by
Caroline Zook
If you have no idea how to pick the best digital product idea to pursue, we have three simple and tips to help you narrow it down. Ready to choose ONE idea to focus on so you can start building and making additional money? Let’s do it!
Tip #1: Choose the digital product with the most natural fit for your existing audience
One big mistake we often see business owners make is that they build a small audience related to their service, but then want to create a product on a completely different topic out of left field.
Is this you right now? Maybe it’s motivated by boredom because you spend all your time on your main service offering, or maybe it’s just because you’re multi-passionate. Either way, you’re likely making it harder on yourself by trying to reinvent the wheel.
Digital products sell best when you have a captive audience who needs what you’ve created.
Even if you have an email list of 500 people or a small social media following, that group of people is already paying attention to what you’re doing and that’s a valuable asset.
If you’re short on time and you want your first product to offset some of your client income, help yourself out by choosing the idea that’s the most natural fit with the small audience you already have.
What does your existing audience need? What are they interested in? Start where you are, get some momentum and THEN you can always create that other “left field” product later on down the road.
PICKING A DIGITAL PRODUCT IDEA TIP #2:
Try validating one or two of your product ideas by launching pre-orders
Want to know which of your product ideas is most viable? Quit guessing and instead put your ideas to the real test by asking people to pre-pay for them!
Pre-selling is our favorite way to ensure we don’t waste time building something that nobody wants.
Refine one or two of your ideas enough to put up a simple sales page, and promote the page or pages to your audience. Of course, be sure to let them know it’s a pre-sale, and they may have to wait a while to receive the final product.
Set a benchmark for yourself for how many presale orders you need in order to justify investing the time building the product.
This has two benefits. #1: It will show you if there’s enough interest in your idea to make it financially viable BEFORE you carve out time to build it. And #2: It will make you set a deadline to deliver your product and an audience to be accountable to, which might just motivate you to finally create what you’ve been meaning to create.
PICKING A DIGITAL PRODUCT IDEA TIP #3:
Go with your gut on what you’re most excited about!
Okay, the last two tips are pretty strategic and are based on the assumption that your digital product HAS to make you money right away.
But the truth is, building a product isn’t easy, and it certainly isn’t easy when you’re already working on servicing clients with your business.
Enthusiasm, excitement, and passion go a long way in fueling you through the difficulties of bringing your idea to life.
You can over-analyze all you want or strategize which idea will have the greatest impact on your business, but sometimes you just have to go with your gut and make that thing that keeps nagging at your brain.
Maybe it will take your business to the next level, maybe it won’t, but we guarantee you you’ll end up learning a lot and you’ll experience the satisfaction of finally getting that exciting idea out of your brain and into the world.
If you’re looking for a step-by-step program to help you launch digital products, you might want to check out our program, Build Without Burnout Academy.This is a six-month guided program teaching client-based business owners how to transition to digital products, without losing your sanity in the process. Get weekly course videos, monthly calls for accountability and support, plus get access to the rest of our courses and Slack community inside our Wandering Aimfully Membership.LEARN MORE
HOW TO PICK THE RIGHT PRODUCT IDEA
Let’s recap how to pick the right digital product idea
1. Think about which product best serves the needs of your existing audience
It’s easy to get distracted with all the ideas of unrelated products to what you currently talk to your audience about, but staying focused on what your audience already expects from you will point you in the right direction. Save your “left field” product idea for later on once you get a digital product created and generating revenue.
2. Launch a pre-order to see which idea people are actually willing to pay for
Collecting email addresses and positive sentiments on social media can feel validating for your product idea but the BEST validation tactic is to get people to put their money where their mouths are (you know, without actually doing that because of germs). Don’t be afraid to launch a pre-order before your digital product exists. If you can get your audience to buy into the idea of the product you’ll know you’re onto something!
3. Consider which idea you’re most excited to work on and can’t stop thinking about
When all else fails, listen to your gut. Your intuition exists for a reason and often times guides you in the right direction. If you simply can’t make a decision on which product idea to choose, lay them out in front of you and let your gut decide.
If you want to build a product…
The most important thing is that you stop over-thinking things and start taking action. Use one of these three tips to finally narrow in on a product idea and go all in on making that a reality.
Business is about experimentation and you won’t truly know which idea is right for you until you make a decision, build the thing and learn from the experience.
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