10 Best Digital Product Ideas to Sell Online + create Passive Income for your Blog
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About 2.5 years ago, I *accidentally* stumbled into this crazy world of passive income digital products.
I was immediately hooked and knew I needed to pursue this path.
Call me a crazy millennial, but I think there should be way more to life than waking up, going to work for someone else everyday, feeling tied to your income & building someone else’s dream.
And I’m guessing you’re reading this article because you feel the same way.
Now, here’s what you should know— “passive income” is anything but passive in the beginning. You have to put the hours in if you want to make this dream a reality.
But if it’s possible for me, then it’s possible for you too— you just have to want it badly enough. #TruthBomb
So if you’re ready to take the leap of faith & want to generate consistent passive income from digital products, then carry on, my friend! This guide will walk you through the 10 best digital product ideas to help get you started on the journey.
P.S.: To make the most of our time together—download my FREE Digital Product Survival Guide below (it’s not as intimidating as it sounds, promise).
This nifty lil’ guide will give you the full rundown so you can get started creating your first digital product… today!
Alright. That passive income dream ain’t gonna build itself, my friend— let’s get to it!
What are digital products?
Let’s start with the basics— like what the heck digital products are!
To keep things simple, a digital product is an intangible asset (i.e. a resource or tool) that can be created ONCE, and sold many times thereafter. The product is delivered to customers in a digital format so there’s no need to worry about replenishing inventory.
Here’s just a few of the perks that come with selling digital products:
No overhead costs: You’ll never run into inventory or shipping issues
High profit margins: There’s no recurring costs & essentially no cap on the profit you can generate from digital products
Flexibility: You get to choose how your digital products are created, sold & promoted. You can do A/B testing, offer discounts or change your pricing structure at your discretion. Andddd you get more flexibility in your lifestyle with digital products (i.e. work from anywhere, doesn’t require 1:1 freelance work)
There’s some digital products that can be created rather quickly— possibly in a few hours if you aren’t a perfectionist like me. :) Then there’s other digital products that can take days, weeks or even months to build out. How much work you put into your product will of course depend on your end goal!
Best Digital Product Ideas to sell Online
Before we get into the juicy stuff, I wanted to quickly point out that digital products are NOT one size fits all. What’s worked for my business (and the businesses below) might not work for yours & vice versa.
It’s important to just keep an open mind! You never know how your digital products will evolve over the course of time.
And I’m being 100% serious. As you can see below, my first digital product was a Snapchat Geofilter that I proudly sold on Etsy with a 48 hour turnaround time guaranteed! ;) *embarrassing*
Anywho, I hope this list below sparks some new digital product ideas for YOU!
1. branded stock photography
Now, I’m just gonna give this one to ya straight— I am NOT talking about your standard “Getty Images” stock photography here (no one is gonna buy a one-off photo #SorryNotSorry).
Nope, I’m talking about something that you may not have considered before, but I definitely see a big demand/opportunity in— branded photography collections for online business owners.
Confused? Stay with me here.
I’m talking about styled stock photo bundles that include flat lays, lifestyle imagery, tech mockups (i.e. macbook, iPhone), desk scenes & any other themed imagery that may come in handy for a creative online business owner.
And if you’re still feeling lost, I’ll give a quick example. Moyo Studio is a shop on Creative Market that executes these bundles incredibly well.
In fact, I love their collections so much that I’ve purchased about 6 different bundles from them— they’re the only shop that I’ve consistently purchased from because their imagery & mockups are just that good.
I’ll stop my raving review here, but definitely keep this category in mind because there’s a HUGE need for these bundles if you know how to work a camera.
2. Swipe files, Content Scripts & Copy Banks
This category might just be one that’s never crossed your mind before— but I’ve been seeing them EVERYWHERE recently so I know there’s a big demand!
Many creative entrepreneurs are now selling their “swipe files”, or content script templates, as digital products. A swipe file is essentially just a proven formula to achieve XYZ result (i.e. make money blogging, increase traffic, write an email list sequence etc).
