Start a Successful Digital Product Business in 2024 (in 5 easy steps)

 

Start a SUCCESSFUL Digital Product Business in 2024 (in 5 steps)

 

Are you ready to make 2024 the year you start and grow your successful digital product shop?

 

If that’s a YES! Then keep on reading. 😊

 

I have 5 steps that will help you make a lot of money selling digital products on Etsy, fast.

 

These steps are based on my proprietary frameworks that I teach inside my program that have helped hundreds of people start and grow successful digital product businesses on Etsy.

 

 

If you want to learn more on how you can grow a successful Etsy shop then you'll want to check out my free training "The 3 Secrets to Digital Product Etsy Shop Success"

➡️ Click here to sign up

Step #1: 

Find your “sweet spot” digital product idea

You need to find the digital product idea that is most profitable FOR YOU.

 

Here’s why: 

1. Not every business idea is a GOOD business idea.

2. A good product idea for one person can be a bad product idea for another person.

 

What you need is CLARITY on what the most profitable product idea is for YOU specifically!

 

And I get it, getting clarity is confusing. 😕

 

Here's the shift you need to make, It’s not about getting COMPLETE clarity.

 

At first, you just need to get MORE clarity. 

 

How we do this in my program Marketing for Makers Academy (MMA) is by evaluating your product ideas with the Tripe E formula.

 

What you do is you evaluate each of your ideas as it pertains to each area of profitability:

1.  Emotionally: Does this idea bring you joy and excitement? 💖😌
2.  Energetically: Will this product idea drain you 🪫😩 or does it complement your natural talents and skills so your energy flows?🔋✨ 
3.  Economically: Is there proof of concept? Are other people making money with this product already and if so, how much? 🫰💵

 

So, why is it important to be profitable in these areas?

• Emotionally What happens if you don’t enjoy your business? Well it will feel like a burden so you’ll be more prone to burn out and you’re less likely to show up and put in the required effort it takes to start a new business 

 

• Energetically What happens if you’re not honoring what you’re naturally good at? Well it’s going to be that much harder for you to get into action and launch your products because of that steep learning curve. It's easy to give up in the beginning if something seems too hard because you’re not aware of the benefits yet.

 

• Economically If it doesn’t make you money then it's just a hobby and we’re trying to make money.

 

But if you have all 3, you're enjoying your business, you’re aligned, and you’re making money – a business idea like that, you can easily scale… but it’s individual to each person.

 

So inside MMA, we have you fill out a scorecard for each digital product idea and what you end up with is a total score for each idea based on the 3 areas of profitability.

 

There will be obvious winners and those are YOUR most profitable ideas 🙌

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Remember the numbers don’t lie!

 

This removes the "analysis paralysis" that was holding you back in the first place!

 

Now, after doing this exercise, some students just know that they found their profitable idea that they want to start with and they’re good to go, BUT some people are still interested in exploring their top 2 or 3 ideas.

 

So the next step is to TEST out ALL of those top ideas

 

Because at this point actually GETTING INTO ACTION will help you gather the information you need to then refine your business vision further, NOT overthinking it.

 

Don’t let perfectionism get in the way. During this experimental period, we're not focused on perfecting things.

 

Why? 

 

Because there are benefits to niching down on Etsy but not if it’s keeping you from discovering the path you really want to follow because you believe more thinking is the answer.

Now that you have your idea or ideas...

 

Let's move on to Step #2... 

Outrank the competition with PROPER market research.

 

A common complaint I hear is 

“The market is too saturated”

 

Now, while it's true, there is a decent amount of "competition" on Etsy and it’s not as competitive as you THINK!

 

That's because there is a difference between a validated product idea vs. a validated offer.

 

Meaning, it’s not only about validating that a TYPE of product is selling

 

it’s ALSO SO important to validate WHAT the offer is made up of.

 

But most people don’t do this….

 

 

Let me give you an example

Earlier this year I created an "Invoice Template" because

1. I saw it was green across the board on Marmalead (meaning it had promising search volume and low competition)
2. I validated the product idea was selling well on Etsy.

Without doing any additional research, I jumped on Canva and got to work. After I was done creating my masterpiece, I published it on Etsy expecting sales to pour in. I waited and waited...

 

​I only made 2 sales in 2 months! 😭

 

The problem?

The profitable product idea was validated (ie. invoice template)

 

But the offer was not!

 

But I fixed it! 🥳

 

How?

​

I did PROPER market research!

