One of the greatest entrepreneurial opportunities today is that of digital products. Their benefits are many: they’re cheap to produce, highly scalable, can be made for just about any niche, and best of all, easy to get started with even if you don’t have any previous business or online experience.
In this guide, we’ll go over how you can create a digital product even if you have no experience. You’ll also learn five of the easiest digital products that you can make and sell as a beginner, including some time-tested tips to successfully launch and market them so you can get your online money machine started ASAP.
Do I Need Technical Skills to Make Digital Products?
Let’s start by addressing one of the first concerns someone might have about creating a digital product: is it necessary to have technical skills to make them?
The answer is that in today’s age, many tools and platforms make it possible to not only quickly create in-demand digital products but to launch and market them, so one can create them with very little or even no technical skills.
The exception to this is if you’re launching software or a technical product, in which case you’ll need to have the skills to build these products and understand how they work. Even in this case, more and more no-code tools and builders are emerging that make it easier than ever to launch products that previously required technical skills to build. AI can also do much of the legwork when it comes to making money with digital products.
While some people use several tools and platforms to create, launch, and effectively market their products, it’s more efficient to use a service like Whop that makes it easy to create your first product and launch it to a thriving marketplace full of active buyers.
What Skills Do I Need to Make a Digital Product?
Since the technical part of creating a product is mostly taken care of, the most important skills surrounding their creation are soft skills in addition to having basic business acumen.
Here is a summary of the most important qualifications that you and your digital product need to successfully launch:
Topical authority in a marketable niche
One of the most important qualifications for selling a digital product of any kind is a sufficient level of knowledge on a topic that is in demand. Certifications, formal education, and a proven track record will help give you topical authority that will attract customers. While knowledge and credibility are important with some digital products like ebooks and courses, you can choose broader topics or products, such as coloring pages or journals, whose audiences care less about the authority of the creator.
Good understanding of your customer base
Knowing who your customer base is and what their needs and pain points are will help you to create a digital product that will suit their needs. While you may have some initial correct intuition surrounding these areas, you should also conduct research and always listen to comments and feedback to make sure you are always tailoring your product to suit your customer needs best. The more you understand your customer, the more rapport you can build and the more likely you’ll be to build a loyal audience that will choose you over the competition.
Willingness and patience to explain concepts thoroughly
When it comes to creating an ebook or online course, take time to explain your topic thoroughly, guiding your customer step-by-step with progressive learning that addresses any potential confusion along the way. You should be able to simplify the concepts and explain them in a way that your target audience will resonate with. This means being able to simplify and be concise when necessary in addition to going in-depth when appropriate, so your content isn’t too short or overwhelmingly long.
Organization and clarity
Creating a digital product that sells means having a clear and organized message that your potential customers can quickly resonate with. It’s important that you come up with a good title and a logical outline in addition to a product description that is compelling and makes viewers feel confident that your product is the right solution to their problem. When it comes to formatting and design of the actual product, make sure to use headings, subheadings, and bullet points, and organize information into digestible chunks.
Marketing skills
Creating your digital product is just the start of making it a business. Your customers won’t just come to you out of nowhere; you’ll need to get the word out about it through effective marketing. The first step before you market is to create your unique value proposition to differentiate your products from the competition or alternative solutions. You will then build content around this and other compelling reasons for someone to buy your product. Over time, you’ll want to build a fully comprehensive skill set that can leverage all aspects of successful marketing, combining organic and paid methods in addition to email marketing and other channels to reach your audience.
Content creation
No matter what type of digital product you end up selling, if you want to be successful, you’re essentially signing up for the job of being an ongoing content creator. Making the product itself is a form of content creation, but you’ll need to continue to create content surrounding the topic to further establish yourself as an authority. Organic marketing, which is entirely free, is the best way to promote your product and grow an initial audience. You can choose to market with text through an SEO-focused blog, or pictures and videos that you can use to promote on social media. Eventually, you’ll also be making content for ads and email marketing, but start small and organic and continue to hone your brand voice and image so your paid ads convert better when you get to the point of using them.
In addition to these core skills, you’ll need to have basic business acumen; this includes understanding how to price your product based on the current market and customer service. Understanding intellectual property rights can also be helpful, but in the beginning, it’s more important to create the product so you can get it to market and make sales as fast as you can.
