Profitable Digital Products and How to Sell Them in 2024
The Most Popular Digital Products To Sell in 2024
Profitable Digital Products and How to Sell Them in 2024
Selling digital products can be a highly profitable business venture. Many entrepreneurs have built successful businesses around intangible goods that are easy to distribute and require little capital. Digital products can also be an excellent source of passive income as they usually do not require much maintenance or effort.
This guide aims to help you sell digital products successfully online. It includes a list of profitable digital product examples and guidance on creating your own. Additionally, we will provide some tips on marketing your digital products online. With these tools at your disposal, let's dive into the steps required to get your venture up and running.
What is a Digital Product?
A digital product refers to any intangible product created or converted to digital format, such as eBooks, online courses, digital art, design assets, music, PDFs, software, etc.
8 Reasons to Sell Digital Products
There are many benefits to starting a business that sells digital products online.
Low Budget Requirement With High-profit Margins
Digital products have low overhead costs and are relatively inexpensive to create. Depending on the type of digital product you are selling, creating one only requires access to the internet, a computer, and your time and energy to produce it. Unlike physical products, there are no costs associated with warehousing or shipping that could impact your profits. Once you have created your music, written your ebook, or designed your photo preset, you can sell it multiple times to customers worldwide, making your profit margins quite high.
No Inventory and Order Fulfillment Hassle
Entering the eCommerce space can be challenging due to the high cost of manufacturing, storing, and shipping inventory. However, with digital products, these concerns are eliminated. You don't need physical space to store them, except for the original file. Additionally, you don't need to worry about producing enough units to meet demand, as no physical inventory is involved.
Independence From Suppliers
The independence of a digital goods business allows you to be self-sufficient and not dependent on suppliers or manufacturers. The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that many eCommerce businesses have experienced losses and increased customer support problems due to market and logistical issues.
Instant “Free” Delivery and Immediate Access
With the rise of online shopping, customers expect fast and free delivery. Digital products offer a solution to this problem. Platforms like Payhip allow customers to download or access their digital products immediately after purchase, eliminating shipping costs for you and the buyer. This also means there are no long lines at the post office, no missing packages to track, and no risk of items breaking during shipment, resulting in fewer customer service headaches.
One of the biggest advantages of selling digital products is that you don't have to be involved in fulfilling orders. The product is automatically and instantaneously delivered to your customers through the system. This means you can earn money while you sleep and have more time to focus on growing your business.
Low Product-return Rate
As these products are available for download, they are not susceptible to damage during delivery, reducing the chances of customers receiving faulty products. Consequently, the product-return rate is significantly low. However, if a customer is unsatisfied and requires a return, you can process it instantly without waiting for the customer to ship the product back.
Infinite Scale
Digital products can be scaled quickly without additional investment, storage, or staff requirements.
Passive Income
Most of us wouldn't turn down the opportunity for a little extra cash — after all, 45 %of Americans have a side hustle. Selling digital products is a great way to increase your income because once you create the product, you simply automate the selling process and start bringing in cash.
Personal Freedom
With digital products, you can sell anytime, anywhere in the world!
Where to Sell Digital Products Online
Profitable Digital Products and How to Sell Them in 2024
Payhip
With Payhip's eCommerce platform, creating an online store to sell digital products has never been easier. You can create a professional website in just a few minutes without the need for coding or design skills.
Payhip has all the tools you need to sell digital downloads, courses, coaching, memberships, or physical products. It's an ideal platform for selling online from anywhere.
Payhip offers excellent value and affordability because its essential features are included in the forever-free plan! If you're starting out, you can opt for the forever-free plan, and you'll only pay 5% when you make a sale. This means that if you don't make any sales, you won't have to pay anything, and you can still keep your online store active. That's a major win!
Etsy
You can reach a large and diverse audience by selling digital products on Etsy.