 

👇 HERE'S one way I did this 👇

I dug deeper using the tool "Keywords Everywhere" (a Google Chrome extension that reports the monthly search volume of keywords that are typed into Google, the largest search engine in the world.)

 

This is one of the many tools I suggest and teach how to use in Marketing for Makers Academy™!

 

(You can sign up here to check out the Keywords Everywhere tool.)

 

Then, here's what I found:

 

On Google, the keyword:

 

"Invoice Template Canva" had only 210 searches per month

BUT

"Invoice Template Word" had 40,500 per month! 🤯

 

 

I would have never known this by just using at Marmalead (which is one of the Etsy SEO research tools I suggest)

 

This is because the Marmalead data set is so much smaller compared to Google.

 

To paint the picture for you, on Marmalead:

"Invoice Template Canva" reports 29 searches per month on Etsy

VS

"Invoice Template Word" reports 37 searches per month on Etsy

 

So... what did I do?

 

I created an Invoice Template for Microsoft Word which meant my offer was now more aligned with the demands of the market 🙌

 

and what happened?

 

I went from making 2 sales in 60 days to making 103 sales in 60 days…

 

And that listing became a bestseller.

What does this teach us?

1️⃣ That it's crucial to determine the demand of our offer, not just our product idea.

2️⃣ Though competitor research and Etsy tools definitely have their place, proper market research includes the use of tools that go beyond that research.

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And here’s YOUR advantage…

 

Most people don't do this!

 

Most people don’t DO proper research

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This is WHY a market can SEEM more competitive than it actually is!

 

LOOK!

​

We literally just explored how there are 155X MORE searches on Google for the keyword term "Invoice Template Word" than there is for "Invoice Template Canva"...

​

BUT there are LESS listings on Etsy that are actually offering what the market largely wants and there are MORE offers for the offer that has less demand… invoice templates for Canva.

 

 

So is the market too competitive?

​

If you're not doing proper market research, yes! It could be too competitive

If you are doing proper market research, no! Its WAY less competitive

 

Moving on to step #3...

Your listing details need to persuade people to purchase your product

 

You do this by including the right details, the right way.

 

In MMA, we help you do this by showing you how to position your products based on consumer psychology.

 

Consumer psychology says that people buy because of emotion and back it up with logic but I often see sellers emphasize heavily on the logical aspects of their offer, with little to no emphasis on the emotional reasons why they should buy their product.

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But, if you're not making your target customer feel emotions in your marketing, this can greatly affect their desire for your offer, leading to a much lower conversion rate.

​

So what you want to do is make sure your listing details are doing it's job by including BOTH the logical and emotional reasons why your customer should purchase from you.

 

You do this by showcasing the features and benefits.

 

FEATURES are the WHAT of your offer (anything your offer has, is, does, or can do).

​

While the BENEFITS are the WHY (how your product will improve your ideal customers situation/life).

​

Features lean into logic.

 

Customers might think "wow that makes sense, I need all of that"

​

Benefits lean into emotion.

 

For example:

"This is going to..."

- "Reduce stress so I can sleep better"

- "Save me time so I can be with my kids more"

- "Make my home feel more cozy and warm"

...or however your product makes your customers FEEL better.

​

How do you come up with your features and benefits and how do you express them in a compelling way to shoppers?

​

👇 Here's what you need to do 👇

Step 1: Inside Marketing for Makers Academy™ we instruct you to list out all of your offers features and then for each feature say the words “so you can…:” to easily come up with benefits for each feature.

​​

Take a look at how we do this inside MMA.

This is an example for templates I created (Instagram templates for online coaches looking to grow their audience and sell their offers):

 

Step 2: Then you want to make sure you include BOTH features and benefits in your LISTING PHOTOS.

​

Here's an example of how I showcase various features in one listing photo…

 FEATURES

And here’s how I showcase the BENEFITS in another…

 BENEFITS

Do this and you'll stir up emotion in the buyer while backing it up with logic.

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Which will increase the likelihood of them purchasing, aka increasing your conversion rate! 🙌

 

➡️ We cover all of this and more in module 2 of Marketing for Makers Academy so if you’re interested feel free to learn more about MMA by watching the free training here!

 

Okay, on to step #4 which is you should... 

A/B Test things that are subjective and complex

 

In MMA we teach you step by step how to title and tag your listings, which is important because if your SEO is not good, you will have a hard time being found.

 

We also teach you how to create compelling main photos which is important because if no one is compelled to click on your listing, no one will buy your product.

