If you want to get into the digital marketplace, you probably already know how beneficial selling digital is. It’s even more enticing for the beginning entrepreneurs. The price of starting up is close to nothing, and you don’t end up in debt if your business fails.
But how do you start out without having to learn all the lessons the hard way? Follow these tips and you won’t have to get better by failing.
Understand the market
You may think that posting a couple of illustration ads on Fiverr or a self-published book on Amazon is nothing like building an online business. You just have to post good work, and they will come.
Unfortunately, it’s exactly like running your business, it’s just you don’t have a website yet. You have to treat this endeavor as such.
Researching the market is the first thing every entrepreneur should do before they start developing the product. Do you have a good product idea? Do these two things to see if it’s a good choice.
Look up how popular it is and what competition do you have. Go to Google Trends and see how popular are your products.
A quick search shows that hip hop beats are way more popular than drum packs. But this alone doesn’t mean a young beat producer should choose the first option. You should also look at the competition.
Your aim is to choose a niche that has high enough traffic but the amount of competition you can beat.
Create the product
There are well over a hundred digital products you can sell online, but you have to pick one to start with. Your general scope probably will not change, and you won’t find a beat producer selling sticker designs. However, you can choose a niche in your category that would be the best one to start with.
Take hints from the market research you’ve done and choose a product that can stand against the competition. Put all of your efforts into making it and create something you’re proud of.
After all, for a small business that will mainly operate on platforms that contain a lot of competing products, quality is your main distinguishing factor.
Upsell
When you finish the first product, think of the products that can be sold alongside it. For instance, if you’re selling drum kits for beat producers, you may also sell vocal kits, or synthesizer presets. If you’re selling ebooks on DIY furniture, you can also sell an ebook on working in an editor to teach your clients to make their own designs.
You can also cut huge products in half. Instead of a course that covers all of the car repair jobs that costs $100, offer a set of courses that focus on specific cars of types of engines $15 each. Instead of selling a pack of 500 digital download assets, sell five packs with a hundred each
Since many digital products are rather cheap, this is one of the ways you can increase sales. Incentivize the clients to buy more cheap digital products instead of investing in one heavy-priced one, and your sales will go up a notch.
You may put off creating these products for later if you’re only starting out.
Choose the right platforms
If you know a thing about offline marketing, you must know that the three main principles of retail are “location, location, location.” If you set up in a place where nobody goes, you’re doomed to fail.
The same goes for digital marketing as well. You have to find the right website to sell your goods. Here is what you can choose from.
Fiverr is good for most digital goods, but it’s more suited to custom freelance services than buying ready-made goods. Amazon Direct Publishing is an obvious choice when it comes to ebooks.
Sellfy is a good storefront builder for digital downloads, and Shutterstock would be a go-to marketplace for selling photos and designs.
Do your research and look up the platform that would work best for you.
Marketing
The last bit of work you have to do is to tell the world about your amazing products. You may go for the sponsored ads on the platform you’re using, but you can also be more subtle than that.
The one best thing you can do for your digital goods business is content marketing. Blog about your niche on popular platforms or social media and your readers will soon become your clients. If you’re a creative, keep in mind that content marketing is not just blog posts. Your art on Behance and music on Soundcloud is content too.
While you’re busy promoting your products to new customers, don’t forget about asking your existing customers for referrals. Referral programs for SMEs are the cheapest way to acquire clients, and it’s a very convenient method because it comes with a friendly recommendation.
Wrap Up
So, these are 5 tips that would lead you from zero to potentially thousands of dollars a month. Do your research, choose the right platforms, create great products that can be sold in batches, and market yourself.
Here’s a bonus tip for those who’ve read till the end: iterate on failures. Don’t let failures put you down, instead, learn from them and become better.