Ready to take the jump and build a digital product shop in 2022? That’s amazing! But trust me, I’ve been in your shoes, and I know you have a million questions running through your head. That’s why I’m going to walk you through exactly how I would build a digital product shop in 2022. (Don’t worry, I’ll update this blog from time-to-time if there are changes in the future!)

The first five things you need to do to set up your shop

Setting up your digital shop can seem overwhelming. There’s so much to do, so many choices to make; how can you be sure you’re making the right decisions? 

A little strategy goes a long way when you’re first starting out! Here are five steps you need to take to set your digital shop up for success. 

#1: Decide on your niche

Believe it or not, I didn’t wake up one day with contracts as my calling. I went through several iterations of my business (including wanting to be a yoga instructor at one point!), all with different levels of success. 

It took me many years to hone down the industry that actually spoke to me. Throughout all of my ventures, one thing stayed consistent: I was always using contracts, no matter what type of client, and they became my strength. Helping other like-minded business owners became my common thread. 

Don’t be afraid to get specific! The more you niche down, the better you can position yourself as a solution to your audience’s problems. 

#2: Find your people

Once you find the niche that speaks to you, it’s time to do some research on your audience. This is homework you do NOT want to skip. You may even want to set up a persona for your ideal customer to help you visualize what kind of person you want to appeal to. Ask yourself questions like: 

• What does your ideal customer struggle with on a daily basis? 
• How do your customers connect with one another? What social media platforms best speak to their interests? 
• What inspires your ideal customer to get up in the morning? How are they measuring their success? 

If you don’t know your ideal customer inside and out, the product you try to give them may not make sense. Would you give a hammer to a painter? 

#3: Pick your poison (er, I mean, product)

Once you have a handle on your niche and your ideal customer, now you need your vessel to provide value to your customer: your digital product. 

Find a product that directly addresses a pain point your customer deals with. Your product should immediately solve (or at least alleviate) something that they struggle with. Some examples include: 

• Social media templates for Instagram (removes the timesuck it takes, especially if your customer isn’t necessarily artistic)
• E-books or guides (easily explains a complex topic that would otherwise take hours of frustrating research)
• Online courses (introduces your customer to a topic that will help them take their journey to the next level in a palatable format) 

Not sure if your product will be well-received at first? Pre-selling is a great tool for this! You can gauge your audience’s reaction before putting in 100% of the effort to create the product itself. 

#4: Get their attention

Once you create your product, it’s time to get it into your ideal customer’s hands. They may seem like a match made in heaven, but it will take some effort to convince your audience to find AND try your product. That’s okay! This is totally normal, and part of the process. 

First, set up your shop (and if you need some tips, check out my blog on how to set up your digital product shop here!) Your online shop is like a brick-and-mortar storefront, so make sure it’s clean, accessible, and easy on the eyes. (It doesn’t need to be super complicated; just make sure it’s easy to read and understand!)

Now, you want to advertise your product in the best channels. Promote your shop on platforms where your audience is more likely to be (especially if they go to this channel for networking and problem-solving; it can be Instagram, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, etc). Be sure to emphasize how your product IMMEDIATELY addresses a common problem they are likely to have. You’re not just selling your product; you’re selling the experience it will bring. 

#5: Track your sales

Once your product is published, you’ll want to track its progress. Tracking is crucial to your future success! You can do this via tracking software or manually, but no matter how you do it, these KPIs are the best way to ensure your shop’s future success. 

You can track your shop’s traffic and the traffic sources, but above all, you want to track your conversion rate (the number of visitors that make a sale). This will give you some insight on what customers were drawn to your product and where to find them in the future. 

You’re almost there!

Last but not least, I want to remind you that having realistic expectations is so important. It took me 5 years and definitely some therapy to figure out that digital products sell differently than other online items. In 2015, I launched my own digital product store and made a whopping … $0.

I quickly realized that it was because I wasn’t selling a course or anything that other people had been trying to sell. That’s when I set my mind on going all in and scaling my new digital download products. Each year, I came up with a new strategy for selling digital products that worked better than anything anyone else was teaching.

👉🏻 By 2020, my products were in the hands of literally thousands of business owners.

👉🏻 I scaled to multiple 6-figures.

👉🏻 And it was all happening so automatically that I didn’t have to work for a whole 8 months!

By using a very specific set of strategies, I’ve turned The Contract Shop® into a thriving business that brings in more than half a million dollars a year. And now, I’m ready to teach you all the things that I’ve learned over the past 5 years about how to build a successful digital product store. 

Why go through trial and error when you can access the frameworks and strategies that ACTUALLY worked for my 7-figure product shop? Check out my program, Simple Sustained Shop Sales™.

If you’re ready to go all in with building your digital product shop, but would rather avoid any and all trial and error of figuring out how to make them SELL, then be sure you are on the waitlist. With this program you can have the specific frameworks and strategies that worked for my 7-figure product shop, so you can create the product shop of your dreams!