How to Market Digital Products in 21 Ways

Digital products are easy to create and accessible, and they don’t require purchasing expensive inventory or dealing with shipping issues or delays. However, once you’ve finally finished creating your amazing ebook, digital download, or online course, the work isn’t over; it’s just beginning. The magic in digital products isn’t what you’ve created, but the impact it can have when you share it with others.

In this article, we will get down to the nitty-gritty and share how to market digital products online so that you can make money and help people solve their burning problems.

How to Market Digital Products

1. Create a website for your digital product

Selling a digital product without an ecommerce website is possible, but it doesn’t scale well. It’s best to use a digital platform like Payhip to host your products online. You won’t need any fancy plugins or have to pay a monthly subscription to sell your products. With Payhip, you can start selling online courses, digital downloads, ebooks, software, and more.

If you research the best platforms to sell digital products, you’ll know that Payhip has built-in tools designed specifically for uploading digital products online with ease. And with a 5% transaction fee, you’ll only need to pay if you make a sale. So, while you’re building your site, you won’t be losing money. With no obligation to pay monthly subscriptions, you won’t need to worry about your free trial running out.

2. Promote on social media

Having an audience for your digital products is ideal for a big launch. However, it’s understandable that building an audience can take time, and you might be building it on your social channels while you launch your digital product. When thinking about how to grow your social media, the secret is to experiment with many different video styles, assess the level of engagement you get, and optimize to lean into the direction that yields the best responses.

Experimentation and consistently making videos and posts are proven methods for getting results on social media. So, if you want to promote your digital products to a large social media audience, you’ve got to keep experimenting and pumping out content. It doesn’t matter where you build your audience, whether it’s Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube. By regularly posting photos or videos, you can attract customers and build an audience over the long haul.

3. Launch a mini product or lead magnet

To market digital products effectively, you need to have an entry product or offer to hook people into what you’re selling. For some, the mini product is a free version of what you offer. If you write cookbooks, you could include a mini-cookbook with 10 recipes as a lead magnet to grow your email list and promote your paid cookbook. If you sell software, you might have a free plan with limited features so people can see what your product is capable of before signing up for the paid version.

4. Build out a blog to market your digital goods

On your website, you need an active blog to post content promoting your digital goods. Keep in mind that the blog posts you write won’t be directly about the digital product you’ve created, but will revolve around the same niche with tie-ins. This is especially useful if you’re targeting search traffic around digital products to sell in your niche. You’re not going to write a blog post on “Ten Reasons to Buy the Ultimate Sales Funnel Ebook,” but you might write a blog post on “How to Create a Sales Funnel” with a lead magnet that convinces people to opt-in to your email list and a call-to-action to buy your sales funnel ebook. When running a blog, consistency is everything. You need to publish content at least twice a week for it to grow. Create a posting schedule you can follow for years, not just right now. Without consistency, your blog won’t grow as fast as you’d like.

5. Create a waitlist before launch

Marketing your digital products is a whole lot easier once you’ve already built a pre-existing audience. If you start promoting your product after you’ve completed making it, without building an audience along the way, you’ll find your launch gets no sales. It’s easier to create a product than it is to market it. However, those who build an audience alongside creating their product are more likely to succeed because they’ll gain insights along the way, making their product an even better experience for their target market. So start posting content on your website, grow your social media following, and build your product wait list.

6. Share your product in online communities

To sell your digital product, you’ll need to promote it in various online communities. You might post in social media groups on Facebook or LinkedIn. However, think about other channels as well. Take online forums, for example. They tend to rank well in search results. You can hack sales if you find forum posts about your exact topic that are ranked on the first page of Google so that you can get direct traffic to your post from someone else’s community. Keep in mind some communities have moderators, so you’ll want posts to look natural rather than overtly promotional. Focus on building trust by sharing value and answering people’s questions by using your product as the solution.

