With the rise (and romanticisation) of passive income and living the laptop life in Bali, launching a digital product can feel like the easy way to a heavy bank balance and a good work / life balance.

Well, that’s not true.

This blog is your heavy duty guide to knowing which digital products to sell, where to sell your digital product, AND how to sell them.

Obviously no-one can guarantee a digital product will be successful once it hits the market. But there are certain strategies you can implement to increase its chances of being profitable.

Here’s how to set up your digital product for success from the beginning.

What is a digital product?

Your key to conquering passive income. Just kidding.

A digital product is sold online and delivered digitally (across the Internet).

I sell two digital products - the Brand Voice Buddy which I launched in March 2021 - and the Brand Voice Toolbox - which I launched in December 2021.

What digital products can I sell?

Honestly, the list is never-ending. Here are some ideas to get your juices flowing!

Masterclass
PDF
Trainings
Digital planner
Challenge
Summit
Templates
Membership
Subscription
Course
eBooks
Newsletter

And more!

Digital product vs physical product

Why I prefer selling digital products to physical products.

Your income level is limitless

Digital products don’t have a limited inventory like ecommerce shops. So you can sell as many as you like. This means your revenue has no cap and your audience can buy them while you’re doing your life. Truuust me, there’s nothing more exciting than waking up to payment notifications from Stripe.

Easier to build credibility online

Selling a digital product on your expert topic gives you an extra level of credibility, especially if you can create authority around your topic (which will help you sell your digital product. Meta).

While selling physical products requires a different marketing strategy.

Lower overheads

Physical products require storing and often hiring a shop. Selling digital products require you own a website and a way to deliver the product (usually via email) so the expenses required are much less.

How I created my digital product

It was never my intention to have a digital product or course. I felt my business needed to follow the standard path of selling one:many courses alongside my done-for-you copywriting services because that’s what everyone else did.

But this didn’t light my soul on fire.

Then I realised something…

Freebies are often downloaded by email subscribers and often sat in the downloads graveyard on their MacBook.

So I decided to create a paid offer for a training on writing sales copy with personality I was running for Content Bistro.

Then I hit a snag.

Imposter syndrome.

Who was I to create a product?

Why would they want to buy it?

So my idea sat on my handwritten to-do list for weeks. Until 48 hours before my training. I figured I should test it and see what happened.

For an entire two days, I ignored my emails, texts from my mother, and was glued to my laptop.

I worked the first day until 1am, fuelled by Malbec.

The Brand Voice Buddy was finished by 6pm the next day.

In that time, I completed the following:

filmed the trainings
created the worksheets
wrote the sales page copy
designed and created the sales page
connected the tech
wrote onboarding emails

EVERYTHING.

I had the mindset of ‘Just get it done, I can improve it later’. Done is better than perfect. I kept my tech stack deliberately small - I bought ThriveCart because I’d heard the checkout pages convert really well. That was it. I delivered the final goods through a Google Drive folder.

Where to sell digital products

Noone bought my product during my guest training. But I was thrilled at finishing my actual product and posted my win in my mastermind Slack channel and, to my surprise, someone bought. (Best feeling ever- thanks Sara!).

Then the same day, I posted my win in a Facebook group for copywriters.

Another two people bought. And then something unexpected happened.

These people LOVED it and referred it to other people.

In the first month, 25 people bought the Brand Voice Buddy which was then priced at $47. The feedback I was getting was unreal.

So I doubled the price to $97. The sales page conversion rate increased from 8.5% to 13%.

(The industry average is 1-3%).

During the next month, another 24 people bought it.

Here’s how and where I promoted the Buddy:

At the end of a welcome sequence to a related lead magnet
Posted occasionally on Instagram and had a direct link to the sales page in my IG bio
I spoke about it on podcasts

That’s it.

I highly recommend you do the same - sell it at the end of your welcome sequence, link it in any podcasts or guest trainings or in related blog posts.

If you have a product that’s a winner, then sales is a numbers game and it’s your responsibility to drive people to the sales page.

Despite my lack of promotion, there’s several reasons why the Brand Voice Buddy was (and continues to be) successful.

