7 Digital Product Creation Tips

“You need to create your own digital products!!!” Anyone who’s been trying to make money online for more than 2 minutes has heard this line repeated ad nauseam.

Okay… maybe 2 minutes is an exaggeration, but you get the idea. Digital product creation is the best way to make a sustainable online income.

Most marketers worth their salt know that there’s good money to be made by creating and selling their own digital products. Yes, affiliate marketing is a great way to make an online income. But owning and selling your own products is even better.

If you’re competent at traffic generation, you’ll keep 100 percent of the profits from the sales you generate. You can also recruit affiliates to promote your products and expand your market share while you watch your income skyrocket.

Once you’ve mastered product creation, the possibilities are endless when it comes to boosting your online income. All this sounds terrific, but there are a few fundamentals that must be in place for you to succeed at digital product creation.

Also know that digital products come in many shapes and sizes. By that I mean you aren’t limited to creating only eBooks or reports. You could create audio products, video products, software, graphics, and more.

7 Basics of Digital Product Creation

Let’s discuss some of the basics you need to know before you get started.

1. Is there a market for your digital product?

This is without a doubt the most important factor you need to consider. While creativity is a marvelous trait to have, trying to invent a new digital product that sells like hot cakes is infinitely more difficult than improving upon existing ones.

You don’t want to spend the time to reinvent the wheel; for the most part it’s not necessary. The key to succeeding with your digital product is to see what’s currently popular and selling well. You then emulate, or better yet, improve upon these winning products.

You’ll create a similar product which addresses the same topic, but from a different angle or perspective. This is where your creativity needs to shine. You must have a unique selling proposition. The USP will make your product stand apart from the multitude of products littering the marketplace.

For example, both Nike and Puma sell athletic shoes. The former tells you to “Just do it!” with a swoosh symbol. The latter, on the other hand, is the only major sports manufacturing company on the planet with no slogan. It lets the logo of the powerful leaping puma say all that needs to be said about the brand.

These are similar products, but with very different USPs.

Spend time researching and making notes on what products are selling well. Think of how you can improve upon them. Then go ahead and create a better product.

2. Spy on your competitors

Watching what your competitors do will help you navigate the marketplace and understand why some vendors excel and some fail.

Study their products, USPs, sales copy, sales stats (if available) and so on. Read through the customer reviews and pay particular attention to where their products are lacking.

You then create a product that addresses customer dissatisfaction. If you can do that, you’ll have people flocking to buy your product.

3. Drill down in your niche

Once you’ve done your market research, it’s time to drill down and create a product for a specific topic. Unfortunately, many newbies falter here; in fact, it’s a huge error. They try to create a 5,000 page masterpiece to address all the problems in that niche.

The best way to create a digital product that sells well is to target one specific problem and provide a specific solution. So you need to take a step back and give it some thought.

Examples:

Need to lose weight? Here’s a weight loss book with a 5-step plan.

Want to build a chicken coop? Here’s a manual with 50 chicken coop plans and instructions you can use today.

Address specific problems and provide specific solutions. That’s your secret to digital product creation. You create a product that is valuable; you provide information without overwhelming the reader. You’re not writing War and Peace; you’re just trying to solve a problem.

The key here is to write as much as you need to cover the topic; you don’t need to go overboard.

4. Create a customer avatar for your digital product

Your digital product is not the bible… it’s not supposed to be for everyone. Therefore, you must create a product that addresses a specific type of person, aka your target audience.

You’ll need to construct a customer avatar before you start working on your product.

For example, if you’re writing a weight loss book, is it going to be for women? How old will the reader be?

Is she going to be a busy stay-at-home mom or a busy career woman? Will she have a lot of time to exercise or will she need quick 20 minute workouts?

So many questions but they need answers.

What do you do?

It’s simple. You hang out in forums where your target audience congregates. Spend time reading their questions, issues, comments, etc. You’ll have a finger on the pulse of your target customer; this will help you to understand their problems intimately.

Now you’re ready to create a product that speaks to them better than their best friend could.

5. Structuring your content

This is the part where you create your digital product. It goes without saying that you should produce the best possible product that you can. But keep in mind you want to aim for excellence, not perfection.

Break down your content into bite-sized chunks. Your entire book shouldn’t be one long never-ending paragraph. It’s better to have shorter, compartmentalized chapters dedicated to specific topics.

If you’re using video, it’s best to break down a 1-hour long video into six manageable 10-minute videos. In our noisy world, many people have the attention span of a housefly. So you want your content to be short enough to hold their attention, but long enough to give them the information they need.

6. Provide the content in different formats

Times have changed. PDFs alone are not enough. Some people prefer reading while others prefer watching videos. Then there are those who prefer listening to audios. This explains why even when you purchase a book on Amazon Kindle, there’s usually an option to get the audio book on Audible.

Provide your digital product in different formats; e.g., text, audio, and video. You want to capture as many customers as possible without inadvertently excluding any.

Of course, you could choose to sell your audios and videos at a higher price, but that’s a different topic of discussion.

7. Know how to price your digital product

Last but not least, you’ll need to price your product according to what the market is willing to pay. If you overprice it, you could alienate most of your potential customers. Those who do buy it may feel like they’ve not gotten their money’s worth because they expect a lot more.

On the other hand, if you underprice it, you’ll be devaluing your product and leaving money on the table.

It’s best to look at what’s currently selling well and make note of the prices. You can then charge a similar price and occasionally offer a discount to get more attention to your offer. After all, who doesn’t love a deal?

Conclusion

Once you have these 7 fundamentals in place and you have a great product to sell, you’ll then need to market it well. But, again, that’s a whole different topic for another day.

For now, if you get the digital product creation basics right… half the battle is won.