How to Launch a Successful Digital Downloads business

Follow along and launch at the end of this post

Photo by Taras Shypka on Unsplash

The e-commerce industry is estimated to make over 4 trillion dollars this year. You get to decide how much of that is going to be yours.

There is no better time than now to jump on it. Because of the ease provided by business creation tools and social media, it’s easy to set up and earn up to $10,000/month just six months after launch.

Whether you’re rich or poor, young or old, educated or not, the online business world doesn’t discriminate. With minimal startup cost, all you need is a laptop or mobile phone and an internet connection. The money, however, is not the only benefit of having an online business.

Benefits of starting an online business:

• You can choose how many hours you want to work per day and when you do. Making it perfect for people wanting to start a side hustle without the major time commitment
• You get to choose where you work. Whichever part of the world you are in, as long as there’s an internet connection.
• No product handling or shipping or buying packaging and working with manufacturers because your products will be delivered online
• Online businesses are low maintenance because there is automation software that will keep your business running 24/7 for less than the cost of a full-time employee.

There are so much more benefits, and after our research, we have concluded that the digital downloads business is one of the most lucrative and easiest to maintain.

Before diving deep, a digital downloads business just boils down to creating one digital product once and selling it over a thousand times. No need to print, ship, or handle any product.

Imagine in the midst of your current 9–5 or 9–9 job even, you pick one weekend to be a very hard one with minimal rest. You do some research to find a suitable niche and decide on a product, use 3 hours to write or design your product, upload it to a platform, set it up with the right tools (more on that later), and launch.

During the week, you set aside 30 minutes every day for some marketing (or schedule it during the weekend if you prefer). In 30 days you start earning up to $1,000. Give it a few months and your ‘side hustle’ can earn more than $10,000. Who wouldn’t want that?

As lucrative as it can be, it can also be tough to find a full guide that will help you set up and maintain a digital downloads business. This is why we created this guide.

This guide will provide step-by-step instructions on how to start your business and set your product up for success from launch.

What are digital downloads?

A digital download is an electronic form of acquiring a file I.e. downloading files from the internet.

They are any virtual item you can pay for and download instantly. Think of when you bought planner pages, printable wall art, paid to download a scientific paper, or purchased music and movies online. These are all digital downloads.

The best thing about having a digital downloads business is that they are evergreen, meaning you can upload them for sale and forget about them while they earn you income.

Types of digital products you can sell

• EBooks (e.g. How to meal prep, Guide on reducing your grocery bill by 50%, How to overcome binge eating, 10 Laws that protect freelancers and how to use them, How to make $1000 on eBay, etc.)
• Graphic designs (e.g. Logos, restaurant menu, book covers, eBook design, etc.)
• Web designs (e.g. website design, landing page design, etc.)
• Meal plans (e.g. Keto meal plan for 10lb weight loss in 10 days, $1 meals for college students, etc.)
• App designs (e.g. UI/UX design, app development, etc.)
• Digital planners (e.g. self-care planners, daily self-care pages, daily productivity planners, etc.)
• Stickers (e.g. bullet journal stickers, BTS stickers, boho-style stickers, classroom stickers, etc.)
• Calendars (e.g. 2022 wall calendar, weight loss calendar, the road to 15th birthday calendars, etc.)
• Wall art
• Journal papers (e.g. habit trackers, water intake trackers, gym habit trackers, etc.)
• Social media graphics e.g.
• Instagram highlight covers
• Instagram stories
• Instagram Post templates
• Facebook header templates
• Twitter header template
• YouTube covers

Is selling digital products right for you?

1. Do you need to have a digital downloads business?

If you need some extra money, of course selling digital products is right for you, it might even be the best choice for you if you don’t have much time. If you have commitments like school, kids, or have a very exhausting job, because as I said, you make a product once, you don’t have to spend a lot of money to start or even spend a lot of time to maintain it.

If you work a 9–5 if you’re a single mom that wants to spend more time with the kids, if you are juggling multiple jobs, or if you are a college student, it is time to take the first step.

Photo by Mailchimp on Unsplash

2. Do you have value to sell as digital downloads?

Who you are also goes into owning a digital downloads business because it is all about the value you can provide. Are you creative, are you a planner, are you an academic?

