How to Start Selling Digital Products in 7 Steps

What do webinars, e-books, and apps have in common?

They’re all digital products, and they’re taking a big share of consumer wallets. Whether you have a successful business and are looking to capitalize on lucrative new sales channels, or you’re hoping to trade your talent for recurring passive income, you can make digital products work for you.

What are digital products?

A digital product is anything purchased that’s distributed electronically and accessed by devices like computers, smartphones, or tablets. It’s not something a buyer can physically touch, but they can see, hear, and interact with it.

Benefits of selling digital products

A top advantage of digital products for both buyers and sellers is that it’s instant. Digital products are often something the seller can create once and duplicate basically for free. Buyers, meanwhile, can often get the digital access they want right away. Selling digital products offers these benefits:

Lower upfront costs

Digital products — whether it’s a highly creative font, a specially produced educational series, or a complex productivity app — have a certain cost to create. But they don’t need a factory to make more of them. Typically, once it’s created, a digital product is easily duplicated. That means your cost of goods sold for additional units is close to zero.

Easy to distribute

With digital products, you’re not limited to what you can sell from a physical storefront. You can sell digital assets through a website you own, by setting up an online store, or using a multi-seller platform. Many creators and businesses sell across multiple platforms to cover all their bases. Plus, your reach could be global, as long as you meet international regulations for your product.

Flexible to the changing market

Many digital products are easy to update in response to change — a key advantage in the crowded marketplace. While some content sold is locked in, such as a point-in-time webinar recording, most digital products make it a valuable selling point to grow and change with the user.

For example, if your market is a gaming app, you might sell a base version but then build and add features based on user feedback. Existing customers may get free game updates, but they’ll also tout your developments, and you can raise the price for new customers as the product improves.

Several ways to monetize

Digital products are just as adaptable to various sales strategies as physical ones — if not more. You could opt to sell your digital product as a one-time purchase at a fixed price, but many digital items are prime for subscriptions, tiered pricing, and bundling. For example, you could sell a single stock photo, or you could offer monthly access to a limited photo set with tiered memberships for access to a full image library, premium tutorials, and an online community.

12 types of digital products that sell

Digital products come in all shapes and file sizes. If you’re trying to make one, review the following types of products to help you understand and decide which makes the most sense for you, your abilities, and your audience. We also included a recommendation for the type of background that is ideal for the product.

Courses and online education

Building new skills is important for your career and passions. Online courses, ranging from yoga to digital marketing, can draw big crowds. A common approach is to create a series of paid-subscription online videos hosted in a learning management system, which can include downloadable worksheets, built-in quizzes, and notes. Some take the form of webinars, which are attended live and solicit donations from attendees. AI can also help in developing scripts and summarizing video content into downloadable transcripts.

Go the extra mile by offering premium office hours and live lessons to connect with students. It’s easiest to sell courses if you’re already a somewhat well-known figure in the industry, but you can always build up your reputation through free giveaways and trial classes.

• Ideal for: Anyone with in-depth knowledge in a broad or popular field that people want to learn about or a skill they want to develop. For example, you could sell courses in design or how to learn a type of dance. Most people use specialized apps to deliver these courses, which let you upload and lock videos and extra content behind paywalls, as well as manage subscribers.

Coaching and consulting

If you have expertise in anything, your time is valuable. Go one-on-one with paying customers to help them get off the ground in whatever they’re pursuing, such as the basics of running a business for a startup founder, or automating your processes for a more established business.

Or go one-to-many with virtual group workshops. In this case, the digital products might be content that leads free users to this ultimately paid experience, with more paid content available to them after the fact. Show your knowledge on social media and industry forums, and lead fans back to a landing page to book coaching sessions.

• Ideal for: People with expertise in a niche, hard-to-access field. For example, a business owner might need a consultant skilled in preparing requests for proposals (RFPs) for government contracts. You can sell these services directly by booking consultations, sending contracts, and scheduling consulting calls.

Digital templates and themes

Many entrepreneurs and businesses want to make things that look good and function well, without having to build from scratch. If you have a graphic design background, you might create website layouts, pre-programmed spreadsheets, day planners, preset tool setups for photo or video software, and more. These can be sold on independent websites, through marketplace platforms, or directly through the apps they’re made for.

• Ideal for: Creative people who use popular tools that require extensive training to master. For example, a Slack expert might create copyable templates for Canvases, Lists, and more. Digital templates can be distributed through a personal website, and after buyers pay, you can establish a system to send a link and passcode to protect your product.