Etsy is a marketplace with over 50 million users, which means your products have the potential to be seen by many people. Additionally, because Etsy is a curated site, users are likelier to be interested in your products. This means that you're not only reaching a large audience but also an audience likely to be interested in what you're selling.
Having said that, consider that selling on online marketplaces has several drawbacks, including a lack of control, a lower profit margin, and more.
Creative Market
While Etsy is an online marketplace that covers many niches, Creative Market focuses more on design assets. This is great for artists looking to sell their digital products online.
As mentioned earlier, selling on online marketplaces has several drawbacks. For instance, Creative Market's commission fee is even higher than Etsy's, which means less profit. Additionally, your sales are subject to the algorithms of the online marketplaces, which can change unpredictably over time.
How to Sell Digital Products Online
Profitable Digital Products and How to Sell Them in 2024
Brainstorm Digital Product Ideas
‘Digital products' is a broad term. It covers eBooks, video tutorials, patterns, online memberships, tools, and templates. Anything that exists in a digital format and that somebody might want to buy is a digital product that can be sold online.
So, your first step should be to think as broadly as possible about what you could create that would have value for somebody else. To help you with this step, ask yourself these questions:
- Do I have a particular skill or knowledge that people want to acquire?
- Have I helped other people in my life solve specific life problems? Can I replicate that with other people?
- Have I experienced any life transformations in my own life? Is that something that other people would want to experience too?
- Do I own unique skills that others would pay for to enjoy my talents? (This particularly applies to artists who can gather a loyal audience who loves their art forms)
At this stage, avoid overthinking. Instead, focus on dumping as many ideas as possible on paper or a blank document.
Validate the Idea
If you plan to create a digital product, ensuring a market for it is essential. To get started with your research, here are a few ways you can explore your idea for a successful digital product:
- Keyword Research. Google Trends and the Google Keyword Planner tool will give you a good idea of what people are searching for and which topics are hot trends. The Keyword Planner tool is part of Google Ads. This will tell you how much competition there is for each search term. You don't necessarily have to choose the most popular topics. But you want to check for enough interest to make it worthwhile. The ideal scenario is a topic with many searches and less competition from other creators. Trending topics will also help refine your idea and target a profitable niche. Value comes from selling digital products online that answer specific questions and solve real and pressing problems.
- Be part of the community. Join Facebook groups, subreddits, and other online communities where you can really interact with your target audience. Don't be afraid to ask questions to learn more about their pain points and how you can create something that caters to them.
- Research your competitors. See if any other creators have created similar content to what you're thinking of creating. Don't be frazzled by other creators who might have targeted the same audience as you. If they're doing well, that just means there is a market demand for those topics! Be confident in creating something unique that caters to a similar audience group.
Create Your Product
Your first product is usually the hardest. You're learning to sell digital products online and working without an income stream from existing products. There's no harm in looking at other successful online creators for inspiration, but remember to do it your way. Be original and authentic.
Digital products are diverse, so creators use many tools, including Canva, Photoshop, Lightroom, Scrivener, and PowerPoint; the list seems ever-expanding.
While every tool has its file management system, it can sometimes be easier to organize your work using GDrive. This is free to anyone with a Google account, and the chances are you're already using it. It's also a really easy tool for creating PDFs. You can upload just about any file format with the confidence of knowing that everything is safely stored in the cloud.
Create an Online Store and Upload Your Digital Products
It's time to set up an online store for your business where you can sell digital products. Choosing the right eCommerce platform is crucial, as you need a platform with built-in features specifically designed for digital products.
For instance, if you sell eBooks, you need a platform that can deliver the eBook to your customers instantly after purchase. Similarly, if you sell online courses, you need a platform that offers an engaging course player for your students. Manually sending digital products to your customers through email is bad and can cause unnecessary headaches.
Thankfully, platforms like Payhip are completely free to use and come equipped with everything you need to sell digital products, such as eBooks, digital art, online courses, coaching services, memberships/subscriptions, and even physical products.
