Finding your Digital Product Idea
Welcome to this next post in the How to Sell Digital Products series. This section is all about finding your great idea and laying the foundation for a successful business. We’ll be covering:
- Which product is right for you.
- We’ll learn how to find a great idea, including how to validate that idea. So, you know it’s going to be a successful one.
- We’ll define your purpose, really understand what problems you are solving and how you are different than your competition with your unique selling proposition.
Which digital product is right for you?
Perhaps you know exactly what you want to create. Maybe it’s an online course. Maybe it’s podcast. And that might be the right one for you.
But first, let’s go through some steps that that will help you figure out if that’s exactly the right option.
Step one is to understand your starting point.
Do you have an existing business that you can build on or do you have an idea for a new business. What type of online product would your customers most be interested in buying?
A quick example of this might be if you have a business or work with a business that helps other people manage their social media accounts.
Let’s say you manage a couple of clients social media accounts already. What digital product could you create with the skills you use every day?
Perhaps it’s a digital template. A series of graphical templates you use for social media posts. Maybe it’s a printable, like a content calendar that you can print and physically write out your social media content calendar for the month.
For those of us that like writing things down, maybe it’s a coaching program, coaching clients how to manage their own social media accounts or coaching others How to be a social media manager for other clients.
Maybe you turn that into a course, or a webinar, or maybe you host a podcast talking about all of these things.
Step two is to see what do other brands in your space sell
This is going to show you the types of digital product that have been successful.
Sometimes you may come across a brand in your space and see that they’re not selling digital downloads or they’re not doing a podcast, this could absolutely mean that there’s space for that sort of digital product.
However, it’s also worth considering whether a particular type of product is right for you. If there is a space it might mean that it’s not a good option for you personally.
For example if you were a photographer or a filmmaker research competitors, you might see that other people in their space are creating editing presets or templates for their photos or video, or maybe they’re selling stock video footage and photography, and doing online training and courses.
You may think, there’s a lot of people doing this, so maybe I can jump in there and make money too. But stock photography is an extremely competitive market. And so then it may not be right for you.
Finding a niche, finding an area where there is more room to grow might be the best way to go, but it can depend a lot on the product, your experience and your competition as well.
And if you still don’t know what your product should be move on to step three.
Step Three is to look at your skills.
If you have video editing skills, maybe that means you can create online courses.
If you’re good at talking or storytelling, writing a book, or hosting a podcast is a great option.
And if you have people skills and love connecting with others, launch a coaching program or a mastermind.
But maybe you have technical and creative skills but don’t really like talking to people. Creating stock templates and printables might be the best thing for you.
And if you have none of these skills, can you work with someone else to co-create the product or can you outsource it? There’s lots of platforms out there to easily hire people to do all kinds of things. Freelancer.com Upwork.com Fiverr.com are just a few of them and you can find people that can do most things for you.
Now, spend the next five ten minutes writing down your ideas, trying to figure out which is the product that you’re going to learn.
I encourage you to read as many of the posts in this series that you’re interested in, and it’s okay to jump around or skip sections that aren’t applicable to you, but continue reading this post as we will cover more about how this digital products business works.
How to find your great idea
Let’s dive into talking about how you can find your great idea. How can you find the perfect idea for your digital product.
This is a topic that is a little bit concerning to some. People say, Okay, I don’t have ideas.
It’s difficult to find ideas… I never had good ideas.
If that’s you, let me help you.
Here is a formula that you can use to find ideas on what you already know or what you are already doing. Lets look at how you can convert these into products and then how we can then validate them.
First, ask yourself, What do you already make money with?
By that I mean, what is your job? What do you do daily to earn money?
Follow up that question with this one: Can you turn this activity into a digital version? Can you turn this product that you have or this service into a digital version?
For example, in person yoga, you can turn that into an online yoga courses or online yoga studio.
We have technology today to easily do that using live streaming.
You can create a Zoom account, and host your online yoga studio sessions. With any number of members doing yoga with you every morning or every afternoon live instead of being with you in the studio.
You can host it online with a huge number of people and you can reach people globally.
Another example of how you can turn what you do into a digital version, might be a truck driver that creates a podcast series of cross-country stories.
Let’s consider the life of a truck driver.
They have amazing or unique experiences.
They spend a lot of their time driving and see things that regular people don’t.
So having a podcast about that could be a digital product that they can create and monetize.
Make sure you are asking yourself the right questions. We can use the Start with your process to ensure you are covering off all bases.
Start with your passions.
What are you passionate about?
Start with your hobbies.
What are your hobbies?
Can you create a podcast about that and maybe an online course?
Start with your experience.
What are you experiencing?
In what books do you read?
Can you turn that knowledge into a digital product?
Start with your education.
What are you educated in?
Can you use that to create a digital product?
Start with your job.
Ask yourself the same questions about your job. That thing that you are doing, right now, to earn money. You can try to convert that into a digital product or start with what you know, what you love. Start with what you already have.
Let’s look at an example.
Let’s pretend your biggest passion is hiking, maybe it is. You love being in the forest. You love the trees, You love the green, the fresh air, the fields. You love the nature in general.
A few years ago I completed the Three Peak Challenge, which is the scaling of three of the highest mountains of England, Scotland and Wales all within 24 hours.
It’s a difficult challenge because it has a 24 hour timer as well as be physically fit. You need to be prepared and have logistics in place to complete the challenge.
There are many people who attempt this every year, and they all have the same questions.
What is the best walking shoes that I can wear?
What is the best backpack?
Do I need a trekking pole?
Should I bring a coat?
How do I get from one mountain to the other?
Perhaps, you could create a course which answers all of these questions. Turn your hobby or experience into a digital product, which in this case is an online guide.
Action:
Take some time, grab a paper and ben and think about any ideas you might have and write down any you can come up with.
When you’re ready, move onto the next step. Validation.
Validating your product idea
Once you have the idea, the next step, is to carry out two types of validation.
Let’s take the three peak guide for example. The first validation of my idea would be soft validation, and the second one is the hard validation.
Soft Validation
For soft validation we can utilize various popular online tools to gauge interest and demand. Google Keyword Planner and Google Trends can help us understand how frequently specific terms are searched, while social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube provide insights into current discussions and content popularity in our idea. For example, by exploring Facebook groups or YouTube videos related to the Three Peak Challenge, we can identify existing conversations and content gaps. Platforms like Amazon, particularly the Kindle Store, allow us to analyze market trends, customer reviews, and sales data to further validate your idea.
Some people stop in the soft validation. You can do that if you want, but if you want to make sure this is the best idea, I’d also recommend you do the hard validation which is talking to your audience.
Hard Validation
Sometimes we think people want what we are creating, but sometimes. it’s not. Sometimes they want something different.
If you have an email list, a Facebook group, or a YouTube subscribers, chat with them. Create content asking them. Send them a survey.
Using surveys, you can validate and make sure this is a digital product that they would find valuable.
It’s great to carry out some hard validation to make sure that your product is a good fit. You could even look at lunching a Kickstarter to a project to see if people pay for the product before you create it. Or complete a pre selling phase, where you offer your product in ‘Beta Mode’ and see how many people buy, and review the feedback that they have.
These steps can be a great way to create, identify and validate your ideas.
Action:
Take some time to think about your ideas. Think about the two questions that I gave you in the beginning of this post. Write down all your ideas and validate them to make sure they are good.
Once you’ve done that, move to the next section.