One of the toughest questions to answer when making your first digital product is, “What
should it be?”
There are so many different digital product types to choose from, and you might even have
several different ideas.
How do you decide which to do first?
In this video, I’ll take you through some strategies to answer that question and help
you get started.
Let’s get into it.
Welcome to “First sale to full scale” a 10 video series that covers the journey
from making your first digital product to running a full-scale online business.
Ahead, I’m going to share five strategies to help you discover a great first digital
product idea that customers will be excited to buy from you.
Let’s jump into the first one to help you come up with a list of ideas that you can
choose from.
And a quick side note.
Even if you already have a list, this is a great step to help you figure out which of
your ideas have the best chance at being a hit.
Talk to your people One of the best places to start is the people
who know you and care about you.
Make a list of 15-20 of your closest friends and family members and schedule some time
to have a quick chat with them.
You may have to explain a bit about how digital products work and what you’re trying to
do, but then you can ask questions like:
What do you think I’m good at or know a lot about?
What are some ways I’ve helped you with my experience or expertise?
What problems do you hear about that make you think of me as a recommendation?
We’re not always great at sharing with others what we think they’d be great at, so you
never know what hidden insights might just be waiting for you to uncover.
Likewise, you can go to your audience.
Whether through your email newsletter, on social media, or in a video, ask them why
they follow you and how your creative work has made a difference in their lives.
Even if you’ve already got some ideas, this can be a great way to validate the ones that
will resonate the most.
Do some Reddit research While there are lots of online forums and
communities, Reddit is one of the best because it’s well moderated, there’s a huge diversity
of topics, and a wealth of honest comments and questions.
Start with a search for the topic of one of your product ideas and then put in quotes
a phrase like “how do you” “I’m having trouble” or “please help” to get a list
of discussions that contain those phrases and your keyword.
As you look through the discussions, notice how people describe their problems.
Are people getting fired up?
Are they emotional about the problem?
The more passionate people are about solving a problem, the more profitable your solution
could be.
Use the passion/profit matrix The passion/profit matrix is a tool you can
use to categorize your product ideas to find a product with high earning potential that
you’ll also enjoy creating.
Here to explain how it works is Podia’s CMO, the master of marketing, Len Markidan:
take it away, Len.
Boom!
That’s the goal.
You want to choose something that makes money, but that’s also not going to cause you to
burn out six months down the road.
Take your list and score each idea on how profitable it is and how passionate you are
about it.
Markers of a profitable product include the following:
-it’s targeted toward people who have money -It helps people make money
-People get fired up when they talk about the problem it solves
Once you’ve scored your ideas, plug them into the profit/passion matrix with low profit
to high profit going from left to right, and low passion to high passion going from bottom
to top.
The ones in or closest to the upper right are your best bets.
Hopefully, at this point, you’ve narrowed your list down a bit.
It’s time to move on to the next strategy.
Search for the product you want to make Has someone already made a product similar
to the one you want to make?
That’s actually great news.
If people are already buying a product, that means there’s a market for it.
Not only that but looking at similar products gives you an opportunity to improve on what’s
already out there and offer something unique.
Let’s say you want to teach beginner singing lessons.
We can look for online singing lessons on a site like Skillshare where people leave
reviews about their experience.
In the lower starred reviews, there are often clues about what that product was missing
or how it fell short of the customers’ expectations.
You can take what you’ve learned from those reviews and turn them into ways to make your
product even better.
Now on to our last strategy.
Choose the medium that works best for your audience.
Once you’ve found a great product idea, it’s still important to choose the right
medium for that product.
Should it be a digital download?
A video-based online course?
A webinar?
A membership?
There are actually a lot of different mediums to choose from.
Sometimes you can find the answer in the previous step.
What did customers of existing products have to say about the delivery method?
Would they have preferred a different medium?
Aside from that, there are two important things to consider when choosing a medium for your
product:
1.
Which delivery method is the best fit for your audience?
For example, if your target audience is young parents with limited free time, a short audio-based
product might be a better fit than a long video-based online course.
On the other hand, if your target audience is business professionals who budget time
and money for in-depth training, something long-form like a video-based online course
could be a good fit.
2.
Which medium do I feel the most comfortable with?
Answer this question both in terms of what you feel technically capable of doing and
in terms of your preferred communication style.
Video-based online courses are popular, but if you feel really intimidated by filming
and editing video, it might be better to start with something simpler.
You might also feel more comfortable writing than speaking.
And it’s okay to start small.
In many cases, a great place to start is some kind of small digital download like a pdf
guide or checklist.
You don’t have to come out of the gate with a 40-hour video-based online course.
Doing something small means getting your product out and getting feedback on that product sooner
so you can continue to tweak and improve until you’re ready to create something more in-depth.
Hopefully, these strategies have helped you identify a product idea that you’re excited
about and that will make you money.
In the next video, we’ll talk about how to market your product so you can get people
excited and eager to buy.
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Thanks for watching and I’ll see you next time.