Digital products have exploded in popularity in recent years due to the fact that they are easy to distribute and create with all of the modern technology we have available. Many entrepreneurs build entire businesses around digital downloads or build out digital products to go alongside their physical products or services they offer.

This guide will walk you through how to sell digital product online, including the top digital products, examples and marketing tips to sell successfully online.

The main two benefits of selling digital products are:

1. They can be developed once and sold repeatedly.
2. They are a great source of passive income.

Here’s how you get started selling your own products online, along with a list of ideas and how to promote your digital products.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

• What are digital products?
• Why sell digital products and not physical products?
  • Pros of selling digital products
  • Cons of selling digital products
• The best digital products to sell
  • Educational Products and Online Courses
  • Digital Asset Licenses
  • Digital Tools
  • Membership Sites
  • Services

A digital products is a digital asset or piece of content that can be sold repeatedly online without the need for physical inventory. These products usually come in the form of digital files, pdfs, videos, templates, plugins, images, music, effects, fonts, and more!

Products can make anything from a couple of dollars per month, to thousands – depending on how well you’re known, how well you market, and the quality and price of your product. Remember, the more items you add to your store the more ongoing income you’ll make!

It’s not possible to go from nothing to a business that makes millions of dollars overnight. But it is entirely feasible to build a career which earns thousands of dollars per year, and for the best ones, tens of thousands – even millions!

One of the biggest advantages of selling digital products is the ongoing sales they make in the background without any additional effort from you. Passive income lets you make consistent revenue, no matter what else you’re doing.

There are many advantages to selling digital products that make them an attractive product for entrepreneurs, creatives and freelancers. But there are a few disadvantages as well. Here are some things to keep in mind when developing them.

Pros of selling digital downloads

1. Passive income
   You can literally create a product once, and it can make you money everyday with minimal to no work — completely in the background.
2. Full time income
   It is entirely possible to make this your main source of revenue. Many people make more money selling digital products than they do at a regular 9 to 5 job.
3. Low risk
   There is no need to quit your day job to get started. It is a great side hustle.
4. No physical inventory
   You don’t need a warehouse.
5. No shipping charges
   There are no physical items to ship out.
6. Huge profits
   Expenses are very minimal, and in some cases non-existent.
7. Fully automated
   Customers can buy your file and have it automatically downloaded to their computer.
8. Lifetime sales
   Depending on the product, if it doesn’t require any or little updating, you can essentially sell that same product forever.
9. Improve Your Skills
   It’s a great opportunity to learn new product development and market­ing skills.
10. Lead Magnets
    Digital downloads can be used as a free lead magnet to build your email list.
11. Subscriptions
    People can pay a monthly subscription to access your digital content.
12. Licenses
    People can buy a license to use your digital products.
13. Distribution
    You can have your products for sale on your own website, but you can also sell your digital goods on multiple platforms and marketplaces. This will give you access to more potential customers and increase your revenue.
14. Online learning
    Online learning is going to be the future of education.

Cons of selling digital downloads

1. Free options
   There are may be free alternatives to what you are selling. You’ll need to think carefully about the type of niche you choose, the types of digital goods you sell, and your descriptions. You’ll also need to offer high-quality products and know how to build a brand in order to succeed.
2. Piracy and theft
   The inherit problem with digital downloads is that they can be shared easily to other people who did not pay for the product. You need to take measures to reduce these risks by using the right tools to protect your products. A basic precaution you can take is too watermark all of your content. You can also use Google to search your own products and see if they come up on sites they shouldn’t be on. There are also piracy companies that you can pay to actively look for people stealing your content.
3. Limitations
   Some platforms don’t allow you to sell digital products on their platforms or marketplaces currently including Facebook, Instagram and Amazon. They only allow physical products. This means you are missing out on millions of potential customers.
4. Time
   It does take some time to develop these products, but this can vary, depending on the complexity of the item you are selling. However, this is time only spent once — for an item you can potentially sell to millions of people for a very long time.
5. Some Expenses
   Even though you can create the product yourself and sell it on marketplaces without any expenses. You may have to pay some money if you cannot create the product completely yourself and you have to outsource some of the creation of it. Or if you are selling it on your own website, you may have to pay for website development and hosting.

