The world of commerce is witnessing a transformative shift towards the realm of intangible treasures – digital products. These intangible gems encompass a diverse spectrum of offerings, from enlightening online courses and enriching eBooks to versatile software applications and captivating digital art.
In this article, we delve into the multifaceted world of digital product entrepreneurship. We’ll explore effective strategies for marketing these digital treasures, from audience building to platform selection and pricing strategies. Discover how to harness the power of digital products and carve your niche in this dynamic landscape.
Whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur or just embarking on your digital product journey, this guide will equip you with the insights needed to thrive in the world of smart digital business intelligence reporting. So, let’s embark on this digital adventure and unlock the potential of your creations in the boundless digital marketplace.
Understanding the power of digital products
Whether you know it or not, you almost certainly own a few digital products! They’re essentially the digital form of physical products. This term encompasses a wide range of products that are intangible and delivered electronically, such as online courses that educate users on specific topics, eBook templates that provide valuable written content, software applications that serve various purposes, digital art creations, and digital music.
The market for digital products has experienced substantial growth, which makes it an excellent time to consider entering the market. According to Statistica, the number of digital commerce consumers is expected to amount to 5.5 billion users by 2027.
Why sell digital products online?
Businesses are increasingly looking at releasing digital products, and it’s easy to see why. Digital products offer scalability, allowing creators to reach an ever-expanding audience without the constraints of physical production or distribution. Moreover, digital products come with low overhead costs, as there’s no need for manufacturing, warehousing, or shipping. This cost efficiency translates into potentially higher profit margins for sellers. Additionally, digital products have the unique ability to reach a global audience instantly, breaking down geographical barriers.
An interesting facet of selling digital products online is the synergy they can have with physical products. For example, if you operate a business selling musical instruments, offering digital music tutorials through your website or a dedicated mobile app can enhance the value proposition for your customers. This cross-promotion strategy allows you to cater to a broader range of customer needs.
There’s also a huge degree of flexibility in selling digital products, and often only require a little ongoing maintenance, though this varies on a product-by-product basis. Releasing a music album is significantly different from releasing software! However, what these products have in common is that they are often used to generate passive income.
It’s important to note that it’s not just big businesses that are benefiting from the potential of digital products. Individual entrepreneurs and creatives have plenty of reasons to do this too. Digital creators have the freedom to work from anywhere in the world as long as they have an internet connection. Startup expenses tend to be low-cost, too, and profit margins are usually much higher than what’s available from real-world products.
Digital products also open up a world of possibilities for creatives to earn a living via their passions. For example, experts in writing, digital marketing, cooking, and photography can put together eBooks, online courses, and workshops that make their skills and knowledge available to the world. Elsewhere, graphic designers, illustrators, and visual artists can make their artwork available for purchase, or offer design templates and patterns.
Putting together a valuable digital product can be difficult, but once you’ve got it, you’ll have the potential to earn a recurring income for very little extra work. If you sell handmade sweaters, then you’ll need to make a sweater following each order; but when someone orders a template you’ve already designed, you don’t need to do anything other than make the file available to them.
How to market your digital products effectively
Having a remarkable digital product is your ticket to the game, but it’s only the opening act. To catapult your online business to towering heights of success, you must craft a robust and impactful marketing campaign for your digital creations.
In the next section, we’ll take a look at some handy tips for putting together a marketing strategy that works. We’ll run through tips not only for the actual marketing process but also for the pre-marketing campaign steps you should take to increase your chances of success.
1. Build an audience before the product launch
You’ll need to identify your target audience before you put together your marketing campaign. It’s much easier to market a product when you know exactly who you need to address. Once you know your target audience, you’ll be able to begin the process of building product and brand awareness within that group.
Before you put together your marketing campaign, you need to identify your target audience. This is a big step, as your campaign needs to revolve around the demographics that will be interested in your product.
You should know key details about them, such as their age bracket, predominant gender, income bracket, general location, lifestyle factors, common professions, and interests. Not only will this let you finetune your product to their needs, but also ensures you’re communicating the value of your product in a way your audience resonates with.
One of the best ways of guaranteeing success is to build a strong online presence and get people excited about your product before you launch it. This usually involves creating your own website and investing in SEO practices, making sure you’re on the same social media platforms that your target audience is on, and building an email list.
It’s also highly recommended to pre-sell your product before launch, which can help to both validate your item and generate revenue early on. Pre-selling is particularly recommended for those selling online courses, music albums, and games.
Here are some other ways of generating hype before your product launch:
- Networking: Make friends in your industry and online communities, and talk to people who might like your product.
- Influencers: Partner with people who have a lot of followers and who your audience trusts. These people can help spread the word about your offering.
- Webinars and live events: Host online events where you can show your expertise and interact with potential customers.
- Early access: Let a small group try your product before everyone else. It makes them feel special and builds excitement.
- Contests and giveaways: Run contests or giveaways to get people talking about your product.
- Press and media: Write news stories or reach out to news outlets to get coverage.
If, like most other website owners, you’ve set up your brand website on WordPress, then you can utilize various plugins within the WordPress ecosystem to help promote your products.