7. Create landing pages per product

On any website, the landing pages are typically the money-makers when it comes to content. Why? Well, they’re usually the most high-intent pages. If you’re selling a product, your product pages will convert most favorably because it showcases what your product does, what features you have, and other core elements of your website. For example, if you created a resume builder product, you’ll create landing pages for resume builder, resume tailor, cover letter generator, and more, which lead more people to your product. These convert better than top-of-funnel industry content. The more closely related your landing page is to your product, the more sales you’ll get.

8. Ask customers to leave reviews for digital products

Social proof is crucial to your success when selling digital products in your business. While reviews might not directly lead to a sale, when people read the feedback your product has received, it helps potential customers decide whether your course, ebook, software, or any digital download is right for them. Don’t hide or suppress negative reviews either, because sometimes that helps convince people to buy products too. The unhelpful reviews are the generic ones, such as “good product” or “I learned cool stuff.” If it’s short and vague, it may not be as helpful as a detailed review with pictures or videos that will convince people to purchase your digital product.

9. Create an affiliate program for your digital product

An affiliate program, or any referral program for that matter, can be an effective digital marketing channel for your digital downloads. An affiliate program is a marketing tactic that pays bloggers, influencers, and marketers a commission for promoting your products and generating new customers. They’re doing all the marketing work for you, but you only pay when a sale is made. You can find affiliates by reaching out to them and promoting your program, joining affiliate networks, and adding refer-a-friend programs when developing websites or apps.

10. Send marketing email campaigns

If you’ve built an audience and already have an email list, great! You can use this list to help you with the conversion rate for your new digital product. If you’re starting from scratch, you can create a lead magnet to entice people to sign up for your email list. This way, you can nurture your audience and increase sales as you roll out new products on your store or website. With email, you can use templates to help guide the design of your email. However, remember that plain-text emails always perform best for conversion rates, though they’re less professional than well-designed emails.

11. Partner with other creators

Product launches are more successful when you rope in other creators. When I launched my first ebook, I added quotes and company tools to it to get it reshared by influencers who quoted it and by the founders of the tools. My plan worked. While not everyone ended up resharing the ebook, many did. When creating products, ask yourself how you can build a marketing channel into your book to get more people talking about it. Mentioning influencers and companies in a book with a positive intent will make them more likely to share your ebook with others for the feature. Collaborations always help amplify a product.

12. Run advertising campaigns to generate leads

Marketing your digital product will likely require you to spend on campaigns to drive sales. It’s worth noting that advertising isn’t just about creating an ad and watching millions of dollars worth of sales pour in. Just because you spend money doesn’t guarantee it’ll be profitable or even make a single sale. Like all marketing, the secret to mastering advertising is experimenting with different copy, images, videos, and call-to-actions to figure out what resonates with people to compel them to buy.

13. Create bundles

Bundles are a great way to sell digital products to consumers. For instance, some products aren’t typically sold individually, such as clipart, illustrations, and more. Bundling multiple items helps you make more sales. Plus, the cost of a bundle is typically higher than that of an individual item sold, so you’ll earn more money overall. You can easily bundle products on Payhip to help boost your average order value.

14. Send sales pitches to potential customers

Most digital product creators will avoid doing sales to promote their products. Sales can be unsettling for some people because they fear being turned down. However, by consistently reaching out to people through their DMs or email inboxes, you’ll eventually receive positive responses. Those no’s will become easier and easier to hear with practice. The secret to a successful sales pitch is to keep it short and sweet. It should be no more than three sentences. Basically, tell them who you are, what your offer to them is, what you need from them in return, and a closing statement to elicit a response or action.

15. Host giveaways or contests

Giveaways and contests are a great way to get visibility for your products. If you sell ebooks, you can give away 100 copies in a giveaway, so you can increase the number of readers of your books and boost your reviews as well. Those reviews will help boost your sales. You can also run giveaways or contests to build your email list. That way, when you’re about to launch a new feature or product, you can share it with a much bigger list to help you boost sales.

