Imagine if you could make a product once and sell it for the rest of time? Wouldn’t that make it easier to grow an online business? That’s the beauty of selling digital products. You create – or buy – them once and sell them repeatedly. Digital products are the key to earning passive income online. It’s how freelancers, bloggers, and online creatives earn six-figure incomes online.
Anyone can start selling digital products to earn a passive income online. All you need to do is create or invest in digital products and sell them on your own website or a third-party platform. You can do it all without ever leaving your couch. Digital products sell because we use them daily – from reading eBooks to listening to audiobooks, taking online classes, and buying artwork.
We’re breaking down everything you know to make your first $10,000 selling digital products, from choosing the right products to building your website and promoting your digital products through social media ads.
What are Digital Products?
Digital Products are intangible goods that only exist in a digital format. However, these might be able to be printed and turned into a tangible good. For example, an eBook could be printed by the customer.
The most common types of digital products include video games, eBooks, digital art, online courses, software, and music. These intangible goods are sent to the customer by email, or they are downloaded directly from the website. One of the benefits of selling digital products is that you don’t have to maintain physical inventory.
Digital vs. Physical Products
If you want to build a side hustle, passive income will always win against selling a tangible product. It’s an easier business model to navigate and doesn’t involve the up-front investment of buying inventory or maintaining stock. Once you purchase or make a digital product, you can sell it an infinite number of times.
Digital products are sent to the customer automatically and will never run out of stock. Unlike physical products, you won’t have to deal with stock management or shipping your products. All your systems will run automatically, meaning you make money in your sleep.
These digital products are more affordable to create or invest in. You can use free tools like Canva to start selling digital products or invest in budget-friendly PLR products to start selling instantly. You’ll earn a higher return on investment (ROI) with digital products vs. physical products as you’re not paying for manufacturing costs or inventory.
Earning Passive Income Through Digital Products
What makes selling digital products appealing is the ability to earn passive income. You don’t have to worry about logistics, shipping costs, or maintaining inventory. All you need to do is create digital products, list them online, and start advertising.
Your online business can focus solely on selling digital products, or you can use them to scale your business to invest in physical products in the future. Downloadable products, such as infographics, eBooks, and templates, can help you grow a customer base and establish your online business.
The benefits of selling digital products include:
- High profit margins: You’ll get the highest profit margins with digital products vs. physical products as there are no inventory maintenance or shipping costs. Your main spending will be on digital ads and creating future products.
- Flexibility: You can easily adapt and change your online stock by adding new digital products or updating existing ones.
- Efficiency: Selling digital products is relatively streamlined. You don’t have to worry about finding inventory storage or running operations. Most online entrepreneurs manage their digital product sales solely from their personal devices.
- Scalability: Digital products are highly scalable by investing in online advertising and building your social media presence.
The Best Digital Products to Sell in 2024
The first step to selling digital products online is to choose what you want to sell. It’s easiest to start with one specific product type. You can expand your online store in the future and scale with other digital products.
Here are five of the best digital products to create in 2024:
- Educational products and online courses
Do you ever watch a YouTube video and get an ad for SkillShare? That’s an online course platform and one of the most popular digital products you can sell in 2024. If you have a skill or passion, you can create an online course to teach people what you know.
It’s worth noting that selling digital products such as online courses and educational products will require more work than other products, such as templates. You’ll have to position yourself as a reliable expert and build your own online profile.
Selling online courses can be a gateway to building a highly profitable business or scaling your digital media company. You’ll likely want to start by offering a free lead magnet to grow your email list and build credibility before you launch your digital products.
- Music and digital art
Creatives are always looking for digital products to take their productions to the next level. If you’re a digital artist or a musician, you can start selling digital products by creating music for videographers, influencers, and production companies.
Graphic designers and digital artists can build entire online stores with their art, selling everything from stickers to t-shirts and wall art. You can sell these products strictly as digital assets, with the customer printing them at home, or you can sell some as tangible products. Starting by selling digital assets can help you earn money to invest in physical products to scale your business. You can sell these products on your own website or a third-party platform, such as Etsy or Redbubble.
- Creative licenses for digital products
If you’re a creative, you can sell licenses for digital assets you create. These digital products include everything from video footage to website themes and stock photos. You can sell them independently through your website or on third-party platforms, such as Canva, WordPress, or Unsplash.
Most third-party platforms will take a commission from your sales and may not be an effective way of driving traffic to your website. However, these third-party platforms will give you exposure and are a great way to start selling digital products.
- Templates and design tools
Creatives, influencers, and marketers purchase digital products and design tools to streamline workflow. You can create digital templates and tools to sell to online entrepreneurs or small business owners.
