3 Easy Steps to Start a Digital Product Business

Starting a digital product business might seem easy. You might already have a blog and website created, you're on fire when it comes to Instagram Reels… but do any of those things really help you create and start a digital product business that makes money?

Prefer to watch the video? Simply click below! ?

If you want to kickstart things off the right way, then it's not about blogging every week or sharing your amazing lead magnet online (although these are great long-term strategies), it's about figuring out, quickly, how to make money from your digital product business.

In this post, I'm going to share with you three easy steps you can take over the next 30 days to create real, tangible money in your digital product business.

So let's dive in!

Start a Digital Product Business!

#1: You don't need to niche down!

It's not about choosing a niche or narrowing in on some tiny niche topic.

Now I know there are plenty of people that say you have to niche down when it comes to starting and growing your digital product business, but here's my take on why you don't need to niche down.

For the most part, a lot of us are multi-passionate, we are interested in lots of different things. We have multiple skill sets, so why would we niche down? Exactly how does that create an easy, fun, and profitable digital product business?

It doesn't.

However, what you do need to do is to make sure you're certain and specific about who you're serving.

What does that look like?

Well, whatever you're creating, you need to know who you're actually helping with your digital product.

And while this is a little bit of niching, it's more about being clear and certain about the ideal customer for this product. But you don't have to go, “okay well I'm only ever going to offer this product to this person, and that's it.”

It's more about, “I have this amazing idea for an offer. These are the people who I know I can help achieve a specific result.” This brings us nicely into the next step…

#2: Provide a clear tangible result

You need to be clear on the result that your digital product is providing. So whether it's a digital PDF, a digital course, a printable, whatever it is, there has to be a tangible result for your customer, the ideal person that you have written down in step one above.

So what are we talking about here exactly? It's about being clear on how… how are you going to help them, and how will you come up with a tangible result that resonates with that person?

And it might seem hard. You might be thinking, “But I have zero ideas about how I can get the tangible result.”

Think about it this way… it needs to be something that people can feel and experience in a meaningful way to them.

To develop that tangible result, I like to start with what I like to call Island A, Island B, and The Journey.

It's a framework to help you get clear on that tangible result.

Describing Island A

So Island A is where your ideal customer is hanging out right now. This is what life looks like for your customer… What they're struggling with? This is the main problem that your solution (your digital product) is going to help them solve.

It should be pretty easy to come up with the struggles for Island A. I'm going to assume that you know what your audience is struggling with, right?

Like you've had some conversations with them. You're taking note of questions that they're asking… right!

If you don't or you haven't recently, that's the first thing that you want to do is to make sure you go and spend some time with your target customer, and ask them things like:

“Hey, what are you struggling with right now?” You'd want to add something in relation to your thing. What does that look like?

Here's an example using my Passive Income Product Planner digital product as the offer.

“Hey guys, what are you struggling with right now when it comes to creating your digital product?” I'd share this in my Facebook group, on my other social media accounts, and via email to my subscribers.

People are more than happy to answer questions. So put some questions in front of your target audience if you don't know what those pain points are, particularly in relation to your digital product.

The best way to describe your Island A is to write it as a story. Use your ideal customer and write it as if you were describing a real person.

Describing Island B

The next part of the framework is Island B.

So now your ideal customer has gone through your product. They've completed your offer, your solution. What does life look like for them with their problem solved?

This is where you want to use feeling words. This is where you want to describe and paint a picture of what it looks like to have their problems solved. How has your digital product changed their life?

And just like you did with Island A, you'll get the best results if you write this as a story too.

The Journey

And then the final part of the framework is talking about the journey. How do you get your customer from Island A to Island B? What are the key milestones that someone is going to complete as they go along that journey? And it could only be two milestones, particularly if it's a printable product. Three to five, generally works best, no more than that.

So you want to map all of those things out, and then you want to frame your results in this way:

Title: My Amazing Offer

Tagline: Your Result

It should look something like this:

The Passive Income Product Planner: Everything you need to know about creating digital products so that you can make passive income within the next 30 days!

There are two ways you can end your tagline.

1. Everything you need to know about ABC without X, Y, Z, or
2. Everything you need to know about ABC so that you can EFG

When you are writing down your tangible result, you need to be specific about the thing that you're helping someone with, which is why this tagline framework is so powerful.

You want a sentence that is structured in this way because it clearly articulates the problem and your solution.

Let's look at another example.

I have this great training called Get Paid to Create.

The tagline reads: Everything you need to know and learn to pre-sell your offer so that you can create & launch with ease.

This training is all about pre-selling. I believe you should never create an offer before you've pre-sold it… but that's a whole other blog post! I just wanted to show you what that specific piece looks like.

The point is, you need to be able to explain your result in a tangible way.

Create Your Sales Page

And then once you're clear on all of the above you're going to craft your amazing sales page.