Take, for example, Sensei LMS. Sensei lets you create and sell online courses – these are digital products in their own right, and we have plenty of articles about how you can get started with an online course business. However, you can also use Sensei as a promotional tool. You can use it to put together teaser content, or create free mini-courses to help attract potential customers.
2. Choose the right platforms to sell digital products
Choosing the right platform for selling your digital products will be key to your success. You need to utilize platforms that increase product visibility while also making it as easy as possible for users to complete their purchase. Any platform with a subpar user experience will inevitably plummet sales.
Some key factors to keep in mind when you’re selecting an eCommerce platform for your digital products include:
- Who uses the platform? If you’re selling your products on a vendor platform or online marketplace, is it a platform that your target audience frequents? If you’re selling on your own website (we talk about this in more depth below), is the overall look, feel, and user experience of the platform appealing to your audience, and optimized for the devices they use?
- What features does the platform offer? The best online store platforms will provide secure payment processing, digital delivery options, customer management tools, and customized product listings, among other features.
- Is it easy to use? Don’t spend excessive amounts of time getting to grips with your platform – your selection should have an intuitive interface and be easy to set up, which will both save you time and reduce frustration.
- How much does it cost? You’ll need your platform to be financially viable, so take a look at its pricing structure, transaction fees, and any other costs to ensure you build a profitable business using the platform.
Above, we discussed the importance of having your own website – we also think it’s really important to sell your product via your own online store, and ideally, this online store is connected to your website and not a separate domain.
This creates a clear funnel for customers who land on your website, learn more about your product, and purchase – all in one swift customer journey. And for customers who are still contemplating buying your product, it’s also beneficial, since they will know exactly where they need to go if they decide to return to your store later.
By contrast, if all your product info is on your website, but customers have to go to your Shopify store to make a purchase, this could be seen as cumbersome and deter them from completing their purchase.
We previously mentioned WordPress as the go-to Content Management System (CMS) for most people; in this vein, WooCommerce is also the most popular eCommerce platform for businesses. A free plugin built to extend WordPress, WooCommerce is extremely customizable thanks to its integration with hundreds of plugins, and offers a similar ease of use as WordPress does!
WooCommerce’s integration capabilities are an extremely important asset, and we see this for digital content creators who are looking to sell their online courses made with Sensei LMS. WooCommerce and Sensei integrate seamlessly, so once you’ve created your online course, you can link it to a WooCommerce product and sell it through any pricing structure and payment gateway you desire.
WooCommerce’s extensions make you spoilt for choice so that you can set up your course for one-time payments, subscriptions, bundles, early bird discounts, and so on.
Decode pricing and packaging strategies for digital products
When you’re putting together your pricing strategy, ask yourself the following questions:
- What is the perceived value of the product?
- What is the market rate of the product?
- What are the production costs of the product?
- How much is your target audience willing to pay for the product?
There are a few other strategies you can use to maximize sales and average order value, including:
- Bundling products: This involves creating product groups and offering a small discount.
- Discounts for bulk purchases: Give customers money off when they buy a predetermined number of products.
- Tiered pricing: Provide bronze, silver, and gold packages, with fewer/more features for each.
- Membership/subscription model: Customers pay a weekly/monthly/annual fee for access to your products, including updates.
3. Master effective marketing techniques for digital products
Effective marketing techniques for promoting digital products can greatly boost your sales. Here’s a breakdown of some key strategies:
Content marketing
Create high-quality, valuable content that addresses the needs and problems of your target audience. This can include blog posts, ebooks, webinars, or videos that showcase your expertise and offer solutions. For example, if you’re selling cooking courses, create blog posts with recipes and cooking tips to attract food enthusiasts.
Sensei can aid in creating persuasive content that showcases your product on your website, particularly through its interactive video blocks. These can be used in sales pages or landing pages to showcase engaging course previews, testimonials, and demonstrations to entice potential buyers.
Social media marketing
Engage with your audience on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and X/Twitter. Share compelling visuals, user-generated content, and promotions. One way of approaching this would be to run contests on Instagram where participants must share their experience with your digital product and use a specific hashtag.
Email marketing
Build a mailing list and send personalized, relevant content and offers to your subscribers. This could include a series of emails offering a free mini-course and then following up with a discount on the full course.
Affiliate and influencer marketing
Partner with affiliates or influencers to reach a broader audience. They can promote your product to their followers. For example, collaborate with a fitness influencer to promote your fitness app through their YouTube channel.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
Optimize your website and content to rank higher in search engine results, which increases your product’s visibility. We have a guide on how to optimize an LMS website for SEO, which has plenty of information that is just as useful for all kinds of digital products!
Market your digital products effectively with Sensei
As we’ve seen, digital products are a lucrative market, but with stiff competition for online courses, eBooks, apps, online courses, and other digital products, you’ll need to work to ensure your business is successful.
Focus on understanding your target audience, developing a marketing strategy that caters to their interests, and making sure that you’re on the right platforms to promote your products. We’ve seen that an essential platform is having your own website, where you have full control over the way your product is presented and sold.
If you’re planning to sell online courses as your digital products, then check out Sensei, which gives you all the tools you need to create an incredible learning experience on WordPress.
If you’re not looking sell courses, Sensei is still an invaluable tool for digital creators who want to create teaser content, or use interactive blocks to build hype and awareness around your products.
