It can be overwhelming when you are trying to decide on a business and what products you will be selling to your target market. What you choose to do will impact the future of the business and how you then proceed with your business set up and marketing. There are plenty of people out there that spruke online courses as a one-way ticket to millions but what I am going to tell you is, business, regardless of the type of products, requires time, determination and patience if you want it to bloom.
There are 3 main forms of “products” you can choose for your business, tangible products, digital products and services. For this blog, I am going to delve into a digital product and how you can create one that will work for you and your business.
Creating a digital product is a great way to earn some passive income. I spent 10 hours on a digital product and now sell it for $9.95. It sits on my website being purchased without me having to do anything at all. It is ready and available should I want to scale it but for now I am happy to see it just earning away without it becoming another “job” in my business to do. I do not change the digital product depending on the customer, they buy it based on their needs. It is a great way to add more value into your business with limited time and resources needed to keep it updated. I have created an e-course to help you launch your business with one of the topics reviewing digital products and how you can maximise its potential in your business.
In my 15,000 strong Remarkable business mums Facebook group, I encourage Mums to think outside the box for their business ideas and selling. We all know that there is more than one business out there selling the same thing, but it is how you go about it. How you change it up and provide your target market with the solution they have been craving for to fix their problem.
It is best to think of digital products as two separate ideas.
- Creative – this is all your graphic design, logos, brochures, templates
- Educational – eBooks, courses, workbooks
Once you decide which avenue your business will go down, now is time to get started!
The best part about digital products you can make as many as you want. For the most part, most digital products are ‘free’ to make so that leaves you able to go as far as your imagination takes you.
Here are a few simple tips to get you thinking about your digital product.
Validate your idea
Before you go rushing off to create lots of different digital products, first you need to review if someone would be willing to pay for your course. There is no point spending hours on something that no one is interested in.
Ask for feedback
One thing many businesses do, is create a course and quickly send it out to the world. Take your time, give “first access” to a handful of people and get them to go through your product. This will allow you to make changes or validate that it is indeed ready to be marketed to your niche. I also encourage you to continue to ask for feedback. It is certainly easier to evolve a digital product and your customers will appreciate updates/ adding more value to their purchase.
Protecting your work
Unfortunately we live in a world of piracy and although there is no way to 100% make it fool-proof there are ways to minimise it. Some of these ways include, using PDF instead of a word document, copyrighting, adding logins, limiting how many ‘downloads’ someone can perform of your product. It will depend on what you are making to how it is best to protect your work.
Using the right programs
Once you decide on a product, it is best to do some research (there is stacks on the internet) about what programs to use for what. It is very important that when creating a digital product you make it look professional as that will help when you get to the selling point. There are many free and paid programs out there that can successfully help you to create a digital product.
We spoke to Stevie from Stevie Says Social about her hints and tips about digital products, and boy, does she have some great ideas.
“There’s one thing that I know for DAMN sure, though: having knowledge around the right tools, launch strategies, course creation and tech to use when I was FIRST starting out would have saved me a bucketload of time, sleep and late nights.
Truthbomb: Creating and selling an online course is hands down the very best thing I have EVER done in my business.
There are a few things to keep in mind before diving in headfirst.
#1 IS YOUR COURSE SOMETHING PEOPLE ACTUALLY WANT AND WOULD BE WILLING TO PAY FOR?
#2 DO YOU HAVE AN AUDIENCE OF PEOPLE TO SELL TO?
#3 DO YOU HAVE THE BUDGET?
The initial steps you need to take if you do decide to create an online course, specifically:
- Creating a detailed timeline;
- Deciding on the format of your course;
- Deciding on your course platform; and
- Creating your sales page.
When you then ready to start you need to look at fleshing it out and scripting, to slide creation to recording and editing and finally to preparing your supporting materials and uploading everything into your course platform of choice.
It sounds like a lot of work, which it is but creating an online course has changed my life.
It has created an additional revenue stream for me that has now become my primary revenue stream, and it has allowed me to change my business model from 1:1 and swapping time for money to leveraged income doing something I genuinely love.”
So if you have been thinking about doing a digital product, why not give it a go! When you are ready to launch, check out my online course to make sure you are ready!
