This blog post is all about how you can start selling digital products as a side hustle.
As you may have noticed, a LOT of people are completely changing their lives by selling digital products on their social media, blogs, and online stores (Etsy, Shopify, etc.). As someone who has been selling digital products for a little over a year now, I know they can serve as an easy passive stream of income on top of your 9-5 OR become a way to generate income that completely surpasses your corporate career.
It's all about the work you put in to building your side hustle or business!
The great thing about selling digital products is there's really no wrong way to get started. However, there are some things you should know before you launch your products in an online space. And if you aren't sure what you should sell, check out this blog post on 8 Digital Products Ideas For Your Business.
This blog post is all about the exact strategies I used to start selling digital products online.
What Are Digital Products?
Digital products are basically products that are delivered in a virtual or downloadable format (i.e. music, canva templates, digital courses, etc.). The benefit of selling digital products is you can sell them as many times and as long as you'd like without worrying about running out of inventory. Because of this, they make incredible streams of passive income.
If you've thought about selling a digital product before, you probably already considered the appeal of setting up an online product that you can walk away from and still make money.
However, a lot of people tend not to start their digital product business because the set up can seem complicated. I thought so too!
After weeks of research, I was able to uncover how you can launch your digital product business in as little as a couple of days.
How I started Selling Digital Products
I stumbled into digital product creation completely by accident in 2020. I was actually interested in creating a digital course business in a whole other niche.
Some of my friends, who were also launching courses were struggling with how to create course slides, graphics, and aesthetic course materials that would enhance their students' journey through their programs.
I had just discovered Canva, and I was hooked. I ended up making graphics, slides, ebooks, workbooks, and more for my friends to launch their courses.
Not too long after I had ditched launching my course in favor of offering my services to brands and entrepreneurs that stuggled with the same issues as my friends did.
I didn't start selling my own digital products, however, until long after launching my blog in 2021.
Why was that?
Because I was afraid it would be complicated to manage in addition to the blog. I was SO wrong.
The digital product business fit seamlessly with everything I was already doing, and now I'm going to tell you how you can do the same, even if you're working a 9-5!
How to Start Selling Digital Products Online
#1. Choose A Niche
The very first thing you're going to want to do before you start making money online with digital products, is decide on what niche you're going to sell in.
This will help you create a product line and target a specific audience that you can market too over and over again.
Here are some popular and lucrative niches you can choose from:
- Wealth
- Fitness
- Relationships
- Finance
- Technology
- Food and Cooking
- Parenting
- Personal Development
- Travel
- Fashion and Beauty
Of course, there are so many more sub-niches that you could explore! It's all about researching and testing out which one works best for you.
#2 Create Products in Canva
As I've said before, I LOVE Canva.
In my opinion, Canva is probably one of the best graphic design tool for beginners that the market has produced thus far.
They offer an extensive selections of templates that you can easily re-design to fit your style/brand, then sell to your audience.
When selecting a template, I always recommend at least changing all pictures and fonts so that your products look as original as possible. Then try to add as much value as you can so that your product speaks to your audience.
It can work against you if your digital product looks exactly like a free canva graphic with minimal to no value. Your customers are not going to want to return to your online store. So be very careful to make sure your product is something you would consider buying as a solution to your problem within the niche you're selling too.
If you're struggling with adding value, no worries!
Personally I find the best duo is Canva + Chat GPT, especially for those times where you're not sure how to fill an entire ebook on your favorite topic.
#2.1 Purchase PLR/MRR Products
Maybe you want to sell digital products, but your absolutely do NOT want to learn Canva.
That's okay, too.
You can still launch an online digital product business with a beautiful and valuable product line, without ever having to create a digital product yourself!
How?
Buy purchasing PLR (private label rights) or MRR (master resell rights) products from others. These are digital products that other people design for YOU to sell.
Some PLR or MRR products will allow you to completely rebrand their designs or sell as is to your audience. Of course, it always depends on the seller, so make sure to look at the licensing agreement of any product you use.
One of my favorite MRR products is Digital Wealth Academy.
This digital course teaches your everything your need to know on how to launch an online digital marketing business with Master Resell Rights to sell their course for 100% profit.
Not many courses will teach you the secrets to social selling like multiple 6-7 figure earners, AND allow you to sell that same course as well.
It also comes with an entire bank of PLR products that you can rebrand and launch for 100% profit!
Introducing
Digital Wealth AcademyTM
Want to learn a skill that will help you access financial freedom? DWA is a digital marketing master course that gate keeps NOTHING when it comes to social selling, digital products, and 6-figure marketing strategies.
#3 Choose Platforms for Selling Digital Products
There are so many different platforms you can use to start selling digital products. For example, if you plan to sell mainly on social media, beacons or stan.store are perfect ways to host your products without the hassle of setting up a complicated website or worrying about optimization.
With these options it shouldn't take you more than a day to get your first product up!
If you're tech savvy, you may consider a more all professional set up like Shopify, a self-hosted blog, or even Etsy.
These options will require a bit more time to set up, and may need you to consider best practices for funnels, SEO, ranking, etc.
Whichever platform you decide on, once your store is up and running selling digital products becomes as simple as focusing on getting your digital products in front of people.
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#4 Promote Your Digital Products
Promoting your digital products can be as easy as posting on your social media accounts with a link in your bio for your audience to purchase from, to as seasoned as launching an online store like shopify.
What's important is that you decide on a strategy and stick to it until you start to see the success you're looking for.
Now you know exactly how I started my digital product business!
So, in conclusion,
Launching a digital product business can actually be pretty simple. With the steps above you'll be on you way to getting your first ebook, template, or preset published and selling in the next couple of days!
Need more digital product ideas? Check out this blog post on 8 Digital Products You Can Start Selling Right Now, for a list of easy-to-make downloadables. Also, if you'd like to access the knowledge of how to take your digital product business to the next level with digital marketing . . .
Purchase Digital Wealth Academy > > > HERE
This blog post has been all about how to start selling digital products online.
Stay Creative,
~J.D. Ashmore