Once you've uploaded your product listings, don't forget to set the appropriate selling prices for your digital products. Your research will give you a good idea of the right selling price. As a newcomer, you might not be able to charge top-whack prices. But don't sell yourself short either – particularly if you have a great digital product and not much competition. And don't forget, there's also a ‘pay what you want‘ option where you set a minimum price and allow people to pay more to help somebody venturing into the creator economy for the first time.
Lastly, take measures to protect your digital products against piracy. Payhip provides various free tools, such as PDF stamping, download limits, and more.
Payhip takes all of the effort and complication out of getting paid when you sell digital products online.
Best of all, if you have any questions about how to get started, you can call the Payhip team and ask a real person to help you. Try Payhip for free and see for yourself how easy it is.
How to Market Digital Products Online
Profitable Digital Products and How to Sell Them in 2024
Once your online store and product listings are ready, it's time to announce your grand opening. Here are some ways to start spreading the word!
Promote on Social Media
Get social. Content creators must be active online to build community and share their products with potential buyers. In fact, more than 80% of shoppers have found an item they were interested in on social media, up from 58% in 2017, according to Curalate research.
“Marketing for me is mostly through social media,” says Lea, who sells quilting patterns. “Quilters are such visual people that Instagram is a feast for the eyes. It's a great way to find new patterns, designers, quilters, and inspiration.”
And Melissa Raimondi of Raw Food Romance relies almost entirely on social networks to promote her offerings. “I market my books on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and other social media platforms. I have a fairly large following of 50k on Instagram and 47k on YouTube. They are growing steadily from 500-2000 new people a month, so I find there are always new people interested in the recipes I offer. I share images and stories about my recipes, and people get excited and curious and want to try them.”
Obtain Social Proof
Social proof includes product reviews, customer testimonials, referrals, and more. It's a powerful way to build consumer trust and persuade them to click “buy.” In fact, 92% of consumers trust recommendations more than other types of advertising, and 87% of them trust product reviews as much as reviews from friends.
This is particularly important for digital products because while there are similarities in marketing physical and digital items, there are also some key differences. For instance, customers can't pick up your product and test it for themselves, so it's important to integrate social proof where possible. Encourage customers to post reviews or ask repeat buyers if they'd be willing to write a testimonial for your site.
Partner Up
It's easy to find a community around your particular products. Whether you sell sewing patterns or printable day-planner pages, you'll no doubt find groups of people who blog about their hobby, post about it on social media, or discuss it on forums.
So, get active and make connections with the players in your industry. Contact bloggers about reviewing your products, or team up with a fellow seller or Instagram user for a joint giveaway or promotion.
Start an Affiliate Program
Launch your affiliate program using Payhip's affiliate marketing tool. Affiliates can be a great way for creators selling digital products to drive traffic and sales. Find established and trusted influencers in your industry and offer them a commission for each sale they make. You can create different percentages for different affiliates, so if someone has a massive audience, you can give them a higher commission rate to promote more and attract customers.
If you are interested in affiliate marketing, you can check out the following resources:
10 Profitable Digital Products to Sell Online
The Most Popular Digital Products To Sell in 2024
eBooks
If you are a talented writer with a great idea to share with others, you can earn money by selling eBooks online. Ebooks are digital publications ranging from marketing materials and thought leadership for your company to personal stories or even full-length novels.
Thanks to the abundance of self-publishing tools available today, anyone can share their ideas and expertise and become an author. Moreover, the ebook business can be quite profitable. The revenue from eBooks is $1.1 billion annually, and half of those sales come from self-published authors.
Ebooks are relatively inexpensive to produce. Creators don't need pricey tools or software to create their products—they need to write well and be able to convert their work into a downloadable (usually PDF) file. Consequently, many eBooks cost little more than the author's time.
