Selling digital products online can be a rewarding business as it requires little start-up capital to build up a source of passive income. Digital products that you can sell include software, graphics, e- books with all kinds of topics you can think of, music and more.
To find a niche for your product, think of what you are good at. If you are a great programmer, you can create software with great functions to simplify tasks. If you are a seasoned stock trader, you can provide trading advice in an e-book or membership site.
After you created the content for your digital product, you need to package your product. Unlike physical products, digital product can be more difficult to sell. Hence, a visually attractive cover for a digital product can increase your sales by ten- fold. If you are selling an ebook, you need a cover for it just like what a paperback needs. You may need to hire a copywriter to write your sales page with more compelling words to describe the benefits of your product. Video clips can be created to advertise your digital product. You can provide short review copy so that your customer can “try” out your product. However, consumer still has low acceptance level for digital product. If you are able to provide money back guarantee period, let’s say 30 days or up to 90 days, you will attract them to buy your product. You must be prepared to provide refunds to your customer. That is the part of your cost of business to attract more sales.
If you find product creation a complicated task, you can outsource the task at website like oDesk. The tasks of writing, designing and promoting can all be outsourced. Do prepare a proper structure for the freelancer so that he/ she can produce a piece of work that you envisage. Copyscape is a tool that you should use to detect if the work you bought is original. You never want your digital product to be a duplicated work.
To sell your digital product, you need to manage the marketing, payment processing and delivery of your product. You will need a shopping cart. Both E-junkie and Clickbank provide such service.
To simplify the process of delivering your product, you can use e-junkie that requires a minimal fee of $5 per month. E-junkie provides shopping cart and buy now buttons to let you sell downloads and tangible goods on your website, eBay, MySpace, Google Base, CraigsList and other websites using PayPal Website Payments Standard, PayPal Website Payments Pro, PayPal Payflow Pro, Google Checkout, Authorize.Net, TrialPay, ClickBank and 2CheckOut. E-junkie is not only for digital product. It can be used for tangible products as well. To encourage you to sign up for E-junkie, it provides 7 days of free trial. It allows you to deliver your digital product in the form of secure links which expire after the maximum number of download attempts and hours you permit for the product.
ClickBank is an online marketplace for digital information products. It serves as a connection between digital product sellers and affiliate marketers, who then promote them to consumers. Clickbank only requires an activation fee of USD50. To sell a product through ClickBank, you will need your own website, including web hosting and a registered domain name to host your sales page. Firstly, you sign up for a web hosting plan that provides a free domain name. Choose a keyword- rich domain name for your website. The domain name should reflect the niche of your digital product. Creating a sales page can be easy if you use Pitchmagic. It is a product recommended by Clickbank that assists you to create sales page effortlessly as you don’t have to know a thing about html coding since you just need to drag and drop headlines, testimonials, bullet lists, images, video & more.
When customers are ready to buy they click on a ClickBank payment link on your Sales Page that links them to the ClickBank order form, where customers can place their order. Clickbank will process sales for you, and accept multiple types of credit cards and PayPal. By joining Clickbank, you will have a myriad of affiliates from all over the world to promote your products. Imagine how your affiliates can write reviews of your product on their blog; advertise about your product on Google and social networking sites like Facebook.
Selling digital products can be easy if you use the right interface. With the current trend for E-Reader and digital tablets like iPad, the sales of digital content will grow.
Famous Failures
The aim of knowing about the failures of famous people is not to gloat over other people’s misfortune but to tell us that failure is never a deterrent of success. What is common among the famous people who succeeded is that they failed before.
Thomas Edison: As a child he was gifted but was too disruptive for his school. As a result he was forced to leave school and his formal education ended at an early age. A teacher told him that he was too stupid to learn anything. Those who knew him considered his crackpot ideas to be “crazy”. His invention of the light bulb proved everyone wrong.
Thomas Alva Edison’s Quote: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
Albert Einstein did not speak until he was 4-years-old and did not read until he was 7. His parents thought he was “sub-normal,” and one of his teachers described him as “mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in foolish dreams.” He was expelled from school and was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic School.
Albert Eintein’s Quote: “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
Harland David Sanders: Perhaps better known as Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) fame, Sanders had a hard time selling his chicken at first. In fact, his famous secret chicken recipe was rejected 1,009 times before a restaurant accepted it.
Walter Disney was American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, and animator. One of the most well-known motion picture producers in the world, Disney founded a production company. The corporation, now known as The Walt Disney company, makes average revenue of US $30 billion annually. Disney started his own business from his home garage and his very first cartoon production went bankrupt. During his first press conference, a newspaper editor ridiculed Walt Disney because he had no good ideas in film production.
Walter Disney’s Quote: “All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me… You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you. “
Steven Spielberg is an American film director. He has won 3 Academy Awards and ranks among the most successful filmmakers in history. Most of all, Steven was recognized as the financially most successful motion picture director of all time. During his childhood, Spielberg dropped out of junior high school. He was persuaded to come back and was placed in a learning-disabled class. He only lasted a month and then dropped out of school forever.
Henry Ford’s first two automobile companies failed. That did not stop him from incorporating Ford Motor Company and being the first to apply assembly line manufacturing to the production of affordable automobiles in the world. He not only revolutionized industrial production in the United States and Europe, but also had such influence over the 20th century economy and society. His combination of mass production, high wages and low prices to consumers has initiated a management school known as “Fordism”. He became one of the three most famous and richest men in the world during his time.
Henry Ford Failure Quote: “Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, only this time more wisely.”
Bill Gates, founder and chairman of Microsoft, has literally changed the work culture of the world in the 21st century, by simplifying the way computer is being used. He happens to be the world’s richest man for the last one decade. However, in the 70′s before starting out, he was a Harvard University dropout. The most ironic part is that, he started a software company (that was soon to become Microsoft) by purchasing the software technology from “someone” for only US$50 back then.
Bill Gates’s quotes: “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”
“It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure. “
Harry Truman, US President, What it was: Truman’s store sold silk shirts and other clothing. After a few successful years, Truman’s store went bankrupt in 1922.
Wolfgang Armedeus Mozart: Though a child prodigy whose music is still loved today, Mozart was shunned by aristocracy and he lived much of his adult life in poverty. He died in his thirties and was buried in a paupers grave. Only after his death was he given his due respect.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Quote: “I pay no attention whatever to anybody’s praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings. “
Winston Churchill failed the 6th grade. However, that never stopped him to work harder! He strived and eventually became the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. Churchill is generally regarded as one of the most important leaders in Britain and world history. In a poll conducted by the BBC in 2002 to identify the “100 Greatest Britons”, participants voted Churchill as the most important of all.
Sir Winston Churchill’s Quote: “Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.”
“Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never, Never, Never, Never give up.”
Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.
Michael Jordan’s Quote:”I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”