 

Here’s the problem:

 

If a listing isn’t selling, people seem to assume it’s because of their SEO because they think “well, I’m not getting traffic and how you get traffic is through keywords, so it must be my keywords”

 

But the algorithm doesn’t surface your listing just based on just SEO – it’s smarter than that.

 

When you first launch a listing, Etsy gives that listing a temporary boost in the algorithm to see how shoppers interact with it, but if that listing doesn’t get clicked on or it does, but no one purchases it, it will drop that listing in the algorithm.

 

But if people ARE clicking on it, favoriting it, and purchasing it, Etsy will BOOST it in the algorithm for more people to see it – this includes helping you rank for keywords that you didn’t necessarily add to your titles or tags because it learns other keywords people search for to find a product like yours and helps you rank for those too.

 

But SEO still matters and we have limited space in our titles and tags and we want to see better results faster

 

So, what I suggest is:

After you learn how to optimize your listings for search properly – you A/B test different SEO for the same offer so you can learn overtime which keywords are working for you faster.

 

The same thing goes for your main photo, testing multiple versions will help you understand what's working the best for that offer, faster!

 

And all of that information you gather about what’s working and what’s not working will help you make listings with better keywords and more compelling listings so you can sell more.

 

Now for step #5...

Have a Launch or Re-launch

 

I noticed that students were getting results, BUT it was taking longer than they wanted it to, which became a problem.

 

It was a problem because one of the best ways to grow your shop strategically is by looking at the DATA, seeing what’s working and doubling down on that.

 

BUT if it’s taking you a long time to GET that data then it takes that much longer to scale your business.

 

The reason for this was largely because most of them were doing the old "post and ghost!" 📱 👻

 

Post and Ghost is a term I use to describe when an Etsy seller hits "publish" on their new listing (post) but they sit back, cross their fingers, and wait, hoping that the Etsy algorithm will take it from there (ghost).

 

Basically, it's not taking any real action to drive your own traffic to your NEW listings.

 

Now, before you think "Drive my OWN traffic to my listings?! Isn't that Etsy's job? Isn't that the point of selling on a third party platform?"

 

There's truth in that, but hear me out.​

​

If you could temporarily put in a little work to drive traffic to your shop (30 days or less) and in return you were promised a bunch of traffic and sales which would then build momentum for your shop resulting in more traffic and sales long after you stopped working to drive that traffic. Would you do it?

​

If you're thinking "okay, yea... I guess so"

​

Smart choice! Because the thing that will help you build momentum and skyrocket your success quickly is…

​

A LAUNCH! 🚀

 

Or if you have a “dead shop” you can revive it by following steps 1 through 4 and then have a “Re-launch”

 

It’s not as complicated as you think!

And you don’t need an audience, sales history, or any social proof to do this successfully if you follow all the steps in the launch plan, and I’ll prove it to you in a moment.

 

Here is why this works so well:

 

This strategy may be temporary (2-4 weeks worth of effort), but if done right, your efforts will have a long lasting effect on your shop and the success of it.

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Why? Because when you make money, Etsy makes money.⁣

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When your listing starts converting, Etsy is going to see that listing as desirable and therefore it will start ranking it higher in the algorithm (in search, suggested, and recommended) even after you're done launching.

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Meaning you can stop the hustle after several weeks, but still make those sales month over month because of it. 👏 👏 ⁣

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The alternative is, if you don't drive your own traffic at first and just rely on Etsy, it could take a looooong time for you to start hitting your revenue goals. This is because of the time it takes to outrank older listings that already have a higher ranking score in your category.

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But, if you LAUNCH, and you don’t make sales, as long as you received a sufficient amount of traffic, which is about 100+ visits to an individual listing, then that tells you that there is something wrong with your offer or how you’re presenting the details, so now you’re more empowered to fix that  instead of wondering quite literally forever, what could possibly be the issue.

  

Now, earlier I said you don’t need to have an audience, sales history, or any social proof in order to launch or re-launch your shop successfully.

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Well, inside Marketing for Makers Academy™ there is a bonus called "Show Me the Money Launch". This lesson explains how I was able to make over $1,000 my first month and beyond selling ONE “highly competitive” digital product with NO existing audience, shop sales history, or social proof by using only 2 out of the 8 strategies I teach inside the bonus.

 

For reading the blog point up until this point, I'll give you a gift! I'll share with you one lesson inside the "Show Me the Money Launch" bonus so you can learn what launching is all about! Click here to claim your free lesson.

 

And remember, if you’re interested to know how to implement all 5 steps properly so you can start and grow a successful digital product business this year then watch the FREE TRAINING "The 3 Secrets to Etsy Shop Success" to learn more!