Most authors price their eBooks between $2.99 and $9.99. With the right ebook pricing and a large audience, these margins can help you make money quickly. Indeed, eBook sales revenue is $1.02 billion annually.
Tips for eBook creators:
- Think twice before publishing on Amazon. The well-known company will also claim a huge percentage of your royalties. If you sell your book directly from your website, you retain full control of the process and the profits.
- Maximize your profits by creating a series of eBooks. Serializing your content is a great way to generate recurring revenue and engage your audience.
- Once you've launched your eBook, ensure you have a comprehensive marketing strategy to optimize revenue. Be sure your readers can find (and buy) your book!
- Set up a book funnel: an effective marketing strategy for authors that generates leads or potential customers.
Music
If you want to monetize your music, you can sell your MP3s online instead of making it available for free on platforms like YouTube. This way, you can earn money from your talent, whether you are creating your hit single or composing royalty-free music for other creators.
What it is: Files—often MP3 or WAV format—created either for fans of your music or for other creators looking for royalty-free music to include in their A/V projects.
Why sell it? There is a huge market for digitally downloaded music, and digital music revenue is projected to reach $7.62bn by 2027. Both pleasure listeners looking for new favorites and content creators seeking royalty-free tracks constantly search for new tunes.
As a skilled musician, you can offer various product options for sale to various buyers at different prices. You can monetize your passion by selling sound clips, loops, or full songs. If you want to share your music with the world, you should not hesitate to make a profit from it.
Tips for music creators:
- Sell your music on your site. Third-party vendors will claim a sizable percentage of your sales. iTunes, for example, takes around 30% of sales, which can hamper your growth potential.
- Conduct market research to determine your optimal pricing strategy. Will you charge for each download or a monthly subscription? Understanding your customers' purchasing patterns will help you select the best approach.
Online Courses
Creating online courses to monetize your experience and expertise has no limits. Courses can be made through video, text, or learning platforms to educate customers.
Why sell them: More than perhaps any other industry, the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the education sector incredibly. eLearning, which was already growing in popularity, is here to stay.
This presents a lucrative opportunity for instructors, particularly as the global online education market will be worth $319+ billion by 2025. With current opportunities to gather and learn in person becoming increasingly rare, students and hobbyists are interested in expanding their horizons with eLearning opportunities. What's more, you have infinite possibilities for the content of your course.
Tips for course creators:
- Bundle your course with other downloadable assets (like an eBook, for example) for more revenue-generating opportunities.
- Course prices are widely variable. Consider how much time you've invested creating the course and price it accordingly.
Social Media Presets
Despite the decrease in face-to-face meetings and travel due to the pandemic, people worldwide still use social media to stay connected. If you possess a design talent, consider selling your social media presets to content creators as a quick and profitable way to earn money.
What they are: Graphic designers and artists can use Adobe's Lightroom to create pre-made filters (“presets”) that influencers, photographers, and filmmakers can use in their work and on social media.
Why sell them: Demand for high-quality social media imagery continues to grow. A Harris Poll from this past spring reported that between 46% and 51% of US adults had increased their social media use since the start of the pandemic. While social media influencers in industries such as travel and fashion took an initial hit, business has boomed for healthcare, food, and fitness influencers. They need high-quality, attractive presets to maintain their social media output.
Alternatively, if you're an influencer looking to diversify your sources of revenue, you could sell presets you've already created and used.
Tips for preset creators:
- Organize your presets into themed bundles so users don't have to sift through each filter before clicking “Add to cart.”
- Price your presets appropriately for your target customers. Some will be willing to spend over $100 for a preset bundle, while others will only have a few dollars to spare.
- Sell your presets on your website. If you sell them on a marketplace like Etsy or Adobe Add-ons, you'll be subject to terms that can change quickly.
Photography
Turn your talent for photography into a lucrative side hustle by selling your photos as digital downloads.
What it is: Fine art or royalty-free photography for purchase by art enthusiasts, marketers, and content creators.
