Every freelancer knows the challenges of growing and scaling their business. But many of us freelance alongside other jobs, or may have hit full client capacity.
So how can we scale our business without continuing to exchange time for money?
One way is to create a revenue stream that requires an initial time investment to set it up, but then continues to sell on autopilot. This revenue stream involves selling a digital product.
Deloitte found that U.S. adults spend $120 to $130 monthly on digital goods and services. Freelancers have the golden opportunity to capitalize on this demand by creating their own digital goods such as templates, online courses, recorded webinars, eBooks, PDF guides, or even AI agents.
Whether you freelance full-time or as a side-hustle, selling a digital product is a smart way to add revenue without significantly increasing your time commitments. Here’s why:
You already have specific knowledge and skills.
You’re already an expert in what you do. How could you package up your knowledge or skills in a way that benefits more people, beyond your client roster?
Let’s say you’re a graphic designer. You could create a set of social media templates that other businesses could plug-and-play, and sell these as a low-ticket offer to those not ready to invest in your design services.
Think: what types of questions do you regularly receive from clients or your online audience? What topics or pain points do they ask to “pick your brain” over? You could package up your unique knowledge on this topic into a PDF guide or eBook.
Enjoy scalable revenue.
Even though it takes some time to set up a digital product revenue stream including creating the actual product, setting up the system to sell it on (such as a Stan Store, Beacons, or Linktree page), and some ongoing marketing to promote it, it can be relatively “hands-off” yet highly scalable.
Here are two ways to scale your digital product revenue stream:
- Upsell: It’s easier and more profitable to market to existing customers than to try to convert brand new customers. On your digital product sales page, you could upsell your customers to a mid-level product (e.g, a more comprehensive online course) and then to a high-ticket offer (e.g, one-to-one coaching). Work smarter, not harder!
- Email marketing: Another benefit of selling a digital product is collecting your customers’ email addresses. Building your email list is a strategic way to build stronger relationships with your customers and promote your other products and services. It’s also a great way to help future-proof your business – you own your email list, as opposed to your social media platforms.
It positions you as a thought leader.
Taking the time to create a digital product that offers more in-depth, comprehensive knowledge than your free public content (e.g. social media posts) helps to position you as a thought leader or expert in your field.
If your digital product helps your audience solve a problem, this increases trust in your brand, which is imperative to business growth. According to Deloitte, 88% of customers who highly trust a brand would buy again, and 62% buy almost exclusively from that brand. High trust has the potential to turn into referrals, positive reviews, references, or citations in other content, and could even lead to speaking gigs or podcast appearances. All of which help build your brand.
Creating and selling your own digital products is a smart business strategy for freelancers, especially in today’s unpredictable economic landscape. It’s a great way to grow your revenue without exhausting your time each week, so that you can focus on your hands-on client work.
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