Of all the different ways to make money online, digital publishing has to be one of the most exciting.
There’s a wealth of opportunities when it comes to digital products, and anyone in Internet marketing could benefit from learning how to create them. It’s a lot easier than most people imagine and anyone can do it.
In this article, I am going to share a template that will simplify the process of creating your very own digital product. Digital products don’t have to be complicated. In fact, the really great ones are the easiest to create. And I’m going to show you how.
It’s not about producing complicated videos or even being a great writer, so don’t let any of that stuff intimidate you. Read on to find out how you too could have a digital product on the market in a relatively short time.
This is called digital publishing.
What Exactly is Digital Publishing?
Digital publishing is basically all about turning information into a product and selling it.
For example, when you take a subject that you know extremely well and package that information into an e-course that can help others, that’s digital publishing.
The key here is to create great content around something that is of interest to your target audience. Package it the right way, and then sell it.
People are forever searching for information that can help them solve problems and make their lives better.
One thing’s for sure, you’ll never be short of an audience to market your product to. All you have to worry about right now is how to create an awesome information product that your audience will want.
Digital publishing comes in three forms:
1. Written
Written digital information products are by far the most common form of digital publishing. They are easy to create and come packed full of value.
These products include things like ebooks, reports, blogs, newsletters, and so on.
The best part is, you don’t even have to be a good writer to create this type of product. You can either outsource the work or use other ways such as transcription.
The startup costs for creating written digital information products are very low.
2. Audio
Audio digital information products are becoming increasingly popular with each passing year. These include music, podcasts, audio courses, audio books, and guided meditation.
A lot of people find this type of product very appealing because it’s convenient for them to listen while doing other stuff like working out, driving, or chores.
These days you can purchase good quality audio equipment online at very affordable prices, and you can find amazing free audio software such as Audacity.
This means that you can create audio content for next to nothing.
3. Video
Most people operate under the misconception that video is hard to create. That isn’t necessarily true, but it’s one of the reasons things like video courses and presentations carry such a high perceived value.
Shy about being in front of the camera?
No problem. You don’t even have to have a camera to create a great video.
All you need is a good microphone and a computer. You can create kinetic videos that only require still images on a screen and the narration. Think of it as a PowerPoint presentation that is recorded.
Of course, if you have the time, talent, and resources, feel free to use a camera to film moving images.
I hear you asking:
But what if I’m not an expert in my niche?
Well, even a total beginner can create a great digital information product. For example, you could conduct interviews of some experts in your niche and they will provide the content.
Why Create a Digital Information Product:
The Advantages of Digital Publishing
Well, for one, it’s really easy to do (as you’ve just seen). But aside from that, digital publishing has huge benefits in the Internet marketing world which make it a no-brainer.
Those benefits include:
100% Ownership and Profit
Digital information products are 100% owned by their creators. This means that as the author of the product you get all the profits.
There’s no splitting, licensing, or any legal obligations to anybody else.
Scaling is Easy
After you’ve created your product you can sell it as many times as you want. Whether you sell it to ten customers or ten thousand, it won’t cost you any more money or effort to sell it.
It’s Dynamic
Digital information products aren’t limited by the printing process. You can update the product instantaneously as information changes.
This means that your information will always be current.
Distribution is Easy
Because there’s no physical product, there’s no shipping or warehousing.
Once you’ve set up the sales funnel, anyone can purchase your product from their computer anywhere in the world and get it instantly. What could be easier than that?
Provides Location Freedom
It’s a digital information product that can be sold worldwide, and so it makes no difference where the product creator is or where the customers are.
Now that you know just how beneficial digital publishing is, it’s time to find out how you can get started creating your product.
There are two important steps that you need to complete before jumping into creating a product, and these are:
- Choosing a profitable niche
- Brainstorming a product
Choosing a niche
If you haven’t already found your niche, then you absolutely cannot skip this step. Think of a niche as a sub-category of a more general category.
What is your general category?