Now your sales page doesn't need to be super long.

Use Island A and Island B to talk about where your ideal customer is right now, what their struggles are, then show them what life could look like.

Finish off by explaining the journey, the result they'll get.

If you want to see a simple sales page in action, check out my Magic Micro Offers Training sales page here.

#3: It's all about perception with your digital offers

What do I mean by this? When someone lands on your sales page, their perception of the value they are getting is largely dependent on the images that you use, and specifically, the mock-up images you use for your digital product, whatever that is.

Your sales page needs to not only describe what they're getting but also show the value that someone gets for the price that you are charging in a visual way. This is so that your target customer connects with what they are seeing. They can see the value because it's right in front of them.

And my rule of thumb is that you want to make sure that you are delivering more in value than you're receiving in payment.

So how do you do that? This is where your mock-up images need to look amazing. They need to show all the value that someone is going to get in a tangible way.

I'm a huge fan of Canva, I use Canva for pretty much all my images and it allows you to create gorgeous mock-ups of your digital products with ease.

When it comes to your digital product business, you'll want to showcase your digital product in the way that someone might use it.

As you can see from this mock-up image, I love using a laptop computer, a book, and even pages from inside a ‘planner'. It's about displaying your digital product in a way that makes someone think, “Wow, I get all of this for only $xx! What a steal.”

Now, I can already hear your thoughts… “Lise, all I have is a PDF, how am I going to show that?”

Well, the great thing is is that you can literally take the cover of your PDF and put it on a tablet, and then behind that tablet, you can have some of the PDF interior pages displayed.

Now you don't need to make these super big so that someone could go and recreate your amazing thing—you're only going to show a snapshot of what your offer is.

The key is making sure that they get to see a little of what they might be getting, what it looks like.

And then if you're delivering your content via a private membership site like Teachable, which is what I do, now you can show access to that space on a laptop or on a desktop computer, or on a tablet if you wanted to.

Here's an example of what a mock-up looks like if you're creating a digital product like a planner (aka a PDF).

Want access to some simple mock-up templates that you can fully customize inside Canva? Simply CLICK HERE to access a couple of my favs for free!

So those are the three key things you need to know in order to start making money in your digital product business.

In case you're scrolling those three things are:

#1: You don't need to niche down, but you do need to be clear on who your offer is helping.

#2: You need to be clear on what your tangible result is. You need to clearly articulate what it is.

#3: Making sure that you're depicting the perceived value of what your offer is and that comes down to the mock-ups that you use for your offer. You want to display your amazing product using amazing mock-ups.

Bonus Tip: Create a simple sales funnel for your digital product business

Now I have a bonus tip for you! Because I want to over-deliver. I walk the walk… when I say do this, I do it. I'm not just theoretically telling you what you should do. I'm actually sharing that this is what I do. ?

However, you get to filter everything you hear. You decide whether this is a good fit for you or not. I always want you to remember that… and no that's not my bonus tip.

My bonus tip is that if you want to supercharge your sales, create a simple sales funnel.

Basically what I mean is this: someone lands on your sales page and they buy your amazing product.

The next page they are taken to would normally be the checkout page, and it should be the checkout page they go to next, but here's where the simplicity comes in…

On that checkout page, you offer an ‘order bump' so that you can make more money.

The order bump is another offer, either at a lower price or a higher price (don't do the same price as your main offer, it gets confusing for your customer and they think you're charging them twice!) than what you're main offer is. They can choose to buy it or not.

That's a really simple sales funnel that anyone can implement with ease.

Of course, you could go down the path of having something else on the thank you page (often called a tripwire) that shows after they complete and leave the checkout page but I'm all for simplicity…

So in this instance, all that you would need is a sales page, a checkout page with your order bump, and then a thank you page if you wanted to.

Here's an example of what the order bump looks like on a checkout page.

And then all you have to do is launch this out into the world! Share your sales page everywhere, be intentional about how you do this, and I promise you, if you do this every day, you will make money.

It's about being consistent in your marketing efforts… about getting traffic to your sales page. So whatever that looks like for you and your business. That could be sharing on social media daily, talking about your offer.

Pro-Tip: Talk about the tangible transformation, talk about Island A and Island B. Keep it simple.

But do this — ask for the sale every single day. It's about presenting the opportunity for someone to buy from you not about being an icky car salesman.

Your Action Step

Go ahead and do everything you just learned! Go ahead and sit down and map out:

• Who am I serving?
• What is Island A and Island B, and my tangible result?
• How can I use mockups to create as much value as possible through the images that I use?

If you need help. If you're not sure on what any of this looks like, and you're worried it's gonna go sideways… and you're thinking, “I'm not sure about Island A or Island B.”

I have this amazing monthly membership called The Digital Business Lab. It's so much fun. It will help you walk through all of those questions and more.

You can learn more about it here: hustleandgroove.com/DBL