So here we are folks, we’ve put out our first digital product for the niche website. Actually, it was put out on September 5th, 10 days before expected.
…And it’s made sales already.
Not surprising, really. It wasn’t made because it was something I wanted to make, it was made because the market wanted it.
Three steps were taken from start to completion: the idea, actual creation, and the launch. There are two more “steps” I’m going to talk about in this post, the sales so far as well as what’s happening next. Where do we go from here?
Follow along and I’ll tell you.
The Idea
So, first off, you don’t want to base your product on something you want. That’s silly. You want to provide something to the world that the world wants. That’s what I did.
The course/guide/ebook or whatever you want to call it is based on my niche websites top blog post. Over the last six months, it has gotten nearly 30% of all page views. No brainer, that’s a hit.
Clearly, this is information people are
- Looking for
- Want to know more about
Also note, my day to day traffic of only about 200-300 unique visitors is damn near 98% organic. I do have a mailing list set up with an automated delivery, but more of the day-to-day is from people going to Google and searching for shit.
The Creation
Of course, I don’t know a damn thing about my niche. Well, I take that back. I’ve picked up a whole lot from research on my own and proofreading the articles my content creator give me. So, when it came to creating the course, I needed to hire a professional.
So I did.
It was actually pretty lucky. There was a guy on Upwork who just started and needed good reviews before he could start really getting clients. This man had a few degrees and actually worked in my niche’s industry. Amazing!
On top of being a top-notch writer and being in the industry, he also insisted he worked for minimum rates to ensure he got a five-star review. I’m not going to argue with that. A penny a word for a native English speaker? Sign me up!
So the course ended up being over 12,000 words, was nine modules in total, and cost $120 plus Upwork fees. Not only was it above my expectations, he managed to bang it out in about nine days.
After getting the written portion, it took me about an hour or two to do some design work to make the PDFs pretty and give it a name, cover, and banner ads to advertise. Not hard at all.
The Launch
Now, I could have done the launch a whole lot better. What I should have done was hype it up to my mailing list, give them a preview to get their mouth watering, tell them with one day left, 12 hours left then…BAM! Here it is, start buying.
Instead, I got tired of waiting (it was finished on the 3rd of September, 12 days before my expected launch date) and just put it together and did a shit launch on the 5th.
I put it up on Gumroad, threw my banner ad and 350×350 ad on my website and let the people come as they please.
So there was the actual process. I found out what would be the best to put out, and put it out there. I didn’t make something because I wanted it made.
I made it because the market wanted it made. There was nothing like it so far.
Now, we’ll get into the sales so far and what’s happening next.
The Sales
As you can see from the chart, it’s doing its thing. Obviously, the numbers have changed since the YouTube video was recorded.
For the first three sales, I offered a coupon to get it for $5 instead of the usual $17. Two hours after I removed the coupon option on the 20th, a sale at the regular price occurred. Damn.
I’ve contacted around 10 other websites in my niche and asked if they were interested in being affiliates for the product. As of September 22nd, I have two onboard and have them hooked up. One is going to review the product for her audience.
What’s Next
Right now, I’m hoping to break even and start getting a positive return on my investment by October 31st. That means I need to get at least 6 regular sales or 11 affiliate sales. At this rate, I expect to reach that goal way before the 31st.
Once I break even, I’ll contact the creator of the first course and commission him to create a course based on the 2nd most popular post on the website, and repeat for a third based on the website as a whole.
Once thing I’m digging about Gumroad is that it keeps track of your past customers for you. So by the time the second product is created, I’ll have at least 10 customers who have already bought from me that can kickstart the sales on the second product.
In addition to that, with affiliates pushing my product, I’ll have a strong team of niche specific sellers who can push the next product as well. Excellent!
They say hindsight is 20/20, and looking back I’m wondering to myself why I didn’t do this sooner. It’s been no mystery what the top posts were. Month after month the same ones were topping the charts.
What I do know now is that it’s definitely not hard to do. If you’re running a niche website and are
- getting some decent traffic
- have a standout post that tops your charts every month
start working on that paid guide. Just make sure you’re getting consistent traffic.
Also, don’t be afraid to reach out to other webmasters. In the niche website space, we’re all creating to make money. All I had to do was search for my keywords, and go to their contact pages. I created a “template” that I used and customized and personalized as such.
It’s not hard to take action, it’s just a matter of starting.
Big dawgs gotta create