Online courses are a great way to make additional revenue from digital products. If you consider yourself to be an expert on a particular subject, digital downloads are a good way to package that information for others who want to learn about it.

If you already have an established reputation as an expert or industry leader, you can use that reputation to gain attention for your downloadable products. If you don’t have one yet, you can create and share free content to generate interest for your paid digital products and services.

Educational products and online courses require some effort upfront, from creating a presentation or recording a video walk-thru. When creating courses, it is always best to start with what outcome you want the student to get at the end. Think about all of the steps you do on a daily basis to achieve your results and break down each step for your students.

Online courses can include images, videos, presentation slides, screen capture walk-throughs, screen shots, quizzes, tests, digital note taking, and interactivity within your e-courses to help break up the learning content and make your course more engaging. You can also allow students to download presentation slides, worksheets and check lists.

Another great feature of offering online courses, is that you can allow students to become certified. You would have to work with a legitimate certification body, however this is a huge selling point to potential customers, because you are offering transformation. Usually resulting in them being able to change their status and in turn get more clients or better jobs.

There may be free blog posts or videos on YouTube about what you want to teach. However, you can outcompete them by again offering content that promises not education, but transformation. Instead of selling the product, sell the customer’s own future potential after buying your product.

One last great feature of offering online courses it that it is a natural segue into starting a Facebook Group around the topic you are teaching. The power and leverage of having a group of people who are interested in the topics you are discussing is powerful. These are all hot leads for selling more products and services in the future.

There is a huge marketplace to sell your digital assets to creative professionals and others to use in their projects.

Stock Photos
Professional photographers can sell photos of a whole range of items. Some of the most popular categories you can sell in are: people, locations, objects, animals, architecture, business, beauty, fashion, food, drink, health, fitness, sports, technology, transportation and nature.

There are plenty of sites that allow you to sell stock photos. We have a comprehensive list of places you can sell digital products here.

Videos

1. Stock Videos
   Similar to photos, professional videographers can sell their stock videos including people, scenes, locations, aerial shots, food, nature and so much more!
2. Motion Graphics
   These are easy to edit templates usually consisting of slick animations, title graphics, lower thirds, overlays, revealers, transitions and backgrounds.

Templates

A template is a document that serves as a starting place for a new document. When you open a document, it is already pre-formatted in some way. Downloadable templates allow users to elevate their game and look professional quickly. Here are a few that you could sell.

1. Print
   Create business cards, flyers, menus, packaging, signs, magazines, stationery, posters and more for graphic designers, so they can get more projects completed quicker.
2. UI/UX Kits
   A UI/UX (User Interface/User Experience) kit is an organized collection of files that contain critical UI components like icons, fonts, and layered design files that usually follow a certain theme. UI kits can be pretty basic with just a few buttons and design elements, or they can be incredibly complex with toggles that change font sizes, colors, and shapes.
3. Presentations
   Develop ready-to-go presentation templates for some of the leading players in the industry such as Google Slides, Microsoft PowerPoint and Apple Keynote.
4. Logo
   Create pre-designed stylish graphic concepts for users who want a logo for their business. The customer would then just have to add their name to the logo.
5. Social Media
   Build out creative and professional social media templates for the various channels such as Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram. Templates can include posts, stories and videos.
6. E-mail
   Construct responsive, customizable, interactive emails newsletters which can be used in industry leading platforms such as Mailchimp, HubSpot, Constant Contact, Campaign Monitor and more.
7. Resumes and Cover Letters
   Created for job seekers, to better present themselves and help secure a job.
8. Cards
   Design stunning wedding invitations, party Invitations and postcards.
9. Canva templates
   A relatively new idea, is to create templates for the very popular web-tool called Canva. Canva is a web-based graphic design tool for creating social media graphics, presentations and posters.

Graphics

Selling creative graphics are a great digital downloadable product, especially for creative professionals like graphic designers or 3D artists.

