5 Tips for Selling Digital Products

Digital Products

In 2022, Americans spent $54 billion on digital goods, which is forecast to rise to $74 billion by 2025.

As an entrepreneur, you’re probably smelling an opportunity here. As more people turn to online shopping, the demand for digital products is going to increase.

However, whether you plan on selling e-books, online courses, downloadable music, digital art, software, or any other kind of digital product, don’t expect an easy ride home. Sellers of digital products face a raft of unique challenges, making it difficult to close a sale, especially if you’re a small, unknown business.

This begs the question: what can you do to make selling your online products a breeze? Read on for expert advice.

1. Create a Product That Can Sell

If you’re struggling to sell your digital product despite your best efforts to advertise it, it could be because it just won’t sell. There’s an important lesson here. The first step to being a successful digital product seller is to create a product that can generate sufficient market demand.

Before you bring your product to market, do market research and identify your target audience. What’s their pain point? Is your product designed to ease or solve that pain?

From your market research, you should also be able to establish the level of competition in the market you’re trying to break into. Regardless of the kind of digital product you’ve created, there are probably dozens of similar products in the market. Introducing a new product in an already ultra-competitive market will only make it harder for you to make a sale.

And, be sure to create a quality digital product. You may come up with a product that people want, but if it’s half-baked, the sales will be underwhelming. Negative online reviews will spread quickly, discouraging prospective customers from buying.

Learn business design thinking if you have to, or hire expert digital product experts to help bring your ideas to life.

2. Develop a Sales Strategy

A common mistake first-time digital product sellers make is working with a defined sales strategy. If all you’re doing is selling on your eCommerce website, you might struggle to increase your sales volume.

There are a couple of things to consider when designing a sales strategy.

One; is consumer behavior. Where do they like purchasing digital products, for example? How would they prefer to make payments?

Two; the nature of your product. You can sell a digital product on your own website or on third-party platforms such as eCommerce marketplaces and social media sites.

If your digital product is downloadable music, for instance, you shouldn’t focus on selling it on your own website, unless you’re famous enough to pull traffic to the website. It’s far more profitable to list the product on established sites that sell products like yours. This way, you’ll have access to a ready target market, which gives you a good chance of making more sales.

3. Find the Best Digital Marketing Strategy for Your Product

Digital products and digital marketing are a match made in marketing heaven. This, however, doesn’t mean you utilize all digital marketing methods. Not all will work, and you’ll have wasted your time and money.

To find the best digital marketing strategy for your product, start by understanding your customers. On which digital platforms do they spend most of their time? What kind of digital content do they like consuming?

If you’re selling a fintech tool aimed at Gen Zers, you have no business advertising it on Facebook. Your target consumers don’t spend their time there. They’re on social sites that appeal to the younger generations, primarily TikTok and Instagram.

If your target audience loves consuming visual content as opposed to written content, you need a strategy that makes the most of video content. For instance, you could lean into influencer marketing. Find influencers who’re popular with your target audience and ask them to create content promoting your product.

There are several other digital marketing methods you can deploy, including email marketing, search engine optimization, and pay-per-click advertising. Just ensure the methods you choose are ideal for your product and audience.

4. Generate and Monitor Online Reviews

If you shop on Amazon or any other eCommerce site, you likely read the product’s reviews before making a purchase decision. You’re not the only one who does that. Over 90 percent of consumers read online reviews and most are influenced by what they read.

When you run an online business, you need reviews. If prospective customers can’t find any reviews of your product or business, they won’t get the information they need to determine whether what you’re selling is any good. They might even think it’s a scam.

Although you’ll gradually get online reviews, especially if you’re selling on established platforms like Amazon, encourage your buyers to leave a comment about their experience. Get as many reviews as possible from day one.

Monitor the reviews your product is getting. Negative reviews will discourage sellers while positive reviews will encourage them to buy.

If you’re getting lots of negative reviews, something about your product needs work. Fix it, otherwise, your sales will decline and never recover.

5. Don’t Quit Too Soon

Every online seller dreams of pulling in millions of sales every year, but that’s a feat only a handful of people achieve. Most will only manage a handful of units in the months after launch. In fact, it can take several months or even years for a good product to start flying off the shelves.

Don’t be so quick to call it a day if it’s taking longer than you had hoped to reach your sales goals. Keep working on your marketing strategy, and as long as you’re getting positive reviews about the product, sales will come.

Get Your Digital Products Moving

The digital economy is thriving, and there couldn’t be a better time to start selling digital products than now. Like any other product, though, you must put in the work or it won’t move. You now have a couple of strategies you can use to fuel your sales.

There’s more sales and marketing content on our blog. You just need to stay around and explore!