Launching a Digital Product from Scratch
Setting a Non-Negotiable Launch Date
If I had to start over today with zero audience, no email list, and zero digital product sales, this is exactly what I would focus on every day for the next 30 days if I had to rebuild from scratch. This is the actionable plan I wish someone had given me when I first started because it would have saved me months of doing things the wrong way.
The very first thing I would do is pull out my calendar. Physically write down the date you’re launching your digital product, regardless of whether this is your first one or your 50th one. This is a non-negotiable because a huge mistake many people make, myself included, is staying in research mode forever, saving posts, and tweaking their ideas, but never actually launching anything.
Phase One: Information Gathering and Validation
Identifying Your Profitable Topic and Audience
Having this deadline makes it real, and it creates the momentum you need to actually get it done. Pick a date, ideally four weeks from today, but it just depends on when you plan to take action on the steps shared here. Phase one, days 1 to 7 is all about gathering information. In the first week, I wouldn’t create anything yet, which is the exact opposite of what I used to do when I first started.
I would sit at my laptop, get super excited about all the ideas that came to me in my sleep, spend hours and days putting together a bunch of digital products, publish them online, and then feel completely heartbroken when no one wanted them. Instead, now I would ask myself a few really important questions. What do I actually want to be known for?
Defining Your Specific Target Customer
What do I genuinely enjoy talking about and can see myself creating content around? What do I already research and browse through in my free time? Because if you pick a topic you secretly hate, you’re going to quit before you ever make sales. Of course, your idea has to be profitable, but it also has to start with you and what you can show up for on the days it feels harder.
Next, I would get very clear on who I want to serve. And to be honest, even now as my business has evolved, I still have to do this exercise every time I pivot or create something new. Because the thing is, you don’t need to help everyone. You need to help one person really well. For example, right now with my new digital course, my focus is helping entrepreneurs sell their digital products using YouTube.
Conducting Market Research and Competitor Analysis
That’s my person. Educators, course creators, membership owners, coaches, people who want to grow an audience and turn that into sales. When I wasn’t clear on this, I tried selling my YouTube course to anyone that wanted to start a YouTube channel, regardless of what it would be used for. And that made it really hard for me to attract the right people. When you try to speak to everyone, your messaging gets watered down and it won’t really resonate with anyone.
But when you speak to one specific person, your content becomes magnetic to them and it’ll be easier for them to trust you. I would then look at what already exists in the market. Are there similar digital products selling? Are people already paying for solutions in this space? Competition is a really good sign because it means people are already investing.
Engaging in Direct Customer Discovery Conversations
and solving the problem you can help with. So, if I were creating an ebook, a minicourse, or a membership, for example, on how to help babies and toddlers sleep through the night, I would just do a quick search in Google like helping babies sleep course or helping babies sleep ebook, and see if I can find similar products with positive testimonials.
I used to spend a lot of time on this, building out a huge spreadsheet of 20 competitors to really validate my idea. And honestly, this was just another way for me to procrastinate with busy work when all you really need is a quick search on Google or social media to confirm people are paying for this solution. If you skip this next step, it’s going to be really hard to sell your product.
Utilizing Social Media for Feedback
Every time I’ve had a product flop, I always link it back to me getting lazy and skipping this crucial part. I would have real conversations with at least five to 10 people that fit my target customer avatar. People I think would highly benefit from the product I’m offering. This isn’t for the purpose of selling anything. It’s purely just to listen and understand deeply what they need help with.
So I would reach out to anyone I personally know that would fit this profile. Whether that’s a few friends, colleagues, neighbors, family members, etc. Then I would also ask my closest friends and family members if they know anyone that would fit this profile so I can get a referral system going. If I had any social media presence, even if it’s 100 followers, I would create a poll and ask who fits this profile.
Phase Two: Decision Making and Product Design
Choosing a Single Digital Product Format
and if I can pick their brain regarding something I’m working on. My goal is to figure out their biggest struggles, goals, and what they’ve already tried that hasn’t worked. This is going to directly shape the product that I’m going to create for people exactly like them when I go to announce it.
