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If your copy is weak, your profits will be too.
But, selling digital products is not just about words. It is about knowing exactly what makes people click, buy, and come back for more.
Stay with me because in this post, I’ll show you how to sell digital products in ways that make people click, buy, and come back for more.
1. Problem & Solution
Learning how to sell digital products starts with understanding your audience and the problems they want to solve.
If you like cooking and want to make yummy recipes, you might try making a very tasty apple pie with little or no sugar.
You go on the internet and find recipes that promise a lot, but when you open the ingredients, the first thing you see is… sugar.
So, you spend a lot of time trying, cooking it yourself until something works and you like it.
If you put this recipe on the market, showing how hard it was to find the solution, and marketing the idea of the desired outcome—eating tasty food while getting lean and healthy—people will buy it. You could even put it in a cookbook.
Why?
First, you needed this solution (proof of concept). Second, very few people were giving the solution (gap in the market). Third, you were experimenting, so you became a better cook, which helps you market it better because of your connection to the product.
Now you delivered the solution to the exact same person as you. You speak their language and solve very specific pain points, which not everybody could solve. So yes, you will likely make sales or at least have a good chance of selling.
2. Be a Good Marketer, Not Just a Cook
One is to know how to cook, second is to know how to market.
Knowing how to cook is important, but learning how to sell digital products is what will help you make money.
The biggest service you can do for yourself is to learn SEO. I have told this many times in my blogs, and I will probably keep saying it because there are still people who do not know.
SEO is using keywords. So, if you are selling a tasty apple pie recipe with 0 sugar, your product title, description, URL slug, and other parts have to have those keywords in them. This way, your customer who types “how to make a tasty apple pie recipe with 0 sugar” can find you.
If you are a complete SEO beginner, check out this blog.
What If You Created 50 Cookbooks?
One product, you know how to optimize. But now, what if you create 50 and put them, let’s say, on a merchant like Fourthwall website builder (like I do) or any other? How do you make sure they rank?
If you look at my site, almost every single page intentionally has:
- Products
- Reviews
- FAQs
- Some body text with relevant and the same keywords
- Sometimes videos
- Sometimes blogs
- Footer with supporting links
I am intentionally creating subcategory pages into hubs, so Google, even when you are early on your journey, sees your page as wow, interesting, and worth promoting.
It is going to be easier to get found, rather than with just one cookbook. While one page can rank, Google prioritizes these hub pages when they are not too keyword-stuffed, are helpful to a customer, make them more interested, engaged, and finally, click that button to purchase, which then signals to Google that you are solving a problem.
Plus, questions can be easily picked and answered from the Google ‘People Also Ask’ section.
Use Video
Don’t like TikTok? Use blogs (with embedded videos) and promote them on Pinterest, including both videos and blog posts.
Don’t like blogs? Maybe use YouTube.
Video is important because you can show in real life how you are cooking, how you come up with these recipe ideas. It humanizes your content. It creates a connection.
Not only does that increase the trust factor, but it also increases your sales.
You bring people in with SEO, but you keep them with your authenticity.
3. Read Books
When everybody is doom scrolling, playing video games, or watching Netflix, take that book… and read it!
I started reading Advertising Secrets of the Written Word, and damn, it’s great!
It teaches how to use copy to sell.
The most important thing you need to do is make your customer read the… copy. Sounds obvious, right? But why have we never thought about it before?
How you make the reader read your copy starts with understanding the product, knowing its unique points, how it is different from the competition, creating a buying environment (even online, yes, you can do it), and knowing your customer well.
I won’t spoil more (I also need to keep reading it), but so far it really proves that by reading, you can get where you want to be much faster.
And for those who say copywriting is dead because of AI, don’t forget that by having experience and understanding, you can spot where AI writes complete nonsense and where it doesn’t. 🙂
A Mini Tiny Tip from Gabi
Make your customer stop and read your copy.
Use catchy, short sentences that make them think and read on.
Create interesting headlines to make them click on your articles, blogs, or videos in the first place.
Collect experience in your life so you can be an interesting person and tell the same interesting stories.
To make catchy headlines, use this formula: What the reader wants + worry taken away + how soon it will happen.
For example, if you are selling a tasty apple pie recipe with 0 sugar, your headline could be:
- “Make a Sugar-Free Apple Pie in 30 Minutes Even If You Hate Baking”
- “Tasty Sugar-Free Apple Pie Ready in 30 Min With No Skills Needed”
- “Bake a Tasty Sugar-Free Apple Pie Today Even If You Have Never Baked”
This makes your reader curious, shows them the outcome, and gives them a time frame to get it done.
P.S. Use it responsibly, because it’s too powerful.
4. Adjust to a Platform
If you are going to sell digital products, go to Pinterest right now!
Pinterest is a great place to sell digital products, but only if you know how to use it.
If you write a blog post called “10 Easy Recipes to Eat Like a Queen and Get Lean (:D)” and you insert a cookbook inside it, it would be a no-brainer to create a Pinterest Pin (an image) with the same headline and a call to action that promotes the blog, for example:
…but you can’t just copy it.
People don’t search on Pinterest the same way they search on Google.
Ask ChatGPT what keywords people are typing in the Pinterest search bar to find results similar to your blog. It will give you plenty of ideas. Pick a few, go to Pinterest, type them in the search bar, and see if people are actually searching for them.
If they are not, ditch that keyword. If they are, use it everywhere.
5. Give Free Stuff… More Often
I’m not kidding.
Make that damn cookbook free—you will be surprised how many people will join. Of course, it takes time, especially if you decide to promote it on Pinterest.
Then imagine how many people you will have as your target audience, to whom you can market much more expensive, better products.
If you give that wonderful cookbook to them for free, the one you spent so much time making, they will see that your quality is great. They will have zero problem spending that dollar with you.
6. Bonus
Write all your marketing materials in 5th-grade reading level.
Writing at a 5th-grade reading level makes your message easy to understand, accessible to more people, and more likely to get results.
Final Notes to Take Before You Go
- Focus on the solution, not the features. Features can be explained later.
- If you are a complete beginner, start with SEO.
- If you use WordPress, use Yoast SEO. Don’t ignore free keyword research tools and detailed SEO extensions.
- Then study how category pages work. Spy on my websites to see how I made them. Watch this YouTube video. I believe it will help you a lot.
- Watch how I make short videos with my editing packs. Copy it.
- See how I promote on Pinterest. Copy it again.
- Listen to this podcast. It’s great!
- Read books. Let’s not pretend we are good at everything. We are not. Start with books on copywriting. That is what makes you sales.
- Give free stuff more often.
- Promote on other platforms and adjust to each platform.
And finally, come back to this blog whenever you are stuck.
Sending you lots and lots of hugs (and don’t get sick like I did in the short mini video I included!).
Gabi <3