- Graphic design templates
- Social media graphics
- Presets for editing apps, such as Photoshop
- Digital planners and printable organizing tools
- Digital icons, fonts, and customizable logos.
- Online memberships
When you start selling digital products, you can bundle them together and offer them as part of a membership. Online memberships are ideal for entrepreneurs selling online courses, offering coaching, or selling digital tools.
A membership with a monthly or yearly subscription can help you build your community and test digital products with beta users before selling them to non-members. You can also offer your members deals and discounts on digital products not included in their membership.
How to Create Digital Products
Now it’s time to start creating your digital products to sell online. Before you can open Canva or start shopping for PLR products, you need to take a step back. The best digital products are sold by online companies that establish themselves as a brand with a target audience.
Defining a brand story and determining your target customer will make it easier to create social media ads and drive organic traffic to your products. We’re sharing our five-step process for creating digital products to earn passive income online.
- Brainstorm Digital Product Ideas
Start by brainstorming ideas for potential digital products. What products would you be interested in creating? What skills and knowledge can you use to create digital products? Use our list above to choose your digital products.
Once you decide on a product type, such as eBooks or digital art, you can start doing your market research.
Here are a few things to consider when brainstorming your digital products:
- What pain points can you help your customer with? i.e. creating digital fonts to help marketers or selling a digital agenda designed specifically for college students.
- What is the purpose of your product? Is it educational or something to entertain your customers?
- Are you creating a product for personal or commercial use?
- Don’t Skip Your Market Research
Don’t forget to do market research when selling digital products. Market research is crucial to helping you create the right product and get it in front of your target demographic. Your research will help validate your idea before creating or investing in digital products.
You want to research similar products, find out what people are searching for, and scope out online communities. Regardless of what niche you’re targeting, your digital product should offer value to your customers.
Here’s what to look for during your market research:
- Facebook groups: Is there a community of people out there for your product? Join relevant Facebook groups to see what your future customers are talking about. You might be able to identify pain points and create a digital product that solves them.
- Keyword research: Use online tools like Semrush to do keyword research to find out how people are searching for your chosen products. It can help identify trends and give you ideas for marketing your product.
- Google trends: Your digital products need to have an audience. Search Google trends to see if there’s sustainable interest in your product or if potential customers have already moved on to another product.
- Product reviews: Read reviews for similar products to see what customers like and things they’d like to see improved to help inform your product development.
- Identify Your Target Audience
Every product needs an audience, especially when selling digital products. When doing your market research, you should start getting an idea of who your customer is. Having a target audience and buyer persona will make it easier to create engaging products and develop your marketing strategy.
Your target audience is a wide group of customers who share common characteristics or fall into a demographic. For example, you might target your digital products at salon owners or sell stickers designed for parents. Having a target audience will help you determine what digital products to sell.
A buyer persona is a detailed description of who your target customer is. It’ll help you determine pricing, product launches, and where to market your digital products.
- Use Free Tools like Canva to Create Products
You don’t need to invest in expensive software to start selling digital products. Canva is a free online graphic design tool with thousands of templates for creating digital products. The platform allows you to design almost any digital product, from eBooks to social media graphics.
You can create digital products using drag-and-drop design tools or customizable pre-made templates. Canva is easier to navigate, and you can purchase an affordable monthly subscription to access additional features and tools, including images, fonts, and templates.
You can use Canva to create digital products such as:
- eBooks
- Brand and media kits
- Social media graphics
- Content calendars
- Worksheets and checklists
- Digital and printable planners
- Content for online courses
You’ll own any designs you make in Canva using the drag-and-drop design. When you use your own template, you can use any of the design elements available on Canva. You can sell Canva templates, such as social media graphics, with a link allowing customers to download them directly through the platform. Your customer will need a Canva account to access these templates.
However, you can use Canva to create digital products that you’ll export and sell on other platforms as downloadable assets. Your customer won’t need a Canva account as the digital asset is not a template and can’t be edited.
Canva is easy to navigate with no design skills required. You can easily incorporate your branding into the product and use a template to help give your digital product a professional look.
- Invest in PLR Products to Sell Instantly
Don’t have the time to make digital products? We’ve got you covered! Private label rights (PLR) products are high-quality digital items produced by third parties that you can buy online. Popular PLR products include eBooks, article packs, website templates, graphics, and online course videos. You purchase the intellectual property rights for these assets, allowing you to sell them as your own.