Swipe files can also be in the form of exact content scripts. The idea is that a customer can purchase your premade content template, fill in the blanks/make any necessary edits, copy & paste the content into their own word doc then add it to whichever project they’re using it for!
This is definitely one of the more “creative” digital product categories but it’s worthwhile to consider! If you have any go-to copy banks that are huge time savers, why not share them? You’re probably not the only one who’s struggled to get their words right! Package that baby up & add it to your shop. :)
Want even more digital product ideas to add to your arsenal?! Make sure you’ve downloaded my Digital Product Survival Guide— I wouldn’t want you to miss out on this one, friend!
3. Printables
You’ve probably heard this one a million times before, but there’s honestly still a lot of opportunity in the “printables” space. Essentially, a printable is just a digital file you can create for your customer to print out & use. The idea is to create a printable that provides a “solution” to some sort of pain point your customer is struggling with.
The more successful printables are typically things like:
Downloadable planners
Lesson plans
Or really just any kind of “organization” template (great for small business owners).
Someone who I’ve seen consistently do well with printables is Kelsey Baldwin from Paper + Oats. Her products are always beautifully designed, on-brand & super useful for small business owners.
In general, printables are relatively simple to create & sell, but the amount of hours you put into them is entirely up to you! You can create something as simple as a 1 page PDF planner worksheet which might only take you a few hours to put together.
Or you can create a more time intensive printable (i.e. an ebook or PDF course) which you can justify by selling it at a higher price point. You’ll just want to make sure you do some solid research & product validation first— the last thing you want is to spend weeks creating a product… only to hear crickets once you launch it.
4. Design Templates
This one happens to be my area of genius. :)
Premade design templates are the perfect digital product for anyone with a good eye for the visuals— ideally someone who already has a bit of graphic design experience (but it’s totally cool if you’re self taught— I am too!).
Design templates can save SO much time in the content creation process. In fact, that’s kind of how I stumbled into the whole thing to begin with— I was spending WAY too much time designing online marketing templates from scratch, so I finally decided to make some serious changes to my workflow. Andddd my premade design templates were born!
Templates can be created in a number of different programs. Here’s a few examples:
Adobe (Photoshop, InDesign)
Microsoft Word
Keynote
Don’t underestimate your potential here— there’s definitely people out there who “don’t know how to draw a stick figure to save their life”. And they would be more than willing to pay for some quality templates at an affordable price point!
With that being said, I will go ahead and add my shameless plugin here for anyone who’s not so design savvy and needs some quality branding templates. ;)
5. Spreadsheets. Progress Trackers & calculators
Spreadsheets & progress trackers are the perfect digital product category for anyone who’s skilled in the organization department (I’m definitely not one of those people).
Personally, I see a pretty big opportunity with spreadsheets in the digital downloads space— there’s not a lot of people out there selling them right now (that I’ve seen anyway) but there’s definitely a big need for them.
Think of the health & fitness industry. Now let’s say you’re a physical trainer— you might have created some of these tools to track weight loss, meal plans or workouts for your clients. Well, if you find them useful, chances are that someone else would too. So package them up & sell your time-saving tools!
6. Ebooks
If I’m being completely honest, I was not a big fan of the ebook phenomenon when it first came about. For some reason, I viewed it as a “get rich quick” scheme for bloggers.
BUT with that being said, I recently purchased the SEO + Speed Power Bundle from Make Traffic Happen and these products completely opened my mind up to what an ebook can offer.
These aren’t just a few blog posts thrown together— the bundle includes step-by-step instructions, and each aspect of the ebook topic (SEO) is explained in simple to understand language (aka not the technical jargon you’ll find everywhere else).
PS I’m not an affiliate for MTH, I just wanted to provide an example to show you that creating a high quality ebook definitely is possible. So don’t discredit this category when you’re brainstorming digital products!
