Currently, there are several opportunities and approaches that you can take to make money online. Some of the most popular options such as affiliate programs and direct ad sales are highly known since they are not so difficult to set up.
However, recent research has proven that over 80% of people purchased digital products in the previous year, showing that there is a huge opportunity for individuals hoping to be successful using digital products.
Digital products have become so inescapable that almost the entirety of the top proficient bloggers, influencers, speakers, and other compelling public figures have exploited this trend
Nevertheless, you can’t successfully break into the market without fully understanding what Digital products are about.
So, let’s move on to the burning question you’ve been anxious to ask… What is a Digital Product?
A digital product is anything you can sell virtually. It comes in digital form (at least initially) and typically can be downloaded from the Internet.
Digital products offer several advantages over physical products. They're easier to manage, less expensive to create, and just as easy to market.
Digital products are easy to distribute, significantly more sustainable, can be replicated infinitely, and are oftentimes simpler to create.
With little more than one or a few devices, any person is capable of making a digital product worthy of sharing or selling. No physical materials, factories, or staff required. Just a computer, a sprinkle of passion and drive, and some time. -- Sarthak Sahal.
Examples of digital products include
- Photos
- Articles
- Ebooks
- Graphics & Illustrations
- Website Templates or Mockups
- Journals
- Training Classes
- Virtual Assisting
- Photography,
- Music files
- Tickets
- Blueprints
- Digital Arts
- Wedding Invitations
- Selling domain names
- Workout lessons
- Plugins
- Student books
- Translations
- Paid newsletters
- Documentary
- E-commerce Product Descriptions
- Games
- Manuals in Electronic Format
- Animations
- Astrology Readings
- Coaching and Mentoring
- Accounting audits
- Branding Services
- Financial Consultations
- Stock video
- Step-by-step tutorials
- E-sports
- Beauty & Style Consultations
- Printables
- Professional Courses
- 3D Models
- Software
And any item that can be electronically stored in a file or multiple files. You can as well refer to digital products as electronic goods or e-goods.
If you need more convincing on why you need to create your digital products, below are 10 reasons why you should.
1. Reach a Wider Audience with Digital Products
To reach a global scale of an audience takes an unthinkable amount of time, effort, money and research. However, if you own an online store and it’s open to anyone and everyone in any part of the world, your brand name will travel farther than you can ever imagine.
The web has no edge and you can arrive at a large number of individuals with comparable interests, something that would be inconceivable with a physical product.
With your online store open to the public, you need not worry about opening or closing hours. Also, using tools such as Facebook Ads and Google Adwords allows you to narrow down your audience to a particular set of people that will readily purchase your product and advertise to them only, instead of advertising on a billboard for a huge amount of money and making very little profit.
You can as well create products based on your audience/prospects needs and inform them via social media or your website.
Customers can now search for the product or service your business offers from anywhere in the world, just by performing a search on Google.
2. Reign in More Income
At the point when you start selling your product there is boundless potential. You can increase your income at the snap of a finger. All you have to do is obtain additional traffic, create a superior product or run promotions.
No matter your initial income level, there is always a way to make more. You just have to figure it out.
Although there is a disadvantage, which is the possibility of your product not bringing in as much money as you expect. However, this can be easily avoided if you choose a good product to create, research well on what your audience needs and put in some effort to promote it.
There’s also the opportunity of creating a valuable product once and selling it forever. You will never run out of downloads, you won’t have to pay storage fees and worry about logistics associated with transporting goods in and out of a warehouse.
3. Create More Job Opportunities (Affiliates)
Affiliate programs are generally simple to set up, you simply need to get individuals to sign up and begin promotion of your product. This way you are creating job opportunities for people.
They promote/sell your product and get paid a certain amount.
Using this method, you can get influencers, bloggers and even website owners to promote your product without risking anything. No sales = No pay, which would still give you an upper hand because they would have promoted your product one way or the other.
If you, as of now, have a mainstream product, getting affiliates will be even easier. You can offer an additional commission to individuals who have a more influential online presence or potential to get more deals.
4. Easier Communication with Audience
Digital products offer interesting approaches to discuss legitimately with your clients, and even form whole networks around your products.
When managing physical products, you normally need to work with manufacturers or wholesalers who will supply your product(s).
In the past, if someone had a bad experience with your product, it's easier to talk to their friends and family about it than go back to the store and make a complaint. Hence, destroying the product and the brand name.
With digital products, the middleman is eliminated and you have direct contact with all consumers. It is easier, faster and allows customers to engage better with your products as well as signup for newsletters and the likes.