16. Write and distribute a digital press release

Writing a press release to promote your digital products, new online course, or software can be a great way to build hype for your brand. The media often publishes stories about new businesses launching, so this could be a great way to get people talking about your product, especially if it’s newsworthy. You can find the email addresses of reporters online or by visiting the Masthead section of popular online magazines. The idea of getting news outlets to write about you offers an element of social proof that can yield you a new order or a monthly customer. When writing your press release, focus on creating an unusual angle that’s relevant, timely, and attention-grabbing to entice people to write about you on their site. Creating a business or entrepreneur media kit on your website will allow journalists to find photos, logos, and other essential information to help them write their stories about your brand and products.

17. Create tutorial videos about your products

You can market your digital products by creating YouTube tutorials. This doesn’t work for all product types, but if you sell software, this could be a helpful trick. Often, people turn to tutorial videos to learn how to do something. If you sell software that helps people solve that problem, people will likely sign up to use your application. Producing tutorial videos about your products creates value for your online business and makes it easier to sell them. Alternatively, if you sell educational ebooks or online courses, you can create tutorial videos that cover general information, with the advanced content gated on your website.

18. Sell on a marketplace

Marketing your product to an existing audience is the easiest way to make money online. When you build your online store with Payhip, you’ll be eligible to have your products listed on Payhip Marketplace once you’ve made $10 in sales. After being approved by a team member, your products will be listed on the marketplace, where you’ll be able to reach customers who wouldn’t find you any other way. It’s a great way to increase sales without having your own big audience.

19. Promote at online summits or in-person conferences

You can promote your digital products at online summits or conferences as part of your digital marketing strategy. Often, a keynote speaker at these events will share unique insights that build trust and value, positioning them as an authority on the topic. At the end of the talk, they’ll promote their website, where you can purchase digital products, online courses, or other paid content as an upsell. Speaking at these events helps you build credibility so people want to buy from you. You can spend your one-hour slot sharing tips and tricks you’ve learned over the years, and share how your product will help them even more.

20. Host online challenges to help with marketing digital products

To promote digital products, you can host online challenges. For example, if you have a fitness course as your digital product, you might host a fitness challenge to boost sign-ups and engagement. Coming up with ideas for challenges doesn’t need to be complicated. For example, a fitness challenge could involve completing daily workouts, taking as many classes as possible in a month, or breaking your records. You can offer tutorials and videos to help people get started.

21. Build membership sites

You can use a platform like Payhip to create membership sites for your digital products. If you sell multiple digital products, a membership site is an excellent way to promote them. It’ll be like running an online store, as you’ll sell various products through a monthly membership subscription. So, you need to know some ecommerce marketing to attract people to your site. Membership websites can host various content, such as multiple online courses, a collection of ebooks, or any other digital downloads you can sell online. Since there will be various content for people to consume, they’ll feel like they’re getting more value, which keeps them hooked on your business for months on end. You don’t need to spend money on a Shopify or WordPress website for your membership site to make this happen, either. Payhip offers a free plan that lets you pay only a 5% transaction fee on every sale. So, instead of paying a monthly subscription, your customers are paying you.

5 Mistakes People Make When Marketing Digital Products

1. Launching without an audience

Marketing your digital products effectively is best done with an existing audience. When you launch without an audience, you haven’t done the work of getting as much visibility for your product. When my friend was building his first video game, he shared his process on Reddit and posted on Twitter throughout the build. Then, when he finished his first trailer, he reached out to the media for coverage. His game got multiple pre-orders. He kept marketing while simultaneously building his game. His first game launched with thousands of orders, despite being an indie and a first-time game developer. 