• If you’re creative, say you are good at graphic design, you can start making logos for small businesses, you can make menus, design book covers, UI/UX design, social media posts, or just sell digital art.
• If you’re an academic, you can coach people on finding their place in academia, publishing papers, etc. You can have courses that open during back-to-school times, sell guides, have one-on-one sessions, etc.
• Take a look at your past or present profession. Take a wedding planner for example. If you plan weddings you must be good at planning, handling budgets, dealing with people, etc. There are so many traits you have because of your job other people will need. You can create a guide for brides to find expensive wedding décor for cheap, how to deal with bridezillas for other wedding planners, you can make finance guides on things that are a waste of money, or just pre-wedding checklists for people that can’t afford wedding planners.
• If you’re still a student, you may have a study hack you use, maybe you go to school and have 2 jobs on the side. You can design flashcards, make study planners, and help struggling students reorganize their schedules.

How to start selling digital products online

1. Find your purpose:

Your purpose is the one thing that ties in with what you love, what you’re good at, what value you can bring to people, and what you can be paid for. If you want to wake up every day excited to get to work, finding your purpose is the first step.

2. Choose a product:

Start with what you have or what you know. If you’ve ever designed a planner to help you juggle your multiple jobs, or even a meal-prepping spreadsheet, what you have that adds value to your life, it’s time to share it.

What do you know? If you work in finance and have a strategy to manage finances better, turn that into an eBook. Look into your area of expertise, and what can you offer.

If you still come up empty, it’s time to research. Where do your interests lie? If you’re into fitness, check what’s available on the market, learn the popular products, and think of the value you can add.

3. Write:

Be specific, not broad about what you want to teach, make an outline, and write everything down. As you write, look back to your outline, is it still relevant?

Re-write what you’ve written and edit. Have someone look at it. If you have friends that have expertise or interest in that area, let them give you feedback. Give the best you can, so when you say it is, your customers will find that to be true.

4. Design:

Aesthetics sell. There’s hardly anything completely new on the market and everyone knows that. Design is what drives sales because people still judge books by their covers. Whether you’re selling planners, eBooks, or spreadsheets, your design is the value people get before they decide on purchasing.

Hack: capitalize on design. You can turn one product into more if you tailor them to certain niche groups like boho, K-pop, cottage core, grunge, etc. These aesthetics will attract multiple niche groups to buy your product.

5. Platform:

Now that you have your product, it’s time to give people a way to access it. Thankfully there are a lot of platforms available that you don’t have to go door to door to sell. You will need a platform that will connect you and your audience, and handle billing, payment, and customer service. The available platforms are discussed below.

6. Promote:

You need to take your product to your audience. Create social media accounts, run ads, pay for influencer marketing, post your product on your personal social media, your audience has to see it to buy it.

Continuing on the value of your design, you need beautiful graphics to showcase your products on the platform and your socials and websites. You must write clear, engaging descriptions that will make your audience want to buy it now. Otherwise, there will be visitors to that page but no sales.

Platforms for selling digital downloads

• Send owl
• Shopify
• Gumroad
• Sellfy
• Podia
• Woo-commerce
• Square space
• Thinkific
• Easy Digital Downloads
• Payhip

Photo by Mailchimp on Unsplash

Tools to help your digital downloads business

1. Website: While you can host your product on platforms, only a few allow you to host your website. For most of them, you must have your website and use them as a check-out tool. You should create your website either way because having a blog is the best way to get an audience for your product. When you offer products to your readers, they are most likely to buy from you because they already trust your input.

2. Canva: Canva is the easiest tool to kick-start the designs for your business. There is a wide variety of customizable templates or you can just use the ones they have. You could move on to more complex design tools like adobe as your business grows for more complex designs.

3. Copy AI: Copy AI is an artificial intelligence copywriting tool that helps re-write your product descriptions more persuasively. If you have trouble writing engaging copy, this is for you, and you can get started for free.

4. Social media: You should promote your products across Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, and Pinterest. But start with one. For a digital downloads business, especially if you don’t have an audience on social media, start with Pinterest. Then branch out to anyone you prefer. It’s easier to transfer your audience to other platforms than start forming each afresh.

5. FIVER/UPWORK: Fiverr and Upwork are freelancing platforms where you can outsource jobs like writing, design, social media management, platform setup, website troubleshooting, copywriting, etc. You may be able to do everything on your own, so consider delegating to top-rated freelancers that can make your work easier. There’s no need to learn everything to do it yourself.

On a final note

Selling digital downloads is a fun, creative, and relatively easy way to earn income. You can set it up in a weekend or two, start promoting, and you’ll be surprised how many people buy your product, as long as it’s valuable.