If you are selling products like masterclasses or online training, you can make use of social media or create a feedback form for clients to post inquiries as well as select private channels of correspondence such as Slack, Botim e.t.c. giving them direct access to you.
5. Digital Products Improve Your Personal Brand
Being an expert in your industry opens you to a lifetime of opportunities, this is where Branding comes in. More online presence, appearance in top blogs and branding yourself as a professional brings about more sales of your product, speaking opportunities at conferences, an invitation to high-class events, book deals and the likes.
If one of your goals in digital marketing involves positioning yourself as an expert, producing a great product can help to get you there.
6. Your Digital Products are Always Open
Want to know what’s better than knowing your business is reaching audiences around the globe? It's knowing your online business is constantly open, so they people shop regardless of what time zone they are in.
You don't need to pay a representative to work especially during these more slow business hours since everything the client needs is on their screen.
If you're the type that’s presently selling physical products, you most likely need to invest quite a bit of your energy at the workplace, overseeing stock, managing clients, delivering products, and so on.
One of the greatest advantages of creating a digital product is that you can work from anyplace on the planet: from home, from the plane, even from the seashore.
7. Digital Products are Quick to Deliver and Access
Managing your digital products is far more straightforward than overseeing physical products, which requires both digital storing and a person in charge to keep things in order.
With digital products, work is a lot easier and can be done efficiently from anywhere using a phone or laptop.
Sales and delivery of digital products furthermore will be essentially more streamlined than that of physical products.
Customers can quickly and successfully download and experience your digital product demo, making the purchase process much less troublesome and dynamically clear.
The buying process of online products is now not only considered the fastest but also the new social trend.
Nobody needs to drive down to wherever your store is located to get your products, nor do they have to wait for days or weeks for transport.
Records are commonly digitally coursed or open for download following purchase, which infers that customers can use your products right away! During trade/exchange, it is less difficult to supervise discounts, as there's no extra delivery required.
8. Digital Products Gives You Absolute Control
If in any case, you are making money off your website through commercials or subsidiary programs you are restricted in what you can do.
All you can do is promote some already existing products and you can just offer promotions to organizations who are keen on advertising on your site.
Once you create your digital products, you'll be in total control of everything that has to do with those products. You pick the sort of product that you need to sell, and you decide the cost.
However, to be completely successful you need to create a superior product according to the needs of your prospects with a reasonable cost making you have much more control than other monetization sites.
9. Digital Products Last a Lifetime
In contrast to physical products, digital products are not liable to wear, tear, or decay; they may turn out to be less significant after some time as innovation changes, yet they can be refreshed effectively, and they keep going forever.
Digital products can be utilized infinitely, staying in a similar condition as they were the day of procurement.
Because of the idea of digital products, you can sell the same number of duplicates as you like, with boundless copies and timeframe of usability.
Some digital products sell for quite a long time, getting reliable revenue and noteworthy profits for a time, investment and effort.
The downside to making copies is that your products/ideas are at risk of being imitated, stolen or pirated. In such cases, these methods are the best solution to such challenges.
- Place Copyright Notices On Your Publications
- File protection and watermarking
- Develop a clear software policy statement for your company
- Prevent File Sharing
- Site Security - Vigilance is Key
10. Low Overhead Cost & Set Up Time
With digital products, you don’t have to worry about overhead costs that come with creating and or selling a product such as Office lease, employees income, utilities, warehouse costs, shipping fee e.t.c.
Additionally, if you are just starting and this is your first attempt at creating or selling a product on the web, digital products are the simplest to create, set up at a bargain and market.
For instance, an eBook, there’s no need to find an investor, develop a prototype or negotiate with a shipping company.
You can make one as quick as possible in less than a month. All you have to do is sit for a while, think creatively and create.
Conclusion
There are several ways you can make lucrative money online but creating your digital product tops that list and offers so many more advantages that can't be overlooked.
Now, you know a great number of benefits of digital products. I think you’ve always known that digital products are superior to physical products when compared.
Starting up your digital store can seem overwhelming and like the most difficult thing ever just because you’ve not done anything similar to that, but I assure you, with the number of individuals on the web today and the present innovation, not selling on the web is causing your business more harm than good without your knowledge.
Regardless of whether you get clients into your physical store, a huge percentage of those customers make use of a phone inside a store to look into product costs, customer reviews and discover substitute store areas.
You could be losing over 70% of your customers without knowing it.
So make the right choice, pick a niche you are comfortable with and passionate about and make a digital product around it.
Let me know in the comment section which digital product you will create after reading this.