2. Dabbling in every marketing channel at once

It’s easy to spread yourself thin in marketing. When you’re active in multiple channels, you often don’t get the reach you need. When you focus on marketing through one channel, you start studying that platform in depth. You analyze the types of posts that go viral and start mimicking that style. Marketers might do more experiments to see what pops off. Overall, there’s greater awareness and strategy when you limit your channels. If you pick one channel and commit to it for over a year, you’ll see that you have had traction over time. 

3. Not collecting email addresses

An email list is the greatest marketing asset you can own because you can move it into other platforms. You can’t easily transfer your Instagram followers to TikTok. However, with email, you can remarket to your audience, create lookalike audiences for ads, and change email providers, moving your list from one platform to another. For authors, their email list is often their biggest money maker for generating sales. Email also works well when selling courses, software, and more. The more niche your product and email list, the better your conversions will be. For instance, if your email list is just romance book readers and you’re a romance author, you’ll get more sales than if you have an email list from a mix of people who read various genres. 

4. Promoting products inconsistently

Consistency is the most important element of marketing. Everything in marketing compounds. Your first social media post will get a few views. Your first piece of content will get no traffic. Your first step of anything is never as big a step as you think it is. There’s rarely a wild windfall of success from doing something one time. The volume of creating multiple products, marketing them daily, and more is what leads to long-term results. Compounding in marketing is a thing. After posting on a channel for years, you’ll have tens of thousands of followers or even millions of them. 

5. Ignoring customer feedback

When it comes to marketing digital products, it’s so crucial to take in as much customer feedback as you can get. The feedback you get can be worked into to tweak your product and make it better. Plus, any customer insights you gather can be incorporated into future products, such as ebooks. That way, you’re giving the people what they actually want. 

Best Marketing Strategies By Product Type

Conclusion

Now that you know how to market a digital product, it’s time to work on your promotional plan for its big release. You’ve poured hours into creating a sellable product, but it’s not until you get those sales that all that hard work pays off. You can go deep on one of these promotional activities or try a few out to expand your reach. Selling digital products on your own website rather than a platform like Amazon gives you more control over your products. If you’re thinking about promoting your digital products, sign up for Payhip today.

FAQ

How do I market a digital product?

There’s no one way to market a digital product. However, some product types perform best on specific channels. For example, ebooks are best sold through email lists. Templates are easily sold on Pinterest. Coaching services can be marketed on Instagram or LinkedIn, depending on the niche. Overall, there are multiple channels and many product types you can choose from. 

How do I start in digital marketing?

You can start in digital marketing by building an audience online. Some people choose to do this by building a social media page and growing a following on the platform of their choice. Others build websites and grow audiences through content marketing and email list building. Overall, the best way to learn digital marketing is to start doing it. 

How do I market digital products effectively?

You can market digital products effectively by building an audience before creating a product. When building an audience, focus on a single niche. That way, you’ll attract the right people in a targeted way. When you build a product, it should be about that niche. If your content is about multiple niches, it can be hard to be recognized as influential in your space because you’re creating scattered content. Having a niche focus is half the battle. Then, you need to continuously create products in that vertical to best monetize that audience. 

How can I get my first sale selling digital products?

You can get your first sale by promoting digital products on social media or running ads. If you’ve been building an email list while creating your digital products, you can also send an email to get your first few sales. 

Where can I market my digital products for free?

You can market your digital products for free on Payhip Marketplace. Payhip Marketplace is a platform where creators can upload their digital products to sell to existing audiences. You’ll need to earn $10 in sales and be approved by a Payhip team member to start selling on the platform. 

How can I do market research for my digital product?

You can do market research for your digital product on social media. For instance, you can post an Instagram story asking for feedback or ideas on something you’re building. Alternatively, you can use Reddit to ask questions to collect market research for your product. 

How can I market digital products on Pinterest?

Pinterest is a search-based platform. The best way to market digital products on Pinterest is by including the main keyword in the title, alt text, and description. The description should also include other relevant keywords written in an engaging manner to help you get the visibility you need. Your pins also need to match the aesthetic of what’s already ranking high for that keyword.