Why sell it: A huge market exists for fine art and commercial photography. The global digital photography market is projected to reach $58.41 billion by 2030. You can seize some of that sum if you're a talented photographer.
Marketing departments, web designers, and content creators always look for high-quality, non-stock photographs. If you have a high-end camera and some photography skills, you can easily make money without spending additional money. On average, a single stock photo costs between $1 and $15. However, if you can generate enough downloads, you can make a good profit.
Tips for photographers:
- Price your photos appropriately based on the quality and differentiation of your work. Buyers are willing to pay more for higher-quality photos.
- Conduct market research to determine your optimal pricing strategy. Will you charge for each individual download or by monthly subscription? Understanding your customers' purchasing patterns will help you select the best approach.
Patterns
Craft enthusiasts such as quilters and knitters are always in search of unique designs that they cannot find elsewhere. This has led to the popularity of digital products in this niche. Additionally, socializing with fellow crafters is essential to a seller's success and part of the fun for creators and customers.
Abby Glassenberg, who sells her patterns and teaches sewing, highlights that sewists nowadays want to feel connected with the pattern designer and their company.
Lightroom Presets
Photographers, videographers, and social media influencers often rely on presets for Adobe Lightroom to save time and give their creations a consistent look. Fellow content creators can purchase these presets to emulate the look of their favorite pics and create their content faster.
Printables
Any item you print can be sold as a digital product (Calendars, meal plans, worksheets, day planners, and coloring pages).
Design Assets
Various design assets, such as graphics, fonts, templates, brushes, color palettes, 3D models, and more, can be sold as downloads.
Memberships
Selling memberships is another option for creators to provide subscribers with regular access to new content, regardless of what they create. If you're an online course creator, consider offering memberships to your students so they can subscribe to your upcoming content and receive continued mentorship from you, even after they complete the course.
FAQs about Digital Products
Profitable Digital Products and How to Sell Them in 2024
You'll discover some frequently asked questions about Digital Products below.
What are digital products?
Digital products are intangible products that can be sold or distributed electronically. They are created and delivered entirely in digital format, such as ebooks, online courses, software, and music.
Why are digital products profitable?
Digital products can be profitable because they have low overhead costs and can be sold unlimited times. Once the product is created, it can be sold repeatedly without additional production costs. This means that the profit margin can be high.
What are some examples of profitable digital products?
Some examples of profitable digital products include ebooks, online courses, membership sites, software, and digital templates. These products can be created once and sold multiple times, providing a scalable and profitable business model.
How do you create a profitable digital product?
To create a profitable digital product, you should identify a problem or need in your target market and create a product that solves that problem. You should also research your competition and find a unique angle that differentiates your product. Then, you can create the product and market it to your target audience.
How do you market a digital product?
To market a digital product, you can use various strategies, such as content marketing, social media marketing, influencer marketing, and paid advertising. You should also optimize your product listing for search engines and use email marketing to build a relationship with your audience and drive sales.
Quick Links
The Most Popular Digital Products To Sell in 2024
We hope you enjoyed this post. If you did, you might want to check out these other resources:
- PLR Digital Products in 2024: The Ultimate Guide
- Ghost Commerce in 2024: Facts and Insights
- Affiliate Marketing for Beginners – Ultimate Guide
- How to Start CPA Marketing for Free – The Beginners Guide
- How to Monetize the Power of Artificial Intelligence Online
- How to Make Money on TikTok in 2024
Final Thoughts
Some sellers of digital products get started to indulge a passion, while others are looking for a side hustle to bring in extra income. Regardless of your reasons, launching your online business can become a full-time job.
Numerous ways to create compelling digital content can help you build a profitable online business. By leveraging your creativity and investing time and effort, you can create digital products that are irresistible to your target audience and can quickly pay off. If you're ready to begin, sign up for a free Payhip account. Setting up takes less than five minutes and requires no payment information.