Ideally, you would choose one of the more profitable ones such as:
- Weight Loss
- Health & Fitness
- Finance
- Dating & Relationships
- Electronics
After you’ve decided on your niche, the next step is to do your market research and find out the following:
- Is your niche digital friendly?
- How big is the audience in that niche?
- Does the niche have other digital publishers?
- Are there people actively searching for information in this niche?
- Is there an opportunity to create and sell more than one product to this audience?
Examples of this include a series of fitness videos or courses on how to train your dog. There are really no limits to what you can create once you put your mind to it.
Brainstorm a Profitable Product
The key to creating a successful product involves solving a problem. The research will help you to determine any potential problems to be solved.
Ask the following three questions:
- What are your prospects’ biggest challenges?
- What kind of situation causes people to search for information in your particular niche?
- What transformation would your audience want to see in their lives?
By answering these questions, you will be able to laser focus on the opportunities within your niche.
This is your main goal. After all, customers want a product that solves problems, so if yours does that then your marketing battle is almost won.
And now comes the fun part…
Creating The Actual Product
You have three options when it comes to creating your digital product:
Option #1 – DIY (Do-It-Yourself)
This is the least expensive choice, but it is also the more difficult and time-consuming option.
It can be very rewarding to be part of the process of creating your own product, and should you choose this route, there are some tools that will help a lot.
Most of them cost little to nothing:
Creating DIY Written Products
This is a great option for those who can write really well. It’s also the easiest product to create.
All you need is a computer with the Microsoft Word program and to be able to create PDF files.
That’s all!
With these tools, you can create e-books, written courses, reports, and anything else that you can think of.
Creating DIY Audio Products
This is also very easy. You can use the free tool Audacity. It comes with everything that you could need to create quality audio information products.
All you require is a clear speaking voice, a good microphone, and you can create audio courses, music, guided meditations, and podcasts and a whole lot more.
Creating DIY Video Products
This is probably the one that a lot of people find the most intimidating. But as previously explained, there isn’t even a need for a camera, although you can use one if you want to.
You can use something as simple as the camera on your smartphone or your webcam. There’s no need for any fancy equipment as long as you have good lighting.
You can create fantastic video content without the use of a camera by using software like Screenflow and Camtasia.
There’s also a free one called Screencast-OMatic.
With these tools, you can create presentations, video courses, slideshows and much more.
Fortunately for you, if you find the DIY route too daunting, you have other options:
Option #2 – Outsource
When you outsource, you’re simply paying someone else to create your product for you.
This takes much less time but it obviously will cost you more money. If you choose to outsource, it’s important that you find someone who is experienced and understands exactly what you want.
There are lots of platforms where you can go to find these skilled freelancers such as Fiverr, Upwork, iWriter, and Guru.
However, it’s vital to understand how to work with freelancers.
Once you find someone qualified who is professional and can complete the project in a timely manner, there are a few other things to consider:
- Before posting a job, you need to establish a budget and ensure that it’s fair for everyone.
- Write a detailed project description so that your freelancer will be able to deliver to you an accurate proposal. Include the deadline, word count and any other information that is pertinent.
- Get to know your freelancer. Start a conversation and engage with them to ensure that you understand each other easily.
- Draft an outline and give them examples of some related products for reference so that they have a greater understanding of the product you want.
- Review and provide feedback quickly. Don’t leave it until the last minute.
DIY vs Outsourcing: Which Option is Better?
Well, that all depends on you. One takes a lot of time and very little money, and the other takes little time but requires more money.
But wait, there’s a third option for creating digital products:
Option #3 – DFY (Done-For-You)
If you want to speed the process of creating a digital product along, then a done-for-you service could prove to be the ideal solution for you.
There are people who have teams and years of experience in developing digital products in various niches and the service that they provide is a more ‘complete’ way to outsource.
Rather than having one person build the floor, another person the walls and another person the roof, a great done-for-you service will just build the entire house.
This simplifies the whole process of the creation of your digital product and gets rid of all the trial and error that you might otherwise go through.
How to Pick the Right Done-For-You Service:
- Do your research. Find someone with tons of experience creating digital products.
