How to Turn Your Service or Process into a Digital Product
Digital products can be awesome!
Recently we wrote a post highlighting the key benefits of digital products, including how they tend to have higher ROI and lower associated costs than physical products. They’re often a smart choice for Squarespace freelancers or agencies, because you can put the knowledge you have to work for you.
The next logical question is; how do you turn your service or process into a digital product? What sorts of products might you consider, and what makes them successful? Here are our thoughts:
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Types of digital products
This is a logical place to start because you’ll probably find you’re more drawn to certain types of digital products than others. Some might be a real challenge for you to create, while others are completed within a day.
Here are some common types of digital products:
eBooks. These might seem kind of old-school these days, but eBooks are still popular! If you can package up some of your knowledge in a way that will be valuable to your target audience, an eBook can be a good way to do it. You just need the time to write and format it. eBooks can be distributed via a content delivery system automatically on your Squarespace website.
Audio or music. These could encompass a few different types of products. For example, maybe you’re good at mixing tunes that can be sold for video background music. Or maybe, that knowledge that you would have put into an eBook could be recorded as an audiobook…
Software. This is something we’re very familiar with! If you have the skills (or can employ someone who does), you might sell software, anything from a complex program (lengthy and more costly to develop), to a simple plugin (less complex and less expensive to develop).
Photography or graphics. If you’re capable of creating high-quality photography or graphics, then you can probably find a market for your work among people who design websites or create content for them.
Themes and templates. If you’ve got the design chops, then there’s a market to sell your quality, custom-created themes or templates.
Documents. There are many types of documents that can be sold. For example, you might sell templates to help people create something. Another idea is to sell reports that you have researched and created. There are several companies that conduct original research and sell their findings - people such as marketers buy them to help gain an understanding of what’s happening. (They must be reliable and of high quality, of course!).
Courses. These can be developed and distributed in a few different formats. For example, you might use a platform such as Udemy, or you might administer a course via your own membership site. In a simple format, courses may be drip-fed via email.
Fonts. If you’ve designed some cool fonts, you could sell these to others who want them for their website.
SaaS or web apps. SaaS (Software as a Service) apps are cloud-based apps rather than downloaded software. They’re usually bigger and more complex to create than a simple app, but many people have moved to SaaS over other types of software for the tasks they need to complete.
It’s also worth noting that many people also include “productized services,” where a service you offer is packaged and sold as a set product, as digital products. We’re not including them here because they involve work. As in, the more you sell, the more work you (or people you hire) have to do. We’re looking at digital products that you can pretty much sell without any extra work (besides updating from time to time, or maybe responding to questions).
Find a pressing need
One of the first things to do when you want to create a digital product is to discover the pressing need that your target audience has which you can meet. People aren’t really interested in your process so much as they want to know the bottom line - what’s in it for me?
This might be something you’ve already identified and created a solution for in your own business. For example, many plugins or software solutions begin because someone was trying to fix something that bothered them.
Assuming you already have a clearly defined target audience, list some of the problems they commonly deal with. What do you get asked about a lot? Are there any “quick wins” you can help with? What about solutions that take a bit more building out?
If you’re not sure, ask! You could survey your clients, your email list, Facebook groups you belong to… Other forms of research include Google Trends and looking through forums to find commonly asked questions.
Validate your idea
This doesn’t have to be a huge step, especially if you’re creating something like a short eBook or a quick resource that you won’t have to sink a lot of time and energy into. You could simply start discussions around the topic and see how much interest you get.
On the other hand, if you’re going to sink a lot of time into software or creating a course, make sure it will be worth your time. Is there demand for this thing you can offer? One strategy you could use is to set up a waiting list. You’d just need a simple landing page, explaining the basics of the problem your digital product will solve, and offering people to sign up to be first to have access when it is released.
You can gauge whether you’ve nailed the problem if you get enough people showing interest, but of course that doesn’t mean all who sign up will buy. You also have to consider how you will solve the problem in a way that works for them.
Decide on a format
What does your digital product do? Is it the solution itself, or does it teach people how to create their own solution? For example, maybe we could create a course that teaches people how to design and build their own Squarespace themes.
One thing we find helpful is to plan out each step of the process. If you’re writing an ebook or creating a course, it helps to have it mapped out so that you create a coherent resource.
The most successful digital products solve a problem and do so in the least painful way for your customers. So, think about the best format to make it easy for them and build that!
Promote your product
The whole idea of digital products is that you should be able to sell them repeatedly and at scale. Once you’ve built your product, get it out there!
You can:
Promote to your email list
Post to social media
Get people to share it…
Whatever you do, don’t just create it and let it sit. It’s about building momentum around it. You may even find that once you’ve created your first digital product, it naturally leads to another.
Listen to feedback
Another cool thing about digital products is that it’s relatively easy to evolve with your audience. You can make tweaks and deploy updates as-needed, including things that take care of feedback you get.
The trick is to look for feedback that you get multiple times. Sometimes you might have a very active audience who will offer a lot of feedback and it’s not always possible to address it all. Look for the patterns and address those things first.
Outside of audience feedback, keep your product updated with necessary changes (such as any bug fixes to software, or any changes to information outlined in your course or ebook).
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Final thoughts
Digital products can be a great opportunity to share your expertise in a way that is scalable. The ideal digital products (in our view) are those which you can sell repeatedly without doing extra work when you sell them. In fact, your whole system can be set up automatically, so you’re not involved with the sales process at all.
The key to good digital products is basically the same for any service you might already sell - you need to solve a problem the customer has and do it well.
Where will you start?