When you purchase PLR products, you instantly gain lifetime rights to reselling them with your license applying from the moment you purchase them. You can start reselling your PLR product right away or use platforms like Canva to add your own brand assets before uploading them onto your chosen marketplace.
You can start buying PLR products from as low as $10, making back your initial investment with your first sale. Check out our in-depth guide with 25 of the best PLR products to resell in 2024 to kickstart your online business.
Building a Website with Sellfy for Digital Products
Once you’ve made or invested in your digital product, it’s time to find somewhere to sell them. When you start selling digital products, there are three platforms you can choose from: selling on social media, digital marketplaces, or your own online store.
Marketplaces like Etsy are great for getting your first sales, but they’ll charge a high commission and it’s difficult to build an authentic brand on a third-party platform. Alternatively, you can sell through social media and send your customers invoices through PayPal or using the shopping feature on a social media platform.
The best way to scale your online business is by launching your own website. It’ll allow you to integrate direct links into your social media ads and manage everything without a third-party platform taking a commission.
We recommend Sellfy for selling digital products as it’s easy to navigate and designed to simplify online sales.
What is Sellfy?
Sellfy is a platform that’s designed for selling digital products without any of the technical headaches of a traditional e-commerce website. You’ll get everything you need to build your website on one platform with zero transaction fees.
Sellfy allows you to create an online store or sell your digital products by embedding the Sellfy cart onto your chosen platform, such as WordPress, Facebook, and YouTube.
You can sell any type of digital file using Sellfy, including:
- eBooks and PDFs
- Digital art
- Videos and films
- Online memberships
- Video and photo effects
- Music and audiobooks
- Digital photography
It takes only five minutes to set up a Sellfy website. You can use your own domain and incorporate your branding. There are no product limits and everything is included. Just set up and start selling.
If you want to sell on social media, you can embed a “buy now” button with the customer using the Sellfy checkout process to purchase their digital product without leaving the social media platform.
Using Sellfy for Selling Digital Products
Sellfy comes with all the features you need to start selling digital products. It has an easy-to-navigate user interface with ‘pay what you want’ pricing enabled, giving you the option to allow customers to choose what they want to pay. This option is ideal for lead magnets as part of your sales funnel.
Other built-in marketing tools on Sellfy include discount and coupon codes. You can use these to incentivize customers to buy more with countdown timers. Additionally, you can use upselling to offer additional discounted products to increase the order value before your customer checks out.
Sellfy also supports built-in email marketing, allowing you to promote new products and distribute lead magnets directly to customers. It’s an ideal way to grow your email list to optimize your distribution.
Start a free 14-day trial of Sellfy to start building your website and selling digital products today.
How to Start Selling Digital Products
Once you’ve got your products and your website, it’s time to start selling digital products. The path to your first $10,000 is easier than you think. You only need to sell around $330 worth of products to make $10,000 a month. If you’re selling high-value products like eBooks or affordable digital products like stickers, you can start hitting these numbers within a few months.
You’ll need to start driving traffic and building your online presence to hit your first $10,000. We’re sharing four ways you can help drive organic traffic to your website before you start paying for social media ads.
- Search engine optimization (SEO): Remember the keyword research you did during your market research? This is when you want to start using them. Optimize your website content by incorporating these keywords and ensuring your website is easy to navigate. Start creating website pages and blog posts focused on these keywords to start ranking on Google and other search engines.
- Offer a lead magnet: You’ll often have to offer something for free to incentivize people to sign up to your email list or redirect them to your website. Create a lead magnet that is similar to your digital products but isn’t as extensive as what you’re offering for sale. For example, you might offer the first chapter of your eBook for free as a lead magnet. These free products will help establish trust with your customers and show that you offer high-quality products.
- Start working with influencers: Influencer marketing is crucial in today’s digital world. Most people take influencer reviews as seriously as they would take a recommendation from a friend. While paid influencer marketing can be expensive, reach out to a few smaller influencers and offer them a free download of your product. Choose micro-influencers within an engaged community to start working with. You can offer a custom discount code for the influencer to give to their followers to incentivize sales.
- Affiliate programs: If you’re thinking of working with influencers, you’ll want to start utilizing affiliate programs. It provides an incentive for influencers to promote your product without the upfront investment of paying for placement in a video or social media platform. Influencers will be paid a commission for each sale they make for your business. You can use our in-depth guide to CPA affiliate marketing to get started with selling digital products with the help of influencers.
Promoting Digital Products with Online Ads
Once you’ve got your product, built your website, and started selling digital products, it’s time to start investing in online ads. Paid ads are the main expense you’ll have when selling digital products, but paid traffic can help scale your business quickly.
