The complete guide to make a digital product to sell

I’m walking you through the complete step-by-step of how to create a digital product for your online or freelance business. This is perfect for freelancers or service providers who already work with clients in a done-for-you or 1:1 capacity and want to add a passive revenue stream to their business. You even get a sneak peek at the A to Z Digital Product Development Plan, which is a bonus inside one of my own digital products (how meta).

Watch the video below or keep reading for ideas, inspiration, and to get unstuck coming up with your first digital product idea, then creating it.

How to create a digital product for your freelance business

…Without wasting time and energy…

If “grow and scale your business” is the main goal on your list this year, you have a few directions to choose from.

✨ Build an agency structure. Layer on more clients as you develop a team to help you support that booked work.

✨ Sell 1:many offers. Digital products, online courses, group programs, and other offers that allow you to impact more people simultaneously.

✨ Sell a premium, productized service. Things like VIP days or weeks, high-end audits, and consulting fall into this category.

My experience creating and selling digital products

I’ve done all of the above. Usually, I talk to you about the micro-agency growth side of things, but there’s more going on behind the scenes over here. Not only have I built my own digital product shop (you may know The Biz Bar), but I’ve helped handfuls of clients create and sell digital products too. All this to say, I’ve learned a lot not only through my own growth, but helping clients create and sell digital products as well.

I’ve created digital products that are templates, mini courses, masterclasses, and other resources. I’ve also successfully launched and sold online courses, group programs, and a mastermind. Along the way, I’ve learned what works and doesn’t work when figuring out how to create a digital product, then how to sell it.

So let’s talk about that: How to create a digital product. Either to grow your freelance business, or starting a digital product business from scratch. This blog post will cover how to create a digital product of course, but we’ll also start to explore how to sell a digital product, and where you can learn how to transition from selling freelance services to digital products.

Don’t get stuck in the planning stage

While brainstorming ideas is the fun part, so many aspiring digital product creators get caught up in the actual creation part—what idea will you start with?

And that leads to other questions like:

• What steps are involved in creating the thing?
• What tech will you need to make it happen?
• Who will buy this product when it’s ready?

It can be overwhelming. I get it because I’ve been there. You have so many ideas, and not enough time to execute them all. Especially if the plan is to continue to take on client work as you build and launch a digital product. It’s a lot!

So instead of doing the work to create a digital product, you hang out in the planning stage… indefinitely. You have a folder in your Google Drive with half-baked digital product content pieces, and a running list in your Notion account full of digital product ideas you don’t even know where to start with.

If you’re wondering how to create a digital product, and where to even start with all the steps that go into it, you’re not alone. My goal is to make all this work a little less overwhelming for you.

How to create a digital product

So how do you create a digital product while juggling everything else in your online or freelance business? By working strategically through a step-by-step, proven process—skipping all the messy bits and wrong turns. No, it won’t be perfect the first time you launch. But you can make the learning curve easier on yourself. Then refine and relaunch until your digital product becomes a viable stream of revenue.

First, plan how to create a digital product

While I don’t want you to get stuck in the planning stage as you create your first (and future) digital products, I do want you to spend some intentional time here. With proper planning, you’ll eliminate a lot of the trial and error later on.

Most importantly, you need to be strategic when deciding what digital product idea to go forward with. What digital product makes the most sense for your business, your audience, and the results you can promise?

Strategic ideation of your digital product is really just planning. It’s asking your audience what they want and need, creating a unique solution that fills the gaps in your industry, and developing the messaging around an offer that’s actually going to solve a problem for someone.

The A to Z Digital Product Development Plan

This YouTube video gives a sneak peek at a bonus that’s inside one of my digital products, The Digital Product Sales Pack. While it’s not the main event of this product—the copywriting templates to launch and sell your digital product on evergreen are the main content inside—it’s a helpful tool to stay on track.

For a quick summary, the digital product creation process looks like this…

✅ Ideation

✅ Creation

✅ Promotion

✅ Refine and Relaunch

Let’s get into the “Ideation” and “Creation” stages more here though you know what’s involved each step of the way in how to create a digital product.

Dig into strategic ideation of your digital product

I hinted at this a bit above, but the best digital product ideas are focused on your audience. When you’re brainstorming your first (or next) digital product, stay focused with this question: What’s in it for them? If you always prioritize your audience—their transformation and results—then whatever idea you choose will sell.