E-books

E-books are electronic books that can be read on a tablet, laptop, or phone. Make yours stand out through a combination of high quality, unique information, and good design. If you have a solid reputation in your field, the hook might be your perspective. The hook could also be the result of an actual study you conducted, which provides new data and statistics.

E-books can be sold through major book marketplaces and e-commerce platforms. E-books are often called “lead magnets,” a giveaway that potential customers get in exchange for filling in forms and agreeing to receive your marketing emails.

• Ideal for: Those with specialized knowledge in industries where e-books are widely accepted and who have less time or skill to create video content. A social media professional might produce an e-book like “Guide to Social Selling Success.” E-books are sold similarly to templates, with a download link and a passcode.

Games

Video games and mobile games need no introduction. You’ll find them in app stores on everyone’s smartphones, PC marketplaces, and stores built into modern consoles. They take many forms and are being played more frequently by more people than ever before. Some have an upfront cost to buyers, some are licensed to subscription platforms (and pay developers based on playtime or downloads), and some are freemium, where they’re free to start playing but sell add-ons inside the game.

• Ideal for: People with experience working for larger game studios or hobbyist gamers who have the time and patience to learn the craft. Games can be offered in any of the app stores and game marketplaces, but they may take a significant cut.

Licensed digital content

Not everything is made to be enjoyed on its own. Sometimes, the smart move is to sell small pieces of much larger products. Stock photography, music, designs, and videos get used in everything from ads and websites to concept art and packaging.

Marketing and film professionals dig through online marketplaces trying to avoid corny corporate stock assets, so you can stand out by making something original and beautiful. Simply create your library, license it to the stock websites, and let the sites sell it again and again.

• Ideal for: Creators who stay informed about trends and needs among corporations and production houses and who are skilled at using marketplaces to increase profits. There are many marketplaces where you can sell your licensed content.

Memberships and communities

Information and discussions are available on social media, forums, blog comments, and countless sites trying to share content, all for free. Some free sources are amazing, but there’s also a lot of junk to sift through. Niche communities might prefer something more curated and exclusive.

That’s where the membership site comes in. You have to pay to get in, but you get what you pay for. Free of ads, trolls, and bots, the site gives every member a literal financial stake in the community, so it stays high-quality and civil. Examples include “masterminds,” where business owners share struggles and swap leads, or communities built around an expert in a topic.

• Ideal for: Anyone with specific knowledge or skills, along with the aptitude and time to build and engage with a community over the long term. A community can be created through a simple Slack channel, and you can ensure all members have paid their monthly dues; if not, you can discontinue their membership. Some website-building platforms also offer automated management of this process.

Music and audio

Most musicians license music to streaming platforms. They are paid based on subscriber listens or receive a portion of ad revenue from free users. Podcasts are another popular audio product. Platforms for premium podcasts with dedicated fan bases offer exclusive episodes to patrons who donate monthly. Nearly all are free to listeners and collect ad and sponsorship revenue.

• Ideal for: People who love to perform. You need musical talent to sell music, and a good speaking voice is important for podcasts — as well as friends or colleagues to talk with, or a knack for finding interesting guests. Podcasts work best for those who can stick to a regular release schedule. Both music and podcasts have many popular platforms for releasing content, but they can also be easily released on YouTube to grow a following quickly.

Premium content libraries

If you’ve had success selling individual digital products, you can offer subscriptions to a big library of all your past and future products. For example, if your e-books always deliver, past buyers may see the value in simply subscribing to your library to get early and ongoing access to future ones. The same goes for the creator who always makes new UX kits that speed up app production. Prove value and then improve your offer.

• Ideal for: Anyone who’s suitable for e-books, templates, and licensed content can set these up online. You can then collect regular payments and restrict access to paying members.

Software and apps

Once created, software can provide you with reliable subscription revenue if it serves a real market need. Apps for consumers include everything from photo and video editing to family budgeting. Apps for businesses might include complex accounting, project management software, productivity suites, and shipping coordination. If you go this route, note that tech sales is a complex job that requires experience to get right.

• Ideal for: People with a background in development and an understanding of others’ problems. It’s always possible to learn, but it’s not the best starting point for selling digital products without basic knowledge. Apps can be published through official app stores or as simple downloads on your own website if you’re creating them for personal computers.

Videos

Whether it’s an ad-supported video on a popular video streaming website or a paid exclusive sold to a major publisher, video content is among the fastest-growing formats. Production quality is important for some formats, like narratives, but less so for quick social media skits.

• Ideal for: Almost anyone, especially if you have a good eye for visuals and something to say. The same content that works in text and images also works as a video; it just requires more work to film, edit, and handle sound. However, basic skills are becoming more accessible thanks to smartphones with powerful cameras and simple, affordable editing apps. Simply upload your videos to popular video hosting sites where people can easily find them, and support yourself through ads to get started.