With digital products, you don’t have to worry about sustainable growth as your product is instantly downloadable and doesn’t require you to order stock or invest in inventory.
Online platforms like Facebook, Google, and Pinterest allow you to create ads specifically for their platforms and set a daily budget. You’ll want to invest your early profits into online ads to drive paid traffic and grow your customer base.
We’re breaking down everything you need to know about promoting digital tools with Facebook, Google, and Pinterest ads.
- Facebook Ads
Facebook is the most popular social media platform for paid ads with over 3 billion monthly active users. As the world’s largest social media platform, you’re guaranteed to find your audience there. What makes Facebook powerful for online ads is its user data. You can target your exact audience using specific demographics, including location settings and lifestyle-based targeting options, such as interests and education.
Facebook is owned by Meta, which also owns Instagram. These two platforms are now heavily integrated, meaning you can run paid ads simultaneously on both Instagram and Facebook to maximize your reach.
You’ll use the Facebook Ads Manager tool to run your Facebook ads. All you need is a verified payment method and either a Facebook page or to be the admin of a Facebook page. We recommend setting up a Facebook page for your online business when you first set up your website.
Facebook ads allow you to choose from six campaign objectives, depending on what part of the sales funnel you’re targeting. The six campaign goals include:
- Awareness: Target your ads at engaged users to introduce them to your brand and build awareness. These ads help to build initial engagement with potential customers.
- Traffic: Create ads that will send users directly to your website or a specific product. You can include download links, including for lead magnets.
- Engagement: Prompt users to engage with your business, either by sending an inbox message or commenting on your post. This type of Facebook ad is ideal for video posts.
- Leads: Gather information on potential customers by prompting them to sign up to your email list or create an online profile.
- App promotion: Drive users to your app or prompt existing users to continue using it.
- Sales: Advertise products directly to the customers most likely to purchase them to maximize your conversions with in-app sales.
Research suggests the average cost per click (CPC) for Facebook ads is $0.83 across all industries. This statistic makes Facebook more affordable than Google ads, which have an average CPC of $4.22. You can use Facebook’s A/B split testing to compare different ads and maximize your performance.
- Google Ads
Google Ads uses a bid-based system that allows you to place ads throughout Google’s platforms, including its search engines and YouTube. You can use text format ads for the search engine or banner ads for websites.
It’s the most versatile option for online businesses with Google Ads appearing across millions of websites. You can use Google ads to promote your business on websites where your audience is already active.
Google is the largest digital ad publisher in the United States, making up almost 30% of all ad revenue. There are three bidding options you can choose for your Google ads:
- Cost-per-click (CPC): you’ll pay when a user clicks on your ad.
- Cost-per-mile (CPM): you’ll pay for each 1,000 ad impressions.
- Cost-per-engagement (CPE): you’ll pay when a user performs a specific action, such as watching a video or joining your email list.
There are seven main Google Ads you can use for selling online products:
- App ads
- Discovery ads
- Display ads
- Responsive search ads
- Performance Max ads
- Shopping ads
- Smart campaigns
You’ll need to open a Google Ads account for your online business. All you need is to enter your website URL and link any existing Google accounts you have, such as a company YouTube channel. Once you’ve provided your billing and payment information, you can start running Google ads for your digital products.
- Pinterest Ads
Pinterest is one of the most overlooked platforms for selling digital products. It’s the platform that will help you earn your first $10,000 in digital sales.
Pinterest users spend twice as much compared to users on other platforms. What makes Pinterest even more attractive to marketers is that it has one of the lowest CPCs for paid ads. Pinterest ads give marketers up to 2x more return on their ad spend with lower cost per conversion rates compared to other social media platforms.
It’s rapidly expanding with almost 450 million active monthly users. You’ll need to create photos or video pins to promote your digital products on Pinterest. There are thousands of templates you can use on Canva to create high-performing posts.
Your paid Pinterest ads will appear alongside organic content on a user’s feed for a more authentic interaction. Pinterest showcases relevant ads based on a user’s historical activity, meaning Pinterest will focus on users already engaged in your niche.
Building Your Email List for Digital Products
The path to your first $10,000 in sales is the perfect time to start building your email list. We’ve included several tips above on building your email list and you can use Sellfy to gather sign-up information. Email marketing allows you to build an engaged community to promote discounts and new product releases.
A lead magnet is the best way to grow your email list at the start of your business. You want to create this when you first start selling digital products online.
The Road to Your First $10,000 in Digital Sales
Now you’re ready to start earning passive income by selling digital products. Get started today by signing up for a 14-day free trial of Sellfy to build your website in just five minutes to selling digital products today.