The offer comes first. Any marketing or sales tactics are useless without a solid offer, so that’s why we start here. When working with course and digital product creators in my done-for-you copywriting studio, I won’t even allow a full service project for anyone without a proven offer. It’s a much better use of your time to go all in when your offer is validated and proven—meaning it’s made legitimate sales. When you know people want it, we can dig into the messaging to maximize those sales.

If your digital product idea isn’t good, it’s not going to sell (sorry, not sorry!). So don’t skip through this stage trying to just launch something fast.

Step-by-step of how to come up with a good digital product idea…

1. Know your strengths and lean into these when creating your digital product. Don’t choose something you aren’t an expert at.
2. Identify the value and big promise for your audience. What do they gain from purchasing? What does this mean for them?
3. Choose an aligned customer segment. Some people would argue this step comes first. Basically, I want you to be clear about who this is for—it’s not “for everyone.”
4. Outline the core inclusions and features of your digital product. What’s inside this thing? What does it look like?
5. Set a price that makes sense. Approach this from a place of value-based pricing, while also considering market trends and what your customers can justify.

When you take your time through these steps, creating your digital product is so much easier.

Save time as you create a digital product

If you want to work efficiently, you need to know where you’re going. My best productivity hack in general is having the entire plan mapped out prior to starting. This is especially true when taking on a project as big as creating a digital product can be. Planning eliminates any of the potential guesswork, forcing you to switch gears when you’re in creation mode. Instead of stressing about how the video you just winged fits into your larger script, you can sit down and follow your own pre-determined instructions.

So if you’re wondering how to create a digital product, always start with your plan.

Next, I typically follow these steps of how to create a digital product:

1. Organize each section and outline the content within every part of your digital product. A detailed outline will help you create the pieces next.
2. Create the slides and write talking points or scripts as needed.
3. Create all the tools and templates that will go along with your digital product.

Note: If your digital product is a template, you may want to start here versus with the scripts and slides. Maybe you don’t even use video! I like incorporating video for all digital products to help different types of learners use the tools.

4. Create any quizzes or surveys that will be in your digital product.
5. Record all the videos at the same time. Then edit, caption, and upload all together, but in stages.

The overall idea here is to group like work with like to make things easier for yourself. Jumping between different parts of your digital product or steps in the journey will make it much more difficult.

Digital product ideas to sell in 2024

I wrote an entire blog post recently about digital product ideas that you can read here. For freelancers or other online business owners who already have a business setup, it’s much easier to use what you know to develop another stream of revenue. You can leverage your current audience, brand, and more to make a digital product to sell.

That’s not to say you can’t start an online business from scratch with a digital product as your sole offer, but you are looking at a bigger challenge of building a business at the same time too.

All that said, I’ve found that developing digital products for your freelance business can truly feel like you’re building a second business from scratch sometimes! So go easy on yourself if it feels like an uphill battle at first.

Regardless of your starting point, coming up with a solid digital product idea is step 1, and hopefully the resources and insight shared here will help you with that.

Your digital product can and will change over time

There’s no promise that creating a digital product will be the only one you need to make, ever. Your digital product can and will change over time. My first digital product was available on my website for years. It sold from the first time I launched it, and eventually just didn’t align with the other work I was doing and the brand I had built. That’s why I first reorganized that digital product to be included as a bonus inside another offer. Then it was only a fast-action bonus during launch periods for my online courses. Then I ultimately decided to retire it.

What was this digital product? It was a bundle of Instagram caption templates, prompts, and other tools to help people better connect with and convert clients on Instagram. That’s not a main topic of discussion for me anymore, so it was time to retire!

The point is that the first digital product you choose won’t be the only or the last. You do want to plan how to create a digital product with longevity in mind, but know that it doesn’t need to be locked in forever.

Tech recommendations: How to create a digital product

Arguably one of the biggest roadblocks I see for those who are just starting out adding a digital product to their business is the tech stuff. Specifically, figuring out how to actually sell and deliver the thing.

👉 Your checkout tech.

👉 Your delivery platform.

👉 And the followup to give access to all.

Which leads to this tip for those who are new to selling digital products: When you start selling an offer like this, you may need to set up a different payment processor.

Decide on your checkout and payment processing

I did a ton of research on this and tried a few platforms over the years.

Ultimately, I settled on (and love) ThriveCart for a few reasons…

✅ It’s a 1-time payment, which lowers my monthly recurring expenses.

✅ For my fellow Canadians who need to charge and remit location-specific sales tax, ThriveCart can calculate this automatically at the checkout.