How to Create Digital Products: 5 of the Easiest Digital Products to Make and Sell
Making a digital product doesn’t have to be hard – in fact, the process can be incredibly easy depending on which one you choose.
Here are 5 of the easiest digital products to make, even if you have no previous experience:
1. Printable planners
Thanks to design tools such as Canva that offer ready-made templates, making printable planners is incredibly efficient. You’ll be able to pick from several different designs so you can choose one that fits your brand best. You can also choose anything from meal planners to plans made for teachers or other professionals, in addition to something as simple as a nicely designed water tracker.
This type of digital product can be created in mere minutes - you just need to choose a template, theme, and add your branding.
2. Digital coloring pages
For those who have an eye for design and a desire to bring out artistic skills, coloring pages are a great digital product to sell. If you want to make these quickly and easily, you can convert existing images to black-and-white line versions for users to color in.
Additionally, you can buy these as pre-made PLR (private label rights) products (you can even find some for free!), so all you’ll need to do in this case is simply market the coloring pages well, targeting audiences that want to use them for mindfulness, therapy, or entertainment. This is one type of digital product that can be made for you!
3. Recipes
If you’re passionate about cooking or baking, why not turn these recipes into a digital product that you can profit from? Making recipes that you can sell as digital products is straightforward, especially with the help of Canva templates.
You can sell downloadable recipe books or individual recipe sheets featuring your own photos and instructions. Alternatively, you can create a hub or membership site where you can share recipes and other tips with a community of those who are interested in your recipes. Niches surrounding popular diets like keto, Mediterranean, and vegan or vegetarian will sell best when positioned in front of their respective audiences.
4. Ebooks
While making an ebook may seem like a daunting task, if you have the right mindset and willingness to learn about using tools like AI, bringing a book to completion is much easier than you would think.
Whether you’re knowledgeable about a particular topic or you have an idea for a gripping plot, getting it out there as an ebook is a good way to monetize your unique perspective. ChatGPT, Claude, and other tools like Jasper can help you come up with complete outlines or flesh out your initial ideas, helping you push through writer’s block and elaborate on your existing thoughts.
5. Online courses
Now, of all the products we have listed, this one takes the most amount of effort to create - but still is much easier than you may think.
Online courses are digital products that have the potential to sell for top dollar – in the right niches such as high-ticket ecommerce or consulting, a price tag of a few thousand dollars isn’t unheard of for a course. So if you have any skill or knowledge that others would gladly pay you for or already have in the past, rather than selling your time for money, take the time to sit down and record content that you can package neatly into a course.
Creating your online course doesn’t have to be hard – you can use a course creator (like the one on Whop) to make your course, or you can even start with PLR, buying an existing course and simply adding your branding before you sell it.
For all of these products listed, you can consider using PLR products – this is content that is ready-made for you to rebrand and use as your own, giving you the potential to save a significant amount of time.
How Do I Sell Digital Products?
Once you’ve created your digital product, you carry on with the second and most important part of the job, which is to get them out there and sold so you can get paid. However, you want as little friction as possible in this process, and thankfully, with the right platform and tools, you can quickly make a listing and get them sold quickly.
While several platforms can help you host and list your product, not many come with a high-converting sales page, powerful dashboard, easy-to-use tools, and full customization capabilities with apps – this is what Whop provides completely free, making it a top choice for a digital products platform.
Selling Digital Products With Whop: The Easiest Way to Make Money Online
If you’re looking for the easiest and most effective way to get your digital product out there, look no further than Whop. The all-in-one platform is designed specifically for savvy creators and entrepreneurs who want to monetize their skills and knowledge without the hassle of a complex setup, high fees, or worrying about where they should launch.
As a creator on Whop, you’ll have the ability to create your very own corner of the internet. With a whop, you can monetize all or part of it and grant access to digital products in addition to other capabilities like a chat or forum.
Best of all, signing up is completely free, and once your product is made, you’ll get to launch on Whop’s thriving marketplace. It's quickly becoming the go-to source for finding the ideal digital product, from ebooks and courses to SaaS, private memberships, and everything in between.
Check out how quick and easy it is to launch your very own product on Whop, and start selling today.
