Are you searching for creative ways to generate new ideas for your digital products?
If you answered yes—and, let’s face it, all existing brands and startups are looking for brilliant ideas to lead their product—then you’ve come to the right place.
In the past, creating your very own product may have seemed like an unattainable dream. There was ample work and fortune involved in building and marketing a product. But not anymore.
In today’s world, anyone can create a digital product and earn money. One of the biggest perks of creating a digital product is that you create it once and sell it over and over again. These products are cost-efficient and can generate tons of money.
Let’s take a look at a few stats related to popular digital products (podcasts, e-book, and more):
- As per Statista, 191 million e-books were sold in the United States in 2020.
- The e-book market was valued at USD 18.13 billion in 2020. It is expected to reach USD 23.12 billion by 2026, at a CAGR of 4.9% (2021-2026).
- In 2020, an estimated 100 million people listened to a podcast each month, and it is expected to reach 125 million in 2022.
- As per industry reports, the global podcasting market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 27.5% between 2020 and 2027, reaching $60.5 billion.
- WordPress powers around 27% of all websites with a 76.4% share of the CMS market. The potential for selling WordPress related digital products is huge.
- Video is an engaging form of content with 8 billion video views per day on Facebook alone.
The above stats are enough to prove the huge potential of digital product creation. But like any other business of true value, you will not achieve overnight success. You’ll have to put in plenty of hard work first. And once you create a great digital product strategy, there’s no stopping you. So, here are my ten steps on how to build a digital product that sells:
How do you create a digital product?
Here are a few steps to create ideas for a new product:
1. Brainstorm, brainstorm and brainstorm:
‘’Brainstorming is the nexus of ideas.’’ – Asa Don Brown
Well, the first step is to brainstorm innovative product ideas for the right digital product. You may have many ideas for a new product, but only the most impressive one should go forward. Create a digital product that solves customer’s pain points. This can be done by researching the market and listening to customers.
You can also conduct a brainstorming session among your teammates to generate more digital product business ideas in a short span. Once the brainstorming session is done, analyze the ideas and come up with a digital product that’s irresistible to the audience.
Like Kevin Systorm once said, ‘’Great products sell themselves.’’ So, if you have a brilliant digital product idea, you will build a great reputation, word will spread, and you will see quite a nice payoff come your way.
2. Do in-depth customer research:
It’s vital to do in-depth research on customers and market before you launch your product. If you don’t understand your customer, it will be very difficult to sell the product. The research consists of three incredibly important questions:
- What are the potential customers’ biggest pain points?
- What will push people to seek out information in your niche?
- What changes do they anticipate to see?
Answering these questions will help you come up with opportunities that lie within a niche. This will also enable you to create more targeted marketing strategies and tailor the product specifically to their needs.
In the words of Mike Gospe – ‘’Whoever understands the customer best, wins.”
Below are a few research tips:
- Research on forums – Be it any niche, there will be forums around it. Forums are communities of people searching for information and solutions. You can find these forums through quick search on Google. You can also search for the niche on Facebook and select groups and pages.
- Ask questions – It’s a good idea to ask questions to customers for digital product creation. People like speaking about the problems they are facing, so listen carefully. There’s always something to learn from customers.
- Study other successful products – Analyze other successful products for product ideation. You can easily learn and benefit from them. Study these products, but NEVER copy them. Take inspiration from other ideas and spin it to make it unique.
In the end, the product must solve customers’ problems. If the product solves a problem, the customers will want to buy that product.
3. Prototype solves most of your problems:
With the help of a prototype, you can put your creativity in one place and organize all your ideas. In case you have missed something in digital product design or any improvement is needed in the product, a prototype will help you exclude or include changes accordingly.
Building a prototype will also give you a rough estimate of the cost of the business. The prototype will determine the productivity and performance of the developed item. Additionally, your product will be taken more seriously among the competitors.
4. Make a visually appealing product:
That’s right! Your digital product should look impressive enough to buy. Consumers buy with their eyes; if your product looks appealing, they are more likely to buy it.
‘’Great design will not sell an inferior product, but it will enable a great product to achieve its maximum potential.’’ – Lee Iacocca
According to a study, when a product’s design is powerful and impressive, consumers are less sensitive to its price. So, make sure you invest time in creating aesthetic digital product designs. You can even hire digital product design services to create better experiences for your customers.
5. Complete your product:
Once all your innovative digital product ideas (2021) are compiled, you can work on completing your project. For this, you can hire a product development company or a development agency. This will speed up the development process in an efficient manner.
Write the technical documentation so that you know how to insert banners, images, edit relevant sections, etc. All pages should be developed according to the digital product concept design and technical document provided. Your product should be compatible with all browsers and devices.
6. Detailed quality assurance is a MUST:
Detailed quality assurance is crucial before launching the product in the market. QA engineers must ensure that all the functions of the digital product are working in accordance with product experience design and technical requirements. There’s no better person to judge the quality of your product than a QA manager.
7. Marketing and launch plan:
Well, we all have heard this quote like a zillion times – ‘Customer is the King. And so, your customer and his preference should be the centre point of all your marketing strategies. You should be able to gain their interest via your marketing plans.
With several marketing platforms such as digital media, print media and television, you can make your brand recognizable. However, as mentioned above, your product should be visually appealing. The advertisements should be catchy and impressive enough to attract customers.
8. Incorporate feedback and tweak your product:
‘’We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.” – Bill Gates
If you want to succeed as a digital product creator, listen to your customer’s feedback. It is much easier to upgrade a digital product than a physical product. Your customer’s will appreciate receiving updated versions. If they will continually see you adding value to what they have purchased, they are most likely to buy your next product.
I also recommend you to offer some of your biggest fans the chance to preview your digital product. Collect their feedback before the final launch and incorporate the changes, if any. By getting constructive feedback, you can ensure you’re putting out a digital product that’s best.
9. Collaborate with strategic launch partners:
Make your digital product launch a big event. It’ll get your audience excited and the hype will bring both higher conversion rates and more new customers. Involve social media influencers, brands and bloggers in your space. Imagine your outreach if you partner with someone who has a larger audience than yours, and they’re interested in the same topics.
If you can manage to partner with someone in your industry, it’s a win-win situation for the both of you.
10. Launch and then scale up:
What I mean to say is once you launch the product, it’s time to scale everything upwards. Set up a sequence of newsletters or emails to build anticipation with your existing audience. This would help increase conversion rates and bring in new audiences.
Now would also be the time to get started with paid advertising on Facebook and Twitter. You can also indulge in direct selling from Facebook, if you have a sizable audience.
Final Note
Well, we hope this blog answers your questions on how to make digital products and how to get new product ideas. In a nutshell, whether you want to generate new ideas for digital products or improve a current product, you need to create a systematic approach towards product creation. You can hire a creative product development team that will help you create something that would be a success.
Inventing something out-of-the-box requires hard work and effort. The products we use on a daily basis are the creation of hardworking minds. These products have been proved useful and thriving in the market. If you also try hard enough, then you can also turn your idea into a successful product. The above-mentioned steps will help you in doing the same.