3 entrepreneurs share tips for launching a digital product

Whether it’s your first or your tenth, launching a new digital product is an exciting prospect - though it doesn’t occur without plenty of hard work and a little anxiety manifesting as nail biting. Put those nails down because you’re in luck! Plenty of other creators have launched products both successfully and unsuccessfully before you – meaning, they can help you avoid mistakes and improve the chances of a successful launch!

At Kajabi’s virtual summit, Ready, Set, Grow, successful knowledge creators shared all they know about mindset, preparation, and business growth in the creator economy. Here, we’re bringing you the top advice for launching your own digital product! 

Learn how pre-selling, dedicating your focus, and building an email waitlist can help you see success when you offer a new digital product.

‍Quotations are edited for clarity and brevity.

‍Ellen Yin talks pre-selling your digital product

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Ellen Yin is the founder and podcast host of Cubicle to CEO®, a media company creating financially transparent content that empowers women entrepreneurs to make more money. She’s served over 10,000 clients as a knowledge creator and encourages emerging entrepreneurs to get paid for their digital products. She breaks down how to do that:

“Pre-selling your product means that you are selling a product to a group of founding students or beta students before the content is even created. For example, if you're creating an online course, it might look like selling an outline of what the course is going to cover and if your customer buys in as a founding member, they’re buying into a product that has not yet been created, but you give that value exchange by offering it at a significantly discounted price or investment compared to anyone else that will join the course after it's created.

They get to go through [the process] with you and have you teach that content to them in real time. Then, those recordings become your finished course. So it's a really brilliant way to get paid to create your first digital product. 

The second big thing is when you're live teaching the content to your founding group of students, you get to engage in real-time feedback with these people. They get to show you your blind spots that you may have as a first time educator. Then, they give you amazing testimonials that you can use as social proof when you actually go to launch your finished product to the public.”

‍Takeaways to pre-sell your course:

• Find a group of founding or beta students.
• Outline what the course will cover.
• Offer the course at a discounted price.
• Teach the course in real time.
• Incorporate the feedback into the polished version for launch.

For more on how to pre-sell your digital products, check out this how-to guide!

Christina Jandali on where to dedicate your focus

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Christina Jandali of Deliver Your Genius is a business growth strategist who helps coaches and course creators build a raving fan base and produce scalable profits. She shares a great framework for launching a digital product and where to dedicate your focus with the Five By One method:

“I like to look at the concept of five by one. You have one target market, one main traffic source, one offer, and one sales system for one year. If that's the only thing that you focus on for an entire year, you will go so much further than trying to cater to every single person.

So, until your signature offer and core program are fully dialed in, you've created a name for yourself around it and are creating demand for it. I just wouldn't even devote time and attention to other things. 

Once you're there, then take a look and think, ‘Maybe I can expand my product suite. Maybe I can support [people outside of my core offering] in different ways. Maybe there's ways in my free content that I can help move them forward so that one day they can be ready to be able to do that.’

As long as you create demand and success with the product first, then we get to have expansion on that.”

Takeaways to better dedicate your focus: 

• Pick one thing to focus on.
• Spend one year honing that project.
• Build a name for your brand and lock in your signature offer.
• Expand your marketing after you’ve launched the first product. 

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Watch Ellen and Christina’s full fireside chat here:

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Katie Gatti Tassin outlines the email waitlist launch