Visual art and prints

Original visual artwork with an artist’s personal style can be valuable with the rise of generative AI. It’s all about how you package it. You could sell the original file through a marketplace. You could also create on-demand coffee table books and T-shirts, or sticker sheets and posters that customers print themselves. Build a following and community through social media, and then release exclusives for your fans.

• Ideal for: Those with art skills and knowledge of digital commerce essentials. Craft marketplaces are great places to sell to interested buyers, but you can also offer custom, commissioned work by showcasing your portfolio and sharing your contact details.

7 steps to start selling digital products

Maybe the last section got the ideas flowing, and you’re excited to get started. Or perhaps the idea of making a digital product feels intimidating, and you’re not sure how to begin. Depending on your talents, it can be as easy as making a new version of something you always make or as complex as learning a skill and building a business at the same time.

No matter how it strikes you, selling digital products is easier to start than most other ways of making money. You can do it, and these steps can help you organize your efforts.

1. Brainstorm

If you’re a creative or developer, it might be obvious what you’re going to make. A photographer will take photos, though they still need to find their niche. But if you have ‌less obvious talent, finding the right type of digital product can take more time.

What you make depends on your knowledge, skills, and interests.

Do you have an eye for fashion or a knack for speed-running games? Are there accounting mistakes that always get on your nerves or design trends you think are overblown? Play to your passions if you can. Check the earlier section on types of digital products for guidance on which one might suit you.

2. Do market research

Let’s say you’ve settled on fashion videos. What else is out there? Who are the top creators? What are they doing? More importantly, what are they not doing? Or let’s say you decided to make a DIY accounting e-book. Does anyone else give away that same info for free? What’s their angle?

Here’s how to approach market research:

• Search for relevant conversations on social media platforms and see what the general attitudes and issues are in the market.
• Dig up published research from authoritative sources, industry news outlets, and others to understand trends and get some data to work with.
• Find sources and summarize content using AI tools.
• Set up a CRM to gather information gained from actual customers and leads, and keep your notes current.

3. Choose your product

Your final choice of product and topic should be at the intersection of:

• Your interests and knowledge related to the content that goes into the product
• Your skills and ability to create the product
• The theoretical maximum audience interested in your topics
• The current amount of your topic and product type in the market, along with noticeable gaps in style, tone, quality, or perspective
• The pricing you might reasonably set in that market, weighed against your time and costs in creating and promoting your product

Whatever you choose, land on your first product and commit to making that one as well as you can before expanding. As you go, focus on differentiating and defining your personal brand. Each product you release impacts your reputation and will be considered when customers are thinking about buying your products in the future.

4. Define your target market with a persona

A buyer persona is a fictional customer who has traits that represent a specific part of the population. For example, they might be divided by age, hobbies, income, places they like to frequent, or what they believe. Here’s how to create a persona for your product:

• Use data to find basic traits: Start with a general group of people who use products similar to yours to narrow down your market to an age range, education level, job title, income level, location, or other relevant details.
• Do research to understand people: Conduct a survey yourself or look for existing studies that pertain to your potential customers’ work, the skills they need to succeed, and what they believe success means.
• Go deeper with interviews: Ask some of your likely customers to tell you what they worry about, what they desire, and what motivates them to challenge assumptions. Uncover secrets that will help you sell to them.
• Build a starter persona: Use what you learned to make a collection of these traits that’s easy to pull up and consider when creating digital products to serve them. It helps to frame it as a story (i.e., “Mark is trying to get promoted in his accounting firm and spends a lot of his free time figuring out ways to impress his bosses”).
• Refine as you learn: Personas are a representation, so they should be subject to change as you try, fail, and succeed in the marketplace.

5. Validate your idea

Having a digital product idea and the skills to back it up is one thing, but seeing whether the market will be excited by it is another. An easy first step is to ask people in your life and your target market. Show them your idea and what you have so far, and see what they think is missing and what’s working.

You can also approach this more objectively, such as running digital surveys asking about the problem you’re trying to solve. The final way to validate this would simply be to check relative interest in this topic or product over time. Look at online search trends to see what’s getting buzz.

6. Market to your audience

If you’re selling digital products, you’ll need to stand out. Use your website and social analytics to find patterns in where potential customers come from, what they do on your site, and when they ultimately buy. You can also find places in the buying process where people drop off before making a purchase. Cross-reference qualitative data, like customer feedback or random comments on your social media profiles, to see if those feelings help explain what the data says.

