How To Effectively Market Digital Products
Are you thinking of selling digital products? Then you got to learn to market digital products. Now let’s dive into how you can effectively market your digital products to your prospective customers and take your business to the next level.
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
What Are Digital Products?
Digital products are intangible products that can be downloaded or streamed online with no inventory. They include music, podcasts, videos, images, graphics, ebooks, online courses, written templates, blogs, software, animations, membership sites, etc.
Selling digital products requires no inventory. Its delivery enjoys a high degree of automation. Therefore, your startup cost is low and your profit margins are higher. Besides, as more and more people turn to online solutions, digital products have been growing rapidly.
Content Marketing
First, you need a professional website by creating and promoting useful, relevant content to market digital products. This attracts, engages, and converts your target audience into customers. The content may include blogs, case studies, infographics, ebooks, documentation, product descriptions and data sheets, whitepapers, newsletters, videos, webinars, podcasts, interviews, testimonials, and customer reviews.
Content marketing together with SEO can get your website to rank higher on Google. Though it often takes longer to produce substantial results, your old content will continue to drive traffic and leads in the years to come.
Email Marketing
To market digital products, you can collect the email addresses of your audience on your website using newsletter subscription. You email newsletters regularly to keep your audience updated of your digital products with images and videos.
Online Ads
Depending on your target audience, advertising on search engines and social media is an effective way to market digital products like Google Ads, Facebook ads, YouTube Ads, Twitter Ads, LinkedIn ads, Instagram ads, etc.
Social Media Marketing
Thanks to its virtually unmatched ability to reach your audience organically, social media marketing can be immensely powerful when it comes to market digital products. You use social media channels to sell digital products, build brand awareness, and nurture customer relationships. You can use Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc. to market digital products.
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of maximizing organic traffic to a website by getting the website to rank high up on search engines. When a searcher makes a search using a keyword, the search engine will return the most useful and relevant results. To market digital products, you can various SEO techniques like on-page SEO, external link building, internal link building, technical SEO, keyword research, SEO competitor analysis, and SEO success analysis.
Marketplaces
One of the easiest ways to market digital products is to sell them in marketplaces. For example, if you’re marketing digital music, you should upload them on music streaming platforms to earn ad income. If you’re selling creative digital assets like website themes, plugins, graphics, etc., you should try TemplateMonster and Envato. If you’re selling some service-based digital products like web design products, you may try freelance marketplaces like Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a great way to market digital products online. Advertisers pay affiliates to market their products or services via affiliate links on affiliates’ websites or mobile apps. Affiliates are bloggers, other content makers or marketers. They’re usually in the same industries as those of the advertisers. When an affiliate’s visitor makes a purchase or take an action on the affiliate’s website, the affiliate gets paid for performance like Pay Per Click (PPC), Pay Per Lead (PPL) or Pay Per Sale (PPS).
As an advertiser, you can join an affiliate program usually offered by an affiliate network like AWIN, ShareASale owned by AWIN, CJ Affiliate, ClickBank, Skimlinks, JVZoo, ClickDealer, and Tradedoubler. With an affiliate program, you can attract affiliates who will market your digital products which are complementary to what they are promoting.
Live Videos & Podcasts
You can use live videos to educate your audience and market digital products on YouTube Live, Instagram live broadcast , Facebook Live, Twitter live videos, Twitch, and LinkedIn Live. You can do the same with podcasts.
Crowdfunding Websites
Crowdfunding means raising money from a large audience. You post your project ideas on a crowdfunding website e.g. Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Patreon, Ulule, and Pozible where people who share and financially support your ideas. You raise money to complete your project and deliver your products to your supporters.
Besides raising money, it is a way to market digital products. More people know you through your crowdfunding campaigns.
Freebies & Discounts
To market digital products, it’s a good idea to offer a free trial or discount. This way, you can gain trust, get customer reviews, and obtain feedback for product improvements.
For example, you can offer a free trial or discount to your fans and followers on your social channels. They may share your offers with their friends. Alternatively, you can publish your offer across social media encouraging readers to visit your website to receive the offer. You can also give your offers to affiliates who in turn promote your offers to their audience.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing for digital products means that a social media influencer works with a brand to market digital products. The top social media influencers are on Instagram and YouTube. These influencers are people who have gained credibility in a certain niche and have many a ton of followers. They affect their followers’ buying decisions. Influencer marketing can gain social proof and increase your sales big time.
Influencer marketing can be done by offering sponsored content, affiliate links, discounts, contests, and giveaways on their social channels, publishing influencer content on your social channels, and being a brand ambassador of your brand.
Conclusion
Selling digital products can be extremely profitable if you know how to market them the right way. Try the marketing strategies and keep track of the results of each strategy. This allows you to see what works best for you and make a better decision.
It is true that it takes a lot of efforts, time, consistency, and above all persistence to effectively market digital products. However, once you find your niche and marketing mix you will be able to reap the rewards of success.