Here are a few items you can sell:

1. Vectors
   Create fully-editable computer based drawings, that can be edited in programs like Adobe Illustrator.
2. Illustrations
   Create drawings that can’t be edited but can be used like a stock photo. These illustrations can be paintings, characters, scenes and more.
3. Icons
   Icons are extremely popular in the digital world we live in today. You can create pre-made, vector based icons for a variety of use cases, such as websites and apps.
4. Objects
   Objects are any common item you might need a graphic for, such as an umbrella, vehicles, TV, mobile phones, computers and anything else.
5. Patterns
   Seamless patterns are another popular items you can sell. They can be used in fashion design or backgrounds in graphic design.
6. Textures
   Textures are typically used in graphic design backgrounds or for use in 3D models.
7. Backgrounds
   Backgrounds are used in graphic design work, websites, 3D scenes and more.
8. 3D Models
   Sell pre-built characters, environments, objects, textures, materials, animals, food, architecture, furniture, vehicles and more for 3D professionals and business owners.

Crafting

Selling craft files is a great way to get into the rapidly growing crafting and print on demand (POD) markets.

1. SVG Cut Files
   SVG (Scaleable Vector Graphic) cut files have exploded in popularity. SVG files are vectors that can be scaled to any size without distortion. They are mainly used in the crafting community on cutting machines like Cricut or Silhouette. You can sell in categories such as home, birthdays, Christmas, holidays, weddings, and many more.SVG cut files can also be used in the huge POD (Print On Demand) industry. Entrepreneurs can use your cut files to design t-shirts, sweaters, tank tops and other standard apparel items. Print On Demand allows items to printed as they are ordered, rather than printing thousands of items, and have them sitting in a warehouse.
2. Sublimation Files
   Print-ready sublimation files for crafters! We offer sublimation designs for t shirts, bags and other sublimation blank products.
3. Embroidery
   Sell high-quality designs ready to use in an embroidery machine for crafting projects.

Add-Ons

Sell add-ons for popular and industry-leading software such as Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. Add-Ons allow you to instantly refresh your images and videos with new looks and styles. You can sell a collection of professional presets for Instagram, adventure, portraits, wedding, landscape photography and more! Graphic designers and photographers can create pre-made visual effects that can be added to any photo instantly, usually in programs like Adobe Photoshop.

Here are a few items you can sell:

1. Adobe Photoshop
   Create better Photoshop files with Actions, Brushes, Gradients, Layer Styles, Palettes, Plugins and Shapes.
2. Adobe Illustrator
   Enhance vector based work with Actions, Brushes, Gradients, Palettes, Plugins.
3. Adobe Lightroom
   Presets that are done for you effects that users can easily add to their photos.
4. Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premiere
   Video effects are very easy to use and people can apply them in a few clicks.

Fonts

Sell commercial-use fonts that you created is a great idea for selling a digital product. You can sell in categories like script, handwriting, sans serif, serif, and display fonts.

Music

1. Background Music
   Music for movies, commercials, online videos and more.
2. Sound Effects
   Sound effects can be used in films, tv ads, internet videos and more.
3. Audio Effects
   Preset effects can be added to any audio clip to change the end result.

Books

1. eBook
   An eBook is a book composed in or converted into digital format for display on computers or handheld devices. eBooks can definitely make you money but they are also a great part of an inbound marketing strategy.  eBooks allow you to position yourself as an expert on a given topic.
2. Audio Books
   Digital audio books are audio versions of books and can be separately or complimentary to an ebook.

Websites

1. Website Themes & Templates
   Build pre-made websites for WordPress, Joomla, Shopify, Magento, Bootstrap, Drupal and more. Website templates are a huge time saver for website developers and business owners. You can build everything from a landing page design to a full functional blog or ecommerce website.
2. Website Plugins
   Plugins are bits of software that expand what you can accomplish with your website without having to write or edit code. Plugins are great digital download.
3. Code
   Sell pre-written code, javascript, PHP scripts for every website build.

Membership sites allow you to sell a monthly subscription for access to your digital files. Oftentimes, you can offer subscriptions to premium content to supplement a physical product. For instance, you pay to go to my gym, but I also sell diet and workout plans as digital products to coincide with attending the gym.

As well, instead of focusing on selling individual digital products, you can bundle them up and offer them for sale through a monthly or yearly paid subscription service.

Subscriptions are ideal for maintaining a growing library of premium-quality content and nurturing a community of passionate members who help each other grow.

You can also host exclusive content for your members that they can stream rather than download or be live streamed in a webinar.

Services tend to pair well with a variety of types of digital products because they compliment them well. As services are limited by the number of hours, where as digital products have no limits.