Using this data, decide on channels to invest more in, like content you post to your social profiles, advertising placed on search engines, or referrals from partners and groups. Part of the investment will be running these different marketing campaigns, and part of it will be creating the content you’ll use in the marketing.

Understanding digital sales strategies is important, too. Connect your CRM and sales tools to your marketing efforts to help you make stronger connections between the types of marketing a lead saw and the likelihood that they will buy. Marketing is a game of frequent improvement, so study your results and try tweaks as you go.

7. Test and learn

Your product and marketing efforts both need you to look at the data and adjust as needed. Always gather and be open to feedback and investigate problems.

You will likely have to adapt to increase revenue. Since digital products are relatively low-cost to make, you need to consider your break-even point and your time to profitability.

How many units do you need to sell to earn back everything it costs to make it, including your own labor? Also, how long did it take for that to happen?

Best practices for pricing and marketing your digital products

Because digital products are cheap to distribute once the first copy is made, it can be difficult to decide the right price to charge. Similarly, it’s also hard to figure out how to make yours stand out. Use these guidelines as a starting point:

Use entry-level pricing to get reviews

If you aren’t already an influencer or a recognized member of the community or industry you’re selling in, you need to build social credibility. The easiest way to gain status in the social media age is through reviews from genuine customers linked to verified public profiles. Still, getting reviews when you’re unknown is a chicken-and-egg situation, so to start, set a low but reasonable initial price, like a promotional offer. Gather those first reviews, then use them for marketing in the “mass market” stage.

Bundle different products together

Bundles help drive sales of physical products. For example, don’t just buy the toothbrush, but get toothpaste too, and save a little. It’s an easy way to stand out on the shelf, as long as you’re willing to offer a discount on the unit price. In the digital products world, bundling works even better because there are no unit costs once each digital product is created. Bundle and cut the price per unit, because it’s not just a 10% discount. It’s 100% more revenue than if you hadn’t sold it at all. For example, you might combine access to a course with free downloads of the templates used in it.

Update products regularly

Digital products may be cheap to make and free to reproduce, but that means the competition is constantly making their own versions of your stuff, too. Considering that some digital products are entertainment, and most are informational, they tend to become outdated quickly. This means you need to stay tuned to market trends and the latest facts, updating your products regularly. This could involve releasing something new, like switching a digital design template from fall to winter, or updating an existing product, like adding new research to an e-book.

Build your personal and company brands

Since digital products are cheap to produce, easy to copy, and come with steep competition, your most effective way to stand out is your personal brand or your company’s brand. Often, the product mainly consists of information or advice, and people are unlikely to take advice from someone they don’t trust. Be the face of your brand, engage actively in your communities and social networks, and stay responsive to get ahead. This also means being open to criticism, gracious with praise, and supportive of peers in larger communities.

Follow viral content and trends

If you’re selling digital products, it’s important to stay updated with current online trends. For certain products, this means paying attention to what consumers are talking about and interested in, so you can tailor your next product accordingly. You can do this by keeping tabs on your social feeds. For products marketed to businesses, you can jump on trending topics that are only loosely related and steer them to your product.

What to look for in digital selling tools

Just as ‌products are digital, so too are the tools needed to make them and move them. In fact, some of this infrastructure can be the largest expense in the process outside labor, so it’s important to figure out what you need in your tech stack. All of the following can help with online selling:

• Market research: Whatever website and social platforms you use, make sure you get access to analytics to see what’s working. You also need tools, like surveys, to research your competitors and target markets.
• Content creation: You need to be able to build your digital products, using things like creative suites for graphic designers, productivity suites for slides and documents, and generative AI platforms to help speed things up.
• Hosting and storefront: Host your digital content in a secure place with a shopping function to collect payments and gate access to the product.
• CRM: Keep track of past and potential customers with sales software that keeps a database and helps automate your outreach, too.
• Marketing automation platform: Collect lead information through forms on your site, build quick landing pages for your marketing campaigns, personalize web content based on each user’s interests, and send custom email and SMS campaigns.
• Sales forecasting: The best way to make future sales strategies is to understand what’s already happened. By measuring and improving digital sales experiences through your storefront over time, you can begin to predict your sales cycles.
• Customer service management: Save time reading through emails of customer complaints with a platform for tracking and resolving issue tickets. After all, happy customers spread better word of mouth.

Start selling digital products today

The market may seem stuffed with options, but new people and companies start selling digital products daily, with breakaway successes cropping up constantly. Think about what you know that others don’t, where your creation skills lie. Build your personal brand and try out the tools that make it all possible. You never know if you don’t try, and you’ve already gotten started by reading this guide.