It’s easier than ever to buy and sell digital products online. Think of the last time you downloaded a book, bought a song, or even took a course online… These are all digital products! There are hundreds of different formats that digital product downloads come in, and many of them can be sold on user-friendly sites such as Etsy!
A lot of people have found success with this side hustle, though it doesn’t come without research, hard work, and dedication! If you create multiple digital products, it gives more opportunity for people to buy these products to help you generate more passive income. Beginner sellers may see little to no sales in their first couple months, but as you create more products and market the products, you could see thousands of dollars a month!
To get started with this side hustle, all you need is a laptop with internet connection. Many digital products can be made from a basic computer or laptop, and even a tablet. This makes it easy for you to work anytime and anywhere you want.
Step one: Do your research. When you decide to start selling digital products, you need to decide what to sell. This means finding out what people want! You want to sell a product that solves some sort of problem because generic digital products are oversaturated in the market. To find current trends, you can look for google trends, a quick etsy search, and even social media. Some popular digital products at the moment are:
- Printable labels
- Business cards
- Self improvement printables
- Ebooks
- Courses
- Wall art
Choosing a digital product blindly can be a downfall of your digital product business. Whatever product or niche you choose, it should be something that will make the lives of your buyers easier and improved!
Step two: Create the product. This step depends on what you decide to make and is the hardest part. If you feel like making wall art is your calling, a great free tool to use is Canva. This site allows you to adjust the size of the product and can be easily uploaded to Etsy for buyers to download.
Step three: Build your Etsy shop. Once you create your products, you need to upload them to start bringing in sales! Through Etsy, you will list your products and upload pictures, write descriptions, and determine the price.
Step four: Take advantage of SEO. When it comes to putting content on the internet, SEO is your best friend. This means Search Engine Optimization, and this will help your content and products be seen. You can do this by adding relevant words and keywords to your listing titles, tags, and descriptions.
Step five: Market your products. Now that you’ve done all the hard work of creating and listing the product, you can begin exposing people to your creations! You can do this by running Etsy ads, which will show your products to some people browsing. To really pick up traction, you can use social media to help promote your shop. Another benefit of social media is that it’s free and great for marketing!
Step six: Perfect your customer service. This is a part of the process that is easily overlooked. You want your customers to feel comfortable to come to you with any questions or concerns! After all, they will be leaving reviews about you and your product, so you want to be sure your product is easy to download and that you are available to be contacted.
Step seven: Continually review your Etsy shop. This means reviewing your site views, analytics, and customer purchases. By doing this you can notice trends and see what products are selling and what isn’t. If you notice certain products aren’t selling at all, you can remove them from your site.
Tips
Run sales on your Etsy shop. You can do this for certain holidays such as Thanksgiving and Black Friday, or you can run occasional just-for-fun sales! You can do each product a certain percentage off specific items, or offer a total percentage off when buying two or more products. Sometimes all it takes for a potential buyer to make the plunge is to feel like they’re saving a little money and getting a good deal!