Customers often get digital goods as part of the purchase with many services. A designer will create a business card design for you. A personal trainer might provide you with a meal plan. A music producer will provide you background music for your YouTube video. You can also bundle certain services together into one package.

For example, if you are a SEO specialist. you could offer a consultation for a set price, along with a custom SEO audit checklist in a Google Sheets spreadsheet, and then upsell your clients on the next logical step after the audit, which will be your other SEO services.

If there are certain services you provide as part your service business that are easy for you but valuable to your clients, you can consider turning these services into products that require less time and effort from you to maintain.

Now that you understand what to sell. Let’s now talk about how to create a product that is positioned to sell well. Here’s what we will cover.

• Talent
• Research
• Validation
• Market Your Product

The first step in creating digital products is defining what your talents are – it’s crucial to play to your strengths and passions! If you want to find the commitment to success, produce great products, or successfully reach your audience, then you need to create products in the field that you love.

The benefits of working with your talent

High-Quality Products
You can immediately begin to make high quality product, as you are already skilled in your field.

Experience
You will intimately understand the needs of the people in that industry.

Marketing
Your marketing will connect more with your audience because you’ll speak their language.

Here are a few questions you could ask yourself.

• What are you an expert at? Think personally and professionally.
• Do you have skillsets or experience in a specific industry?
• What are you passionate about?
• Can you teach people how to use a product or tool?
• Is there a way you can bring your customers and the community around those customers together?
• Is there something you can offer to help people save time or money?

Here are a few action items to help you get started.

• Generate initial ideas to start with and write them down. Don’t be too harsh on yourself, at this stage you just want to get as many ideas as possible written down.
• Answer the questions above to get some ideas of what you would like to do.
• Review the list of possible products in this article that you may consider selling.
• Go to a few different websites that sell digital products to see what other people are selling.
• Go to a few different websites to see what categories are available. Categories will tell you what is popular on a particular website. If they have a defined category or button for a niche. It is most likely popular.
• When coming up with ideas for products to sell, it helps to think backwards from what the needs are for the people who eventually buy it. This will help you create a solid product that will actually satisfy a customer’s needs.

It’s great to be excited about an idea, but if you want it to sell, you’ll need to do thorough research on the items you are thinking of selling.

Research your options on your list. The best digital products are ones that appeal to pain points your customer has related to your product, your industry,, as well as things they get excited for and have high sales or search volume.

Here are a few questions you could ask yourself.

• Are they male, female or both?
• What’s their age?
• Where are they located?
• What is their job?
• Who is their audience?
• What do they care about? (E.g. quality design, saving time, saving money).
• What are their problems?
• Do they have problems which you might solve with your products?
• How will they use this product?
• How can I make their work more efficient?
• How can I simplify the steps in using this product?
• Have I thought about all of their work needs beforehand?

Here are a few action items to help you get started.

• Facebook Groups
  There are Facebook groups for just about any topic imaginable, making them a good place to learn what your target audience cares about.
• Target Industry Forums
  Forums dedicated to hobbies and communities within your industry can help you understand what people want and need from your products.
• Product Reviews
  Read both the reviews of your products and your competitors’ products to get some ideas. These could come from reviews on product pages as well as reviews on YouTube videos, podcasts, blogs or websites.
• Blogs and Podcasts
  Read the blogs your community reads, as well as the posts and comments, to get even more ideas. Take time to listen and watch podcasts in your niche for additional ideas.
• Emails
  Rereading any emails or messages you’ve received from customers over the years. Their thoughts and concerns were probably high-intent customers and they might have had some really useful insights.
• Browse Products
  Visit marketplaces and browse products within your field to read their reviews and comments. What do people love and hate about them? Which products have the highest sales volumes? On some marketplaces it lists the actual sales volume for a product, this is to show the potential customer how popular the item is, but you can use it as yard stick to see sales volume. A lot of reviews and comments are also a good indicator of how popular a product is.
• Browse Brands
  When you find products that are selling well, take it a step further and take a look at all of the other product that person or brand creates. This will give additional ideas for new products, complimentary products and product extensions. I would also highly recommend purchasing some of these products (under a different name), so you can get an intimate idea of how your competitors create their products, both technically and creatively. They a look at their profile, product descriptions and social media to get even more ideas on how to market and sell your products.