7. WordPress Themes or Squarespace Templates
Now, the route you take with this one will depend on your particular area of genius (i.e. if you’re more experienced with Wordpress or Squarespace).
If you’re a Wordpress user who happens to be skilled in the coding department, I highly suggest looking into selling Wordpress themes! These typically go for around $50-$100 and you can sell them in a number of different marketplaces— Envato Elements, Creative Market, Etsy, etc. (along with your own website, of course). These will, however, require a littleeee more upkeep than your average digital product— just keep any troubleshooting in mind like theme updates or concerns that your customers may experience.
Squarespace templates are similar but will require more of a “DIY” experience— i.e. creating video tutorials & walkthrough lessons on how to set up the squarespace template.
Squarespace operates a lot differently than Wordpress so you can’t just “create and sell” a template in the same way. But with that being said… Squarespace templates are typically sold at a higher price point (low end being around $100).
8. Patterns
If you’re into DIY & crafts, then pattern design might be perfect for you!
This was actually one of the first categories I looked into when I started venturing into digital products— I watched a Skillshare video by Bonnie Christine on Surface pattern design & how to create repeating patterns with Adobe Illustrator.
Bonnie has built her dream career through pattern design & has seen her work come to life through fabric collections and on wallpaper, iPhone cases, photo books and more. And now she teaches others how to do the same— how amazing is that?!
9. Illustrations or graphic elements
This is an area that I totally wish I was skilled in, but it’s just not in my cards— illustration (with that being said, I have played around with Photoshop brushes & created some free doodle illustrations if you wanna check those out).
If you do have a knack for hand lettering or illustration, I highly recommend this category for you. This can include anything from textures, Photoshop brushes, icons, illustrations or fonts (although just an FYI— fonts in particular are gonna be a competitive category).
Online business owners always need branded graphics for their website or social channels— and hand drawn illustrations or graphics are the perfect way to make this happen!
10. Online Courses
Anddd last but certainly not least— online courses!
While most people think you have to be specialized in a certain area to sell “profitable” online courses (i.e. how to make money blogging, driving traffic with Pinterest, etc), that’s definitely not the case!
You can sell online courses in pretty much any niche! As long as you conduct research to make sure your audience actually need this info, and that you provide your students with valuable content throughout the course, there’s no reason you shouldn’t just take the leap!
Here’s the great thing (and what recently pushed me to start the legwork for my own online course)— you don’t have to create a course that features you talking to the camera for 99% of your slides. In fact, if you’re a stay-at-home-bum like me and prefer to spend time in your pjs, you can totally avoid the camera at all costs!
Consider creating a course featuring a mix of video lessons (screenshares), PDFs, worksheets, written lessons and/or course slide decks with voice overs. Adding a mix of content will also keep your students engaged & more likely to finish the course!
Are there any digital products I shouldn’t sell?
This is completely up to you! If you’re incredibly skilled at something, I say go for it!
But I do want to be completely transparent with you— there’s a few digital product categories that I intentionally did not recommend above.
Fonts & Lightroom presets are both pretty saturated at the moment. I’m not saying you can’t do well with either, but just know that both categories are going to be pretty challenging spaces to stand out in (especially if you don’t plan on marketing through your own platform).
I started selling Lightroom presets early on, so I’ve been relatively successful with them. However, I’m not focusing on them moving forward as they are very much a trend based product… which will not last in the long haul. Just my own two cents!
Final Thoughts
See, told you there’s a ton of options out there for selling digital products. ;)
Don’t ever assume that the digital product space is too saturated— it’s all about how YOU present your product & create a unique spin on things.
I hope that my little guide provided clarification & helped to spark a few ideas! But in the case that you’re feeling overwhelmed or confused about anything, please feel free to drop a comment below or shoot me an email! I’d be more than happy to walk you through any struggles, concerns or challenges that you’re currently facing.
Now get out there & build that passive income digital product dream of yours! Can’t wait to watch you shine, my friend.
XO, Fal
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