Do you want to learn how to launch your first digital product successfully? If so, great! You’re in the right place! Before we show you how to boost engagement and sales, let’s define digital products.
Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay
What are Digital Products?
Simply put, digital products are things that are available for purchase that you can’t physically hold or touch. Common examples include:
- eBooks
- Software as a service (SaaS)
- Audio downloads
- Graphics
- PowerPoint templates
- Online courses
There’s plenty of evidence that suggests digital products are here to stay. According to Salesforce, digital sales surpassed a staggering 1 trillion dollars at the end of 2021!
The trends are very similar when you look at specific product categories individually. For example, the learning management system (LMS) industry, which is responsible for online courses, was worth $14.43 billion during the same 2021 period.
Best LMS Software and Employee Training Software like proprofs training are gaining prominence, with organizations increasingly adopting advanced platforms for enhanced online learning experiences.
Now that you can see the value in selling digital products online, it’s time to talk about tips. Today, we will look at a few universal strategies you can use to improve conversions before, during, and after your product launch.
Let’s begin!
Understand Your Target Audiences’ Goals and Pain Points
If you want your first digital product launch to be a success, you have to spend plenty of time understanding your target audience’s goals and pain points.
The easiest way to figure out what potential customers would like to accomplish or what problems they would like to solve is by asking.
The problem many marketers and business leaders encounter is thinking the customer research phase stops once product development is in full gear. The truth is you should continuously gather information from potential customers before, during, and after your product hits the market.
This helps you in product management and continuously delivering the goods.
Here’s an example of how an email marketing SaaS would conduct market research on social media, their website, and email.
People will gladly share their thoughts on various industries, even if they’re not talking directly to the business doing the research.
Example 1: Social Media - Social media managers and marketers ask their followers, “What’s one aspect of email marketing you wish you could master?’ Similarly, they would spend plenty of time in relevant groups and discovering relevant hashtags.
Example 2: On-Site - Surveys and analytics can help business owners discover popular posts and answers to essential customer questions. If a leader sees all of their blog articles on building lead lists are popular, they can bet that a feature that makes that aspect of their SaaS easier will help their customers.
Example 3: Email - Users who joined their list are interested in their digital products. So, this is an excellent time to use personalization to connect with subscribers. If a user signed up after reading an article on scrubbing an email list, the team could ask that customer what type of feature would save them time and energy when clearing their lead list.
To better understand this data, the business leaders and marketing team would create a persona sheet like this:
Once you understand your audience, it’s easier to fine-tune other marketing strategies to ensure a smooth, profitable launch.
Build Your Email List
Speaking of email marketing, building your email list is critical to securing day-one digital sales.
Imagine promoting your new product or service to an email list with five people. Now, compare the results you would get if you sent the same email to 500 people.
Oddly, you would see substantially more sales and engagement if you sent the message to 500 subscribers. For context on this example, 60% of people say they’ve bought a product from a business after reading a marketing email.
There are quite a few ways to build your email list. You could create customized pop-ups for website visitors that asks if they’d like to sign up for updates.
On the other hand, you could also create a coming soon page.
Coming soon pages are specific landing pages designed to let readers know your product is in the works. It is an excellent opportunity to build excitement and convince readers to take the next step and become subscribers.
Other advantages come with building your email list. You could use this opportunity to let early subscribers beta-test your digital product.
For example, if you allow a handful of subscribers to test your SaaS a few weeks before launch day, you’ll have a chance to make last-minute changes and adjustments so your final release is more polished.
Highlight Benefits with a Landing Page
Landing pages are another great way to convince first-time visitors to invest in your product or service. We mentioned coming soon pages earlier, which is just one type of landing page.
If your goal is to drive more sales, I suggest creating a product description landing page.
This type of page can help you highlight the benefits of your new release, which is bound to draw the attention of people already familiar with your brand and unique visitors.
There are a few things all good landing pages have in common. For one thing, they don’t just talk about the product’s features. Instead, high-converting landing pages tie the features back to customer benefits.
So, an email marketing SaaS wouldn’t say they have “Our tool comes with Lead Gen. 2.0 software.” Instead, they would say, “Our Lead Gen. 2.0 software can help you connect with your audience and grow your list.”
Do you see the difference? Including benefits with features can be the deciding success factor of your landing page.
I also recommend including visual media on your pages. Use this opportunity to show product demonstrations and case uses. Research shows that landing pages with videos see 80% more conversions when compared to pages without videos.
Spread Brand Awareness on Social Media
Social media marketing is a must-have strategy if you hope to sell more digital products.
Over 4.62 billion people use sites like Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter to engage with friends, co-workers, and businesses. You can guarantee that your target audience is interested in your product or service.
You can do a few things to enhance brand awareness and grow your follower count.
The best thing you can do is directly engage with followers and prospects. I suggest joining relevant groups on Facebook, using industry hashtags, and practicing social listening.
Moreover, consider sharing your electronic business card to expand your network and enhance your online presence. We also find it helpful to host events like giveaways and monetized webinars.
Contests are beneficial in this situation because you can ask people to sign up for your email list or visit your website in exchange for an entry. These entry methods lead to further engagement, turning people finding your brand for the first time into interested leads.
You could offer your product as the giveaway prize. If you hold this event before launch day, you can quickly spread awareness and get people excited about your release.
Video content can also skyrocket engagement.
Research shows that 90% of people watch videos on social media sites.
So, if you create content and events that resonate with your audience, there’s a good chance you can build a substantial audience through visual posts.
You can tie these events to your website using a social media feed tool. If someone lands on your blog, they can quickly discover your upcoming webinar or ongoing contest by glancing at your sidebar.
This is particularly effective when you're looking to get into IT, where creating engaging and informative content is key to building trust and credibility.
Final Thoughts
Launching your first digital product is an exciting yet nerve-wracking moment. We all want to see success on the day our new product hits the market.
If you use the tips presented today as the outline for your next release, I believe you’ll have a better chance of connecting with more potential customers.
And because you’ve fine-tuned your marketing message and started using a wide range of marketing platforms, you’ll have no problem meeting your customers’ needs and growing your business with each consecutive release.