- Make sure that they have a team of skilled experts (they can produce a product in much less time than one person alone).
- Don’t forget that the money is in the funnel, so you won’t want to stop at just one product.
Make sure that the service you go with can create up-sells and bonuses to get you the best results.
In Conclusion
Creating and selling digital information products is one of the quickest and simplest ways of making passive income online.
The entire process of creating a successful and profitable product consists of just three main steps:
- Choosing a niche
- Brainstorming a product
- And then creating the actual product
Given the options that you have for the creation of the digital information product, there’s no reason not to move forward right now.
Whether you want to create a written, video or audio product, all you have to do is choose if you’re going to do it yourself, outsource the work, or get it everything done for you right down to the marketing.
Feel free to post your comment below. An email address is required but it will not be shared with anyone, put on any list, or used for any kind of marketing, just to alert you if there are any replies. Thanks and happy hunting!
PlanetBizOp.com
->Steven
Updated: Originally published June 1st 2018Choosing a niche
Hallo there,
I have been considering the idea of creating my own digital products but never quite knew the exact to go about it.
You have offered me enough insight to get started right away. Thanks for that.
I also think I will outsource most of the stuff because of the little time I have to work on it.
I see you recommend a number of sites to use for outsourcing. Which one is the best? I would want to get the best value.
There are a number of sources available. I have used fiverr, upwork and iwriter. I have used textbroker in the past but had an issue that went unresolved so I stopped using them.
Look around on fiverr first, you are likely to find the best value there. Pay attention to the reviews to ensure you get good quality as well.
Thanks for the comment Dave!
Hey this was a really good article, i have just published a short ebook myself. It was my first time so i didnt make it that long and right now im currently trying to sell it on gumroad but they keep some of the profits if i sell. Im not sure how to sell it so i keep all the profits. You had a lot of good ideas, i wouldnt mind making a video package and selling it.
You could set up a PayPal account or other merchant account and sell it directly from your website. Once you have everything working correctly, and enough traffic to your site, take it off Gumroad and you keep all the profits aside from the percentage the merchant account takes.
Most merchant account sites have instructions on how to setup payment forms on your website.
Thanks for the comment Justin!
I always knew digital products were a good way to make extra money as the many benefits you explained in this post.
However I didn’t know they had done for you services where you can get a product made very quickly.
I will definitely have to look into this more. Where would you say is some of the best places to find people that will do this?
Although, I am aware of done-for-you services, I have never actually used one. I have always leaned more toward creating my own products or working with a writer to help. If used correctly, this type of service could save you a lot of time though.
If that type of service interests you, find a few on Google and carefully research reviews on them before spending any money. As a matter of fact, do this before ever spending money on anything!!!
Thanks for the comment Michael!
Hi there Steven,
Thank you kindly for creating and sharing this rather informative article regarding the creation of our very own digital products.
The idea for creating my own digital products just now I gotta say is quite intimidating, as intimidating as it is exciting. I am certain to explore some of the possibilities that you have highlighted in this article. Thanks 🙂
Glad you found the article useful.
Thanks for the comment Derek!
Hi,
Thank you for sharing.
Some time ago I wanted to create a digital product, but I still didn’t have enough information on how to correctly do one.
I took some courses, but still, want to know how exactly I can sell it?
What exactly are sales funnel? I’m still new to all that stuff:)
A sales funnel, in simplest terms, is just a path a potential customer takes that could end in a purchase. For example, in our case, the beginning of the funnel will be an article on our site found in a search engine. In our article might be a link to a product review. The product review might contain an affiliate link to a sales/landing page on the product’s site where the customer can make the actual purchase.
A sales funnel might also be seen as a series of decisions put to a potential customer. If they make all the right decisions, you get a sale. If not, they drop out of the sales funnel due to disinterest, inability to pay, etc.
Sales funnels can get quite complex and could be a topic for an entire series of articles. There’s already quite a bit of information out there on the topic. But, I’ll keep it in mind for the future…
Thanks for the comment Marta!