What is a digital product?
When your business is WordPress plugins and themes (as ours is), you’re bound to see a ton of different product types that website owners are selling. And the most common of these products are digital products.
In this article, you’ll learn about 11 digital product ideas that sell extremely well. Consider some of these as you begin to build your plan for creating your own digital product.
As you may have already personally experienced, selling physical inventory, whether handmade, purchased and resold, or drop-shipped, is extremely changeable and time-consuming. And beyond that, there are the added issues of:
- Inventory management
- Shipping
- Importing
- International buyers
- Taxes
- Federal, state, and local laws
And that’s just to name a few.
Digital products, however, are very different.
The Benefits of Digital Products
Digital products are:
- Much more sustainable
- Infinitely replicable
- Easy to deliver and distribute
- Much simpler to make
With only one or two devices, anyone can make a quality digital product that’s worthy of distribution. What’s best, there are no factories, staff, or physical materials needed.
All you’ll need is a computer, a passion for dive, and a little bit of time.
And this leads to a question beyond, “what is a digital product?” to, “what kind of digital product can I create?”
Ultimately, the answer will be, “any kind of digital product that you want to create.”
Different Types of Digital Products
If you have important information you want to share, it can be made into a sellable digital product. You can share things like your talents, opinions, knowledge, and passions while making some decent money as you go.
1. Ebooks and Guides
Even in 2021 and beyond, eBooks will continue to be one of the top digital products for customers and content creators. Ebooks are easy to produce because all they really need is quality written text and a couple of supporting images.
For content creators, they’re easy to distribute to huge markets or within their own WordPress websites. And they’re easy for buyers to consume because they can read them on any device they’d like.
What’s great about eBooks is that you can write about anything you know or are passionate about. You’ll be able to advise, educate, or curate existing information with your own eBook, then sell it on your WordPress site. Plus, ebooks and guides make excellent lead magnets for your website.
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2. Downloadable Software
Selling software online is a craft we know a little bit about.
This industry is absolutely enormous and continues to grow every single day. What’s better, it’s also ripe with a lot of opportunities. If you can write code, you can turn it into a new and useful software product that could go mainstream.
Software ideas include:
- Web-based applications
- Desktop software
- Mobile apps
- Website templates and themes
- Plugins
- Video games
- Anything that’s powered by writing code
The possibilities with downloadable software are seemingly endless. And the idea you have probably already had an established market that you can tap into.
If you’re able to write code, there is a wide array of digital products you can sell.
3. Video Content
Using video is a very effective and popular way of delivering information via a digital product. The content can be informative, educational, or entertaining.
Generally speaking, video is much more engaging than text content and is easy for users to consume. All that’s required is that they click on play and start watching.
The fact is that online users love video content and are often more than happy to pay for the content they find valuable.
If you have public speaking abilities, a passion for visual-based content, or simply enjoy sharing your own thoughts on video, all you really need is some editing patience. Soon, you can be selling your own videos.
4. Music and Audio
Audio has always been a great way to communicate powerful messages. And there are a ton of different audio digital products to choose from.
Users pay for audio that soothes them, entertains, informs, inspires, or helps them carry out their goals. And that’s just to name a couple of examples.
Digital audio products to sell include:
- Music samples
- Lectures
- Soothing background sounds
- Lessons on learning foreign languages
- Royalty free sound effects
- Karaoke versions of the songs people enjoy
- Instrumental (or even full lyrical) musical tracks
There really is an ever-growing market for audio digital products.
5. Photography
In today’s market, one of the most sought-after products is premium digital photos. And (as you probably know from first-hand experience as a WordPress website owner) the people who most often consume these digital products are website owners and bloggers.
Of course, stock photography has been commoditizing the photography market. And this has caused some photos to be sold for cheaper than they’re worth. But for the images that are truly unique and spectacular, photographers can still demand (and receive) a fair price for their work.
From a photography buyer’s perspective, one of the biggest negatives about stock photography sites is that you normally can’t buy just one or two images. In most cases, a membership to the site will be needed.
As a photographer, consider competing with the stock photography sites by setting up an eCommerce product photography shop using your own original images on your own site. And do it for the price you want (and surely deserve).
6. Digital Art and Graphics
Digital artists and graphic designers are able to make a huge variety of valuable and unique digital products.
These can include things such as:
- PowerPoint themes
- Original art
- Logos
- Icon packs
- PSD templates
Skilled graphic designers can specialize in making and selling:
- Card designs
- Brushes
- Backgrounds
- Patterns
- UI assets
- A lot more
While digital artists can create and sell:
- Drawings
- Sketches
- Finished pieces
- Book covers
It’s important to note that completed original digital art of the highest quality should be priced higher than standard graphic design pieces. If you’re able to produce this type of art, it’s definitely worth selling online.
Just make sure you get it licensed the right way.
7. Online Courses
One industry that continues to thrive is e-learning. In fact, it’s currently growing at a momentum that’s unprecedented.
And as it grows, more traditional schools of education are beginning to explore new ways they can make content available to users.