HOW TO CREATE A SUCCESSFUL DIGITAL PRODUCT

Build authority around your topic

Almost 8 weeks after launching my digital product, I hosted a Tutorial Tuesdays for Copyhackers on brand voice. 150 copywriters and business owners tuned in live, and to date my YouTube video has received almost 500 views. This cemented my authority as being an expert on brand voice.

I also worked with several high-profile marketers who’d given me testimonials about my talent for voice.

👉 Where do your audience hang out? What publications do they read? How can you get in front of your audience and give them value?

Know your audience

My target audience for the Brand Voice Buddy is copywriters and business owners.

Now I’m a launch copywriter so this ish is what I liiiiive for so I already knew how to research messaging ideas for my product. Here’s what I did: I scoured Facebook groups filled with copywriters, Reddit, and across the web to see what problems and questions copywriters had about brand voice. I saved any questions and interesting bits of information I found into a spreadsheet which I then used while writing the copy.

Then I created trainings and worksheets inside my product that directly answered their question.

The secret behind why my copy converts so highly is because 1) the product answers a need and 2) I use my audience’s exact language.

👉 Research your audience and keep a spreadsheet of their problems, beliefs, wants, objections.

Optimize the offer

Optimizing your offer involves several things.

Making sure every component of your offer (module, training, bonuses) solves a problem for your audience
Removing objections with guarantees and payment tiers (and other things)
Crafting a promise for your offer

Nothing in the Buddy, none of the worksheets or trainings, was accidental. Everything was designed to answer a question or concern my audience had. For example, a question that was repeated was “what should go into a brand voice guide?”

They couldn’t find a reliable source that gave them a complete breakdown of what to include, despite Googling.

This told me two things.

1 There was a real need for this information.

2 I could give them what they needed

So I included a brand voice guide so students could see a real-life example would be presented for a client, and a training on how to design the guide. This answered another concern my audience had about selling voice guides.

I also included a framework that could be easily copied and pasted into a Google Doc so they could literally start their own within seconds.

👉 What questions do your audience ask? How can you solve that with a template, training, worksheet?

Another way I optimized the offer was through the product promise.

Most of the people searching about brand voice and brand voice guides needed instant help. They were already working on a client project. A course that was 6 weeks long or dripped out content wouldn’t solve their immediate problem.

They needed that instant boost of confidence now and the information yesterday.

So at the top of the page I wrote: “The only way to learn brand voice in less than 2 hours” to highlight how fast they could solve their problem.

I created the product promise of “The fastest way to learn brand voice so you can nail every copy project, offer brand voice guides as a service and get Lizzo-level confidence with every project”.

👉 What do your audience want? How can you craft a promise that highlights this? (And actually do this with the offer)

When you work with a copywriter, make sure that optimizing your offer is part of their process (and be open to this!). To maximize sales, they should be using their research (competitor audit, interviews, and message mining) to improve your offer.

Ditch the perfectionism

The time constraints of needing the Buddy to be ready before my training meant I didn’t have time to be a perfectionist.

I didn’t have time to worry if it was good enough, I just did it.

Instead I got my masterminders to check it over as a second pair of eyes when I was tired. I work well under pressure so this method was great for me

I highly recommend getting a second pair of eyes over your copy.

Another way I ditched the perfectionism was with my tech. I didn’t want to fork out for Podia or Kajabi (or have the time to research which option was the best), so I charged $47 and delivered my content in a Google Drive folder.

Not kidding. When I sucked up and bought Podia, I doubled the cost of the product.

👉 How can you just get your product finished this week? What needs to happen for this to happen?

Validate the offer

You can do a bells-and-whistle launch for a brand new product. Do I recommend it? No.

My favourite approach is either get paid to create your product (pre-sell it) or sell it at a lower rate and get feedback from the first 10 or so people to purchase.

This shows you exactly how to improve your product AND hopefully gives you testimonials you can use on the sales page as further proof of the product.

Once the Buddy was validated, I doubled the price and then eventually took the price to $297.

👉 How can you get some initial feedback for your offer?

Pay attention to your metrics

One reason I recommend live launching is because it gives excellent insight into what your audience likes and doesn’t like.

You get real-time feedback in the form of open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates. (Of course, this also highlights how engaged your list is).

My live launch received extremely high metrics.

