If you run a physical products business and you’re wondering how you could add new income streams, I’ve got 3 digital product ideas that will work perfectly for store owners selling physical products.
You may not realize it, however you have opportunities that don’t involve:
The best part is these three digital products types can be created with content you likely already have for your business.
A few reasons to create digital products
Selling digital products from your website is a great way to build a passive income stream – you create the product once, and when it sells the work is already done. Any further work is taken up by clever systems, and making sure the content provided remains up to date, and relevant.
Typically, digital products are:
For physical product shop owners, a big advantage to offering digital products is to improve the customer experience as well. Digital products can complement your physical collection, adding a further opportunity for your customers to engage with your brand in a new way, keeping your brand top of mind.
3 Digital Product Ideas You Can Create Today
You’re in a great place to do this
You’ve built a following and brand already for your physical products and you have an audience ready to hear from you. This is highly valuable and although you’ve gotten used to selling physical products, adding in digital products will help you protect your business by creating a new income stream.
Idea No. 1: A digital workshop
Your audience will love learning a new skill from their favourite maker! Offer them a chance to get immersed in your world, designing and creating your products.
You may already have been doing live workshops – this is an easy one to convert into an online format. You record it once, have a professional edit it (trust me editing takes skill and will eat up your time), and sell it as a digital product.
You can sell this workshop directly from your website with a little tech-savvy (check the resources list for ideas), or go the easy way using Thinkific* to create it as an online course. Their starting plan is free to use as it works on commissions for each sale.
Show yourself behind the scenes, and make the experience beginner-friendly. Create your workshop as a follow-along behind the scenes opportunity – satisfying your customers’ curiosity and thrilling them with the adventure of experiencing a completely different world to their own.
For example, how cute is this?!
You’re aiming to sell this to your fans looking for an experience, not someone who is seriously learning how to make the same products. Making it specifically for your customers, as a way to enhance their experience of your products and brand rather than as a tutorial will also protect your business.
Best tip: Pre sell it! Don’t create the video recordings until you have a waitlist for the workshop and taken a good look at your customer feedback. They’ll leave comments on your posts telling you exactly what they’d love to see which will help you create the content, and use the right words to sell it once it’s live.
Idea No. 2: An e-book
It’s highly likely you’ve already got content for this and you don’t realise it!
If your brand is highly visual, create a highly visual e-book with photos of your best work, behind the scenes and create an experience with visual storytelling. Aim for the content to be inspirational or aspirational, inviting your reader into your brand world.
Or perhaps your customers are making a lifestyle change when they purchase your products? Switching to natural products, becoming more eco-conscious, changing their diet, skincare etc? You are an expert in your field and you’ve build trust already, so you are perfectly placed to create an e-book to help them in their transition and lifestyle change.
Bet tip: It’s ok to re-use some of the content you’ve already written on your blog or emails! The objective here is to provide high value in one packaged item of content, beautifully presented. Your customer is looking for your expertise and you are saving them time by condensing it into an easy to read & flick through format.
Extra tip – you could even offer a printed-on-demand option of the book. Not technically fully digital, but pretty passive still as all you need is to connect it to a print-on-demand service.
Idea No. 3: Printables & Digital Files
If yours is an art shop or you use unique graphic designs to create your physical products, could you be selling your art or graphics digitally?
For example:
You already know how to create the art and graphics (if not try Canva* it’s perfect for this), and printables won’t require your customer to print in ultra-high resolution with their home printer.
Organisational printables are especially popular. We all love to get organised – with our family, our businesses, or our personal projects. Offer your customers a means to do it in a stylish way with unique art or graphics from their favourite artist.
Don’t believe me? do a search for digital planner templates or digital planning. I promise you it’s a big niche and there are tons of tutorials to show you how to use your iPad to create such graphics to manage your digital planner. Check out Etsy & Creative Market* for an idea of just how popular printables are.