The latest online technology means we can easily and cheaply create digital products to add some extra streams of income. If you’re a coach, trainer, therapist or other kind of consultant, you can certainly benefit from doing this. Let’s explore a few ideas, and some of the tools I use to create my own products.
Different Ways to Produce Your First Product
Write it – The first type of product that usually comes to mind is a pdf E-Book, but I would encourage you to think beyond that. An E-Book commands a relatively low price – would you pay over £50 for an E-Book? Doubtful. But if you produce a Home Study Course or product, £50 seems a very reasonable amount to charge, doesn’t it?
Make an Audio – Recording your voice is easy to do and enables you to make a much more personal connection with your clients & students. If the recording is part of the Home Study Course, it’s a simple matter to embed a download link within the written pages. I’ve used Audio Acrobat (aff. link) to host my audio files for several years and find them reliable, professional and reasonably priced at $19.95/month.
Use Video – This is even more personal, if a little more technically challenging to achieve. If, like me, you’re a bit camera shy, then consider creating a video talking people through a slide presentation instead.
A combination of all three – my personal favourite, not least because it appeals to a greater number of people. All the main learning preferences are covered, increasing the chances that your students will actually go through the material! You can also charge more for a multi-media product.
Create a Graphic
Once you’ve produced the ‘meat’ of your product, I recommend you create a graphic to upload to your website and for use everywhere you promote it. Research shows that products with graphics outsell those without. The very reasonably priced resource I use is eCover Software Pro (aff. link)
Set up a Sales Page
Next, set up a dedicated Sales Page on your website. Doing this means you have a unique url (or web address) to direct prospective customers to. This is important as you don’t want them to be distracted by anything else.
Take Payment
In addition to describing your product, the benefits it provides and adding a nice graphic, you also want to be able to easily take payment on your sales page. I’ve been using Paypal for a few years without any problems. It enables me to accept credit cards without the additional expense of setting up a Merchant Account. Another option is Google Checkout, although I haven’t set up an account yet. Both are free to set up but do charge a fee for each transaction.
Deliver the Products
The beauty of creating digital products is that they can be sold via your website without the need for you to get involved – except to open the emails telling you that money has arrived in your account. Delivery of digital products can be automated using the strangely named, but very efficient E-Junkie (aff. link). This provider links to both Paypal and Google Checkout and is also reasonably priced, starting from just $5 a month, which is well worth it once those sales start rolling in. 
None of the above tools require you to be a technical wizard, although using them for the first time may take a while. But I promise that the benefits of creating additional income streams will far outweigh the initial investment. Give me a shout if you get stuck!
Have you created digital products yet? What tools did you use? Please share in the comments below.
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