Today, we’re diving into the world of digital products. Maybe you’re ready to jump on the bandwagon and start selling, but you aren’t sure how to actually make the thing. Here’s your step-by-step guide on how to create digital products.
How to Create Digital Products
Your first assumption is probably that you need to create digital products from scratch all by yourself. And that simply isn’t true. You can beg, borrow and buy from others.
Get the Digital Product Blueprint
1 | BEG
Alright, alright…I don’t really mean beg. I just couldn’t think of a “b” word that implied you could hire someone to do the work for you. As in you can ask, request, order and then pay that person to create a digital product for you.
Don't ask me about legalities; I’m not a lawyer! But you’ll want to get some sort of release from them in writing that allows you to both sell their work as your own and releases the designer from any future claim on it.
I do this myself! I’m hopeless when it comes to the drawing department, but I still sell illustrations. I can’t draw even a stick man to save my life. I’m just the worst at freehand sketching; even Adobe Illustrator’s built-in tracing tools can’t help me. Hiring someone else can help you sell those digital products that you want, even if you can’t create every single element.
Moral of the story: Do NOT let a severe or even crippling lack of talent or your inability to learn a new skill stop you from going after your Digital Product Empire dreams. Just figure a way around it. I did – and you can, too!
2 | BORROW
You can also borrow from others – AKA Affiliate Marketing
When I said you can borrow digital products, I was mainly referring to becoming an Affiliate of someone else’s digital product. Being an affiliate means that you do the marketing for their product and in return, when a sale is made, they provide you with a commission that is a certain percentage of that sale.
There are also other instances in which people will straight up give you their content to use as a bonus in your course or as part of a Digital Download Bundle.
Why would anyone do this?
Why not?! If someone else’s audience is comparable to or bigger than mine, it could be a great lead magnet for my products. Their audience would’ve never known about my stuff if this fabulous bonus wasn’t part of their curriculum. And yes, many of them are what we consider “competitors.”
Don’t worry – there are plenty of customers to go around for ALL of us!
Have an abundance mindset, not a scarcity mindset.
3 | BUY
Did I say buy? Yep, that’s right. You can just straight up buy things called white label or private label products. What this means is that someone has created a digital product and has made it available for you to sell. You simply buy it from them and then you can resell it like it’s your own. There are plenty of pre-made digital products out there waiting for you to buy and reuse them.
Why would anyone do this?
Why not?! I do it for both of my businesses.
For Pretty Fabulous, I love creating and designing planner templates that other creative entrepreneurs can edit and sell as their own, or simply sell as is. There are many people like me who want to help you!
For my Author Brand, I love creating plots, detailed book outlines and fully written manuscripts that someone else can buy and sell as their own. I’m not a ghostwriter. That would be someone who fits more into category #1, Beg, where you hire them to write the story for you. This is another form of premade products that I sell. If I wrote a story but I’m not really feeling it or if I am just too lazy to edit and revise it because I’ve lost interest, I sell it to another author.
There are TONS of people creating products just like this that you can go out buy and resell.
BUT, Lisa – What tools do I need if I do want to create something from scratch?
That depends.
Ha – did I sound like a lawyer right there or what?!
You need the right tool for the right job. You wouldn’t bring a hammer to a quilting class, would you? Or a sewing kit to a body shop?
There are literally thousands of digital products out there. You need to research the individual digital product market you’re entering (Hello, music clips, workbooks, digital planners, courses, memberships, stock photography library, etc) and then purchase the tools that will serve that market.
Not sure what to create? There’s another blog post on Jess’s website that tells you exactly what to create.
