are plenty of totally free methods for gathering customer feedback, with your personal website being the core foundation.

Website builders offer many functionalities for creating conversations with customers, from the ability to leave product reviews to commenting on blog posts.

Automation and other technological developments are emerging that streamline the process and help people to draw accurate conclusions.

Such data analytic tools allow for a relatively hands-off approach, whether you’re making money as a stay-at-home mom or setting up a casual side gig.

Your social media pages are also primary sources of direct feedback from customers, where they can share their thoughts on your latest products.

If you’ve established a reputation and a decent base of repeat customers, you can set up an email list and use this for future email marketing.

Plenty of useful tools for freelancers can be used to boost sales and identify high-demand products, so take the time to research your options.

Step 10: Update Your Products & Pricing

Successfully creating and selling digital products is an ongoing process based on analyzing sales data and responding to customer feedback.

This means you should consider updating your products regularly to keep your store fresh and invigorating while delivering what customers demand.

You can use your website builder’s data analytics to track visitor activity and strengthen your content pipeline’s topic structures and keywords.

If customers complain about prices, consider taking this feedback into account and repricing certain products to potentially increase sales.

Products that aren’t performing well can be removed from your listings, particularly if they’re receiving negative customer feedback online.

You should also return to the process of competitor analysis on a regular basis to ensure your digital product lineup is on par with your rivals.

This regular research will also help you to keep on top of trends and brainstorm new product ideas that your potential customers are looking for.

Summary

With so many options to choose from, creating and selling digital products offers near-endless opportunities for developing a reliable passive income.

By following the steps in this guide, you can unlock your full creative potential and build a loyal customer base who love what you’re offering.

Regular feedback and data analysis can transform your digital product business from a side hustle into a full-time revenue stream.