You don’t need hundreds of responses for this. Just aim for 10 conversations and you’ll be so far ahead of the many people that skip this step altogether. That’s all to focus on during week one. This brings us to phase two, days 8 to 14, which is all about making decisions. After gathering all this valuable information, I would choose one digital product to put all my focus on. It is so much easier
Selecting Tools and Outlining the Product
to sell one really good product over and over again rather than try to market hundreds of them to the same audience. So, choose one product that offers one outcome and one transformation. This could be a template bundle, a minicourse, a workshop, an ebook, a membership, or a coaching program. Whatever makes the most sense based on the information you gathered. Trying to sell multiple products from the beginning is one of the fastest ways to confuse people.
Focusing Content Efforts on One Platform
Clear messaging and clear focus is what sells. Then I would choose the software I’m going to use based on the product I’m creating. So if it’s an ebook, I might use Google Docs, KD, or Canva to create it. If it’s templates, I’d use Canva, Google Docs, or Notion. If it’s a course or a membership, I’d use a simple course hosting platform. And there are so many to choose from if you do a quick Google search.
Then I would create a rough outline of my product. And when I say rough, I mean bullet points of what I wanted to include because I’m not building it out yet. So if it’s a minicourse, I would pull up a Google doc and start brainstorming the modules, lessons, and resources I would want to include inside. This way, when I go to launch it, I know how to market it.
Determining the Best Social Channels for Growth
and what benefits and features to talk about. I wouldn’t spend more than maybe 20 minutes on this. This would all be based on my experience, how I’ve been able to achieve something that my customers want, and I would make sure I’m taking the conversations I had in phase one into consideration. So, I’m building something based on what my target customer avatar told me they need out of a digital resource.
At this stage, I’d also choose the one platform where I’m going to show up consistently. Don’t spread yourself too thin and create an account on all social media platforms and search engines. The last thing you want to do is create a profile on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and YouTube all at the same time. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that being active everywhere all at once is going to help you
Building a Simple and Effective Checkout Page
reach more people. That is a recipe for burnout and low-quality content because you’re giving yourself way too much unnecessary work. I personally like Instagram for social media and YouTube for long-term growth because it’s a search engine.
Your content lives for months and years instead of disappearing after 24 hours. But the best platform is the one you’ll actually stick to, especially in the beginning when you’re just trying to validate your digital product idea with a handful of sales. I would personally choose Instagram to launch my digital product if I have no audience. And I would commit to posting on YouTube as well moving forward in my business to help me attract new people every single day.
Integrating Order Bumps and Free Tools
Finally, I would set up a basic checkout page for my digital product. This is not going to be fancy. You just want to include a really nice mockup image of your digital product. Mention the key points covering what the product is, who it’s for, what problem it solves, and the outcome it provides.
A basic checkout page for a minicourse should be super simple. Creating a really nice mockup using Canva works well. When you have multiple devices and multiple pages shown in the mockup, it just tends to perform better. Then lay out step by step exactly what they’re going to be learning and what’s being covered.
Phase Three: Pre-Selling the Offer
Strategies for a Five-Day Product Launch
Be clear on who this is for. For example: this is for you if you want to sell educational digital products, etc. An order bump gives anyone who wants to also gain access to an additional minicourse the option to add it for an extra fee. If you don’t have an order bump, you can just ignore this part. And then the rest is pretty straightforward — the contact information and payment methods. A similar checkout page can be created using many different platforms. PayHip is a free option worth considering. Now that all the important decisions have been made throughout week two, this brings us to phase three,
Creating Engaging Content for Social Media Promotion
days 15 to 21, which is to pre-sell your offer. I do not fully build digital products before selling them anymore. Instead, I always pre-sell. So whether this is your first digital product or your 10th, I would commit to a 5-day digital product launch at minimum.