You can sell learning materials as digital products in several different ways:
- One-off, downloadable courses
- Downloadable collection of several courses
- Subscriptions or memberships to an online learning service (WordPress website owners can turn their WordPress site into a membership site with only a few clicks, simply by
- using the Restrict Content Pro plugin)
Online courses are normally sold in a similar way as the other digital products in this guide. And you’ll often use the same tools. This is why they’ve become a popular product for online sellers.
Recent surveys indicate that the number of internet users buying online courses has nearly doubled in the last 18 months. And that is a dramatic increase in people looking to learn new information that you can tap into.
Additionally, online courses are becoming a more popular complementary part of an online seller’s business. This is because of the consumer trends and the affordability and ease of use of tools such as Restrict Content Pro.
Online courses offer a potentially lucrative outlet to anyone who has expertise or knowledge within nearly any niche or field. They allow educators to reach an incredibly broad audience without the constraints of time, geography, and technology.
Offering an online course could be the perfect way for you to get your digital products business up and running. Kadence Theme offers a Starter Template perfect for showcasing your online courses.
8. Professional Services
Of course, services aren’t really products. However, they’re most commonly sold in a very similar way as digital products. And that is in one of two different ways:
- Fixed-price services: The service cost is predefined and fully known to a customer prior to needing to talk to the provider of the service.
- Case-by-case services: The work that’s needed is looked at by the person providing the service, then a price is quoted to the buyer. The cost is then agreed upon before work begins.
In eCommerce, the line between service and product has become a bit fuzzy. But in reality, the customer very rarely cares much about the differences between products and services.
In other words, a customer might buy a set of pre-made logos from you like a product with a price that’s predefined. Then, they may pay a predefined price on a different site to have a designer produce a logo which ultimately results in a similar experience and product.
With most jobs that are service-based, you’re selling your own time in exchange for a result or specific outcome. And this is normally in lieu of a product. Conversely, you might sell your time for a product that’s unique for only one customer.
In today’s market, many different types of service providers have begun selling their services. Some examples include:
- Website designers
- Graphic designers
- Translators
- Copywriters
- Trainers
- Coaches
- Consultants
- Legal Professionals
And that doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface.
This is yet another digital products segment that’s been on the rise of late. And it’s definitely one that you can profit from if you’re asking yourself, “what is a digital product and which one can make me some real money?”
9. Tickets
These are a lot different than other types of digital products because they’re normally only applicable for a specific period of time. They’ll also normally be tied into a physical location and have limited availability.
That said, tickets are sold digitally in the same way that the other items on this list are. A customer will make their selection of the ticket they want, checkout, then receive their ticket digitally through the seller’s site.
Tickets you could consider selling as digital products include:
- Concerts
- Conferences
- Carnivals
- Any time-based event
- Admissions to zoos, museums, and amusement parks
You can also sell tickets for experiences that are happening exclusively online, such as classes, webinars, conferences, and in-person live stream feeds.
The Event Calendar allows you
10. Fonts
Typefaces are a great, and often forgotten digital product segment. The fact is that fonts and typefaces remain popular throughout time because consumer preferences are constantly changing. And as their preferences change, their font business continues to evolve.
You can create unique fonts to be distributed for use on websites by site creators. Or you can design them for use in computer desktop apps, like Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Word.
Design enthusiasts love fresh and exciting new fonts. Because of this, a font designer will need to be expanding their commercial catalog continually overtime to maintain consistent revenue.
11. Web-Based Applications
If you aren’t familiar with web-based applications, they’re a lot like software. The difference is that they aren’t downloaded directly from the web.
Rather, this lucrative digital products category consists of anything that a customer will pay to use while they’re already within a web browser.
Web-based applications are also called Software as a Service, or SaaS. And they aren’t digital products in the purest sense of the term. But they’re sold (and perceived by the public) in much the same way as standard digital products, so they’re important to include in this list of digital products.
Often software makers are faced with a decision between building a SaaS application or distributing an installable program. Some examples of these types of applications include email marketing services such as MailChimp or Constant Contact.
Others include contact management systems such as Pipedrive, Nutshell, and Salesforce, or site monitoring services like Status Cake and Pingdom.
Beyond those, look at project management systems like Jira, Podio, Asana, and Basecamp. And online course-based memberships such as Lynda, Skillshare, Team Treehouse, and Coursera.
And of course, there are file storage SaaS solutions like MediaFire, Google Drive, iCloud, and Dropbox.
In this digital products category, your customers pay for direct access to the services and tools you offer. Because of this, recurring payments are typically the standard payment model.
Wrapping Up
Do you understand now what is digital product is and how you can put them to work for your important?
It’s important to constantly be observing the changes in how digital products, as a whole, are selling. And as technologies advance, selling digital products becomes easier for the average person.
Services, web apps, and courses are currently on the rise. WordPress plugins, graphics, and video also continue to perform very well.
There’s no better time than now to choose the digital product that best suits you and your business so you can begin selling it to a market that’s hungry for it.
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Kathryn Lang believes it is simple, and as an award-winning author and natural-born hopesmith, she shares tips on how to find your why, pursue your purpose, and live a bold, intentional life – always with a dash of twisted encouragement.
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