✅ It’s highly customizable in terms of checkout design, the fulfillment page, and more.

✅ And it talks seamlessly to my email marketing platform (ActiveCampaign) for the attached product delivery sequences.

Choose a learning platform hosting service

Another reason why I love ThriveCart: There’s a built-in LMS now too, with a free version (but I upgraded to Learn+ and it’s 100% worth it). I used Thinkific for years, but ultimately felt the quality of customer service didn’t align with the increasing fees. Also, the pay per user per month model (on top of the baseline fees) wasn’t the best option out there. ThriveCart Learn+ is a 1-time payment just like the checkout purchase is.

Delivery sequences for your digital product

I use ActiveCampaign to deliver access to my digital products. When a customer makes a purchase, ThriveCart completes that purchase and enrolls them in the Learn+ platform for the specific product. From there, ActiveCampaign queues up to send emails with all the information they need to get started.

Since integrating ThriveCart and ActiveCampaign directly, I don’t even need to use a third party connection tool like Zapier to make this all run. It works so much better than before when Zapier was necessary to have ThriveCart and ActiveCampaign talk to Thinkific.

Because I genuinely care about the customer experience for anyone who purchases one of my digital products, I have delivery email sequences set up for each of them. These provide important housekeeping information, provide extra insight to get the most out of the product they purchased, and more.

Use the Digital Product Sales Pack

Save time getting your digital product ready to sell

If it weren’t clear by now, there’s a lot of work that goes into how to create a digital product. I like to make things easier for others, so that’s why I created the Digital Product Sales Pack. You focus on how to make a digital product, and this template pack will help you with all the sales and delivery copy—everything that needs to be written to get ready to launch. There’s checkout copy, launch email copy, funnel prompts, and more.

The Digital Product Sales Pack includes a Notion guide and checklist of every single step involved in how to make a digital product to sell. It goes into even more detail than this blog post (as if that were possible, but yes!). From ideation to creating the offer, setting it up in your platform of choice, launching the first time, and collecting feedback to refine and sell it again.

How to create a digital product and transition from freelance

If you’re wondering how to create a digital product for your freelance business, then transition from freelance services, this blog post is for you.

My biggest piece of advice to transition from selling freelance services to selling digital products is to leverage what’s already working for you. If you already have an audience, a brand message, or intellectual property that’s working for you, use it to make and sell a digital product. Even if things need to be tweaked to focus on selling digital products, at least you aren’t starting from scratch.

How selling digital products differs from selling freelance services

When you first start creating digital products, learning how to sell them is likely the biggest challenge you’ll face. It’s not coming up with the idea… You have lots of digital product ideas to work with! It’s not necessarily creating the pieces… You could do this if you carved out the time. It’s knowing the differences between selling digital products and selling freelance services.

Some differences in the sales strategy includes:

• How you talk about the results or transformation. Since customers will purchase your digital product to DIY or learn something, the results will differ from you doing the work in a 1:1 or done-for-you setup.
• The audience size required to bring in revenue. Selling freelance services typically means a higher price point than selling digital products. Maybe you only need a handful of clients to hit your goal revenue each month. Digital products will likely require more customers, and those sales rely on a larger audience to draw from.
• The time required to grow a digital product business versus a freelance business. As a freelancer, you may not even need an online presence right away to get clients. You can pitch for work or rely on referrals. When selling digital products, everything changes. Your platform becomes more important.

Create a digital product… Don’t sell master resale rights courses

Master resale rights digital products don’t work, and I wrote why in this blog post. Digital product creation isn’t easy. I get that’s why some people look for the easy way out, which is where master resale rights courses and digital products came in. They’re sold as the quick way to get started selling digital products.

While sure, it may be technically easier to sell these versus your own digital product because you don’t actually need to make the material, the entire proposition smells like a pyramid scheme. Plus we all know how challenging it can be to sell something you aren’t connected to. Even if you are able to make some money in the beginning from master resale rights digital products, the long-term payout won’t be worth it compared to dedicating that effort to building something for yourself.

Don’t give up as you learn how to create a digital product

Even if you’re a seasoned online business owner or freelancer, there’s a learning curve that comes with creating and selling digital products online. Remember that just like anything, it gets easier. If you’ve built a successful business before, you can build this model too. It’s just a matter of deciding if this is the best option for you: Is it worth it for you to add a digital product as an additional revenue stream in your business?

Only you know the answer to that.