Every day during those 5 days, I would have a checklist beside me on the activities I can do to bring in potential leads and customers. I would focus heavily on who this product is for and what transformation it offers to that one person. Based on the platform decision made in phase two, if you chose Instagram, you can utilize carousels, reels, and stories
Automating Customer Engagement and Call to Actions
every day to talk about your product from different angles. Even starting with a very small following of 100 people, this approach is worth doing. You don’t need thousands of followers. You literally just need a handful of targeted followers, which would actually bring in way better results.
A carousel post works well for teaching something while also adding in a call to action to check out a paid offer. For example, a post titled “This is what no one tells you about your first digital product launch” can include a call to action on the second slide for readers to comment a specific word if they want more information on how to plan, pre-sell, etc.
Balancing Inbound and Outbound Sales Strategies
Once they comment that word, they get an automatic DM with the paid offer. That’s done using a tool called ManyChat, which allows automating comments and DMs. Then go ahead and start teaching everything — that people buy clarity and simplicity, that it may not go exactly as planned and that’s completely okay, etc.
At the very end, include another call to action. The structure would be: a hook, a call to action on the second slide so once they comment they get the DM, teaching content throughout, and then the call to action again at the end. To entice people to buy now, offer a discount to the first five buyers,
Adjusting the Offer Based on Sales Results
for example, and maybe even grant them early access to the product. During this time, combine inbound and outbound strategies. Inbound would be those social media posts where people reach out or purchase your product. Outbound would be actively seeking out potential customers.
You could reach out to the people interviewed in phase one, ask friends and family members to help spread the word, and start connecting with new people in online communities who could eventually become customers. If after 5 days there are no sales, don’t waste days or even weeks building the product. Go back to the drawing board and figure out what to tweak to make the offer more desirable.
Phase Four: Reviewing, Adjusting, and Attracting
Repeating Successful Strategies for Long-Term Growth
and irresistible. And a lot of the time, it’s something as simple as the price, the sales page, or the messaging. Don’t throw away all the hard work and start from scratch. Have more conversations, ask people what they’d need to see for this to be a no-brainer, and then launch again.
Once even three to five people buy, that’s proof of being on the right track. It’s so much easier to find buyers first and then build because then you’re actually getting paid to create it. Phase 4, days 22 to 30 of this plan, is to review, adjust, and attract. Once the launch is over, review everything and ask what worked and what didn’t. In other words, were there specific posts
Leveraging Testimonials and Feedback
or conversations that converted into the first few sales? Those strategies should be repeated in order to make more sales moving forward. If it didn’t sell, don’t quit. Tweak the messaging, clarify the outcome, and try again until it sells. If some sales were made, the digital product now needs to be built out and delivered to founding members, and the timeline will vary depending on what’s being sold. The next goal would be to gather testimonials and feedback to help improve the product moving forward. This will help sell it over and over again
Building an Email List with Strategic Freebies
because if you can prove your product does what it promises to do, it’ll be much easier to sell. This is also the phase where the focus should shift to building a freebie that’s directly tied to the digital product just validated. Because once you’ve proven people are willing to pay for the solution, the best next move is to attract more of the right people.
And that’s where your email list comes in. Create a freebie that ideally becomes the first step toward your paid product. For example, when I was selling my Etsy ebook, my freebie was an Etsy master checklist that helped people get their Etsy shop set up and optimized if they hadn’t yet. This naturally led into my ebook
Connecting Freebies to Your Paid Product Offerings
that helped those people get their first few digital product sales on Etsy. With YouTube, a free YouTube views to customers guide that teaches online entrepreneurs how to generate more leads with YouTube can directly lead them into a YouTube course for further support.
Your freebie could be a checklist, a short PDF guide, a cheat sheet, or a mini training. From there, choose a simple email service provider to deliver it and start building that list intentionally. Tools like Flodesk, Kit, System.io, or Mailerlite are a few examples.
Maintaining a Sustainable Business Beyond Social Media
During week four and beyond, use social media and a chosen search engine — Instagram and YouTube work well — to attract more of the right people through content, get them onto an email list where they can be nurtured every week and warmed up to the paid product. Most digital product sales moving forward will come directly from an email list. And that’s how to build a sustainable digital product business that doesn’t rely on social media algorithms that can’t be controlled. Read More