Once I saw the product converting and the value it was providing, I doubled the price from $47 to $97. Sales page conversions went up from 8.5% to 13%.

Now that a mixture of a cold and warm audience are finding the sales page, the conversions have dropped to (a still very excellent) 7%.

By keeping an eye on my metrics, I can see where people are dropping off in the funnel and if they actually resonate with my messaging.

Selling a digital product doesn’t necessarily mean passive income. That’s because every funnel in your business needs watching and tweaking.

Use a spreadsheet to document your metrics each month so you can keep a track of trends and see where can be easily optimized within your funnel. Thankfully I LOVE doing this so analyzing the numbers is always fun for me.

👉 Book an hour every month to go over your funnel stats

Don’t be afraid to test

Doubling the price was a test. Did it work? Yes.

Will every test I make work? Of course not.

But the key rule of marketing (as my coach Amy Posner loves to say) is test, test, test.

👉 What could you test with your product? The price? The headline? A new upsell?

Now to answer some questions I frequently get asked….

How do you promote a product on evergreen?

Send consistent traffic to the product. Mention your digital product anywhere you have valuable and relevant content. Note: The use of ‘and’ was intentional.

You don’t need paid traffic for an evergreen model but you need enough organic traffic moving through your funnel to hit your goals.

I sell the Brand Voice Buddy on evergreen with a live launch once or twice a year. The September launch included a time-sensitive bonus which worked really well. Other than that, I sell it in my welcome sequence for any related lead magnets and link to it on my Instagram profile.

When do you know it’s the right time to create a product?

You’re probably never going to feel like it’s the right time. Cheers, imposter syndrome!

So I have these two benchmarks. You’re ready to create a product:

When you don’t want to trade your time for hours any longer
When you have knowledge that your peers keep asking you about

If you can tick both of these off, you’re ready.

How long do you spend tweaking your funnel?

I love funnels and launches, so this doesn’t feel like work to me. I track my metrics every month.

It’s hard to track the amount of time I spend on the funnel but I’d estimate 1-2 hours a month.

Here’s what I do regularly:

Check my metrics
Update my metric spreadsheets
Go through the feedback form and create testimonials

Before my live launch, I did update the recorded trainings.

But I’ve automated everything as much as I can so surveys are sent out in an email sequence, the Buddy is sold in a welcome sequence, and all tech is connected automatically (sometimes using Zapier if needed).

I want to release a digital product. Should I use an evergreen funnel or live launch?

This really depends on your own energy. There isn’t really a right or wrong way to approach it.

Having a live launch requires a huge amount of energy in a short amount of time.

I love live launching buuuut I’m a launch copywriter so I have the strategy and copy frameworks to make this super simple for me.

If you go with the evergreen model, it requires sending consistent traffic through the funnel.

If you prefer evergreen, there’s no reason it won’t work. The Buddy was evergreen for its first 6 months and it sold.

What platform do I sell my digital product on?

My sales page is on my website (Squarespace).

My checkout page is ThriveCart. (Highly recommend - the checkout pages look professional and convert highly).

I used Podia to deliver the content.

You really don’t need any special software to sell a product or an ecommerce website. Keep it simple at first (and your overheads down), and sell on your website. It’s definitely worth paying for a cart (like Thrivecart) as their checkout pages look professional, convert well, and it’s easy to add order bumps or upsell.

How do you measure efficacy?

Use Google Analytics to see how well your campaigns are performing. It is free!

You can create UTM codes (different URLs for each campaign) so you can easily track which campaigns are creating the best results. Then you simply pour gasoline on the campaigns that are working, tweak the ones that aren’t performing as well, and ditch any bottlenecks.

What’s the best way to reach new audiences if you have a small list?

Guest trainings. Podcasts. Guest blog posts.

Borrow other people’s and highlight your expertise.

How do I research if there are similar products?

Ask your audience what else they’ve bought or seen to solve the problem you want to solve.

Your audience will literally tell you! You can also do some Googling with keywords for your product or problem to see if anything else pops up.

Phew. That was a monster blog post.

This is my go-to guide for giving your digital product launch the most successful runway.

If you want to document your funnel stats and spot where the bottlenecks are, grab my Launch Fuel Formula.

Your complete guide to digital products you can sell (and how to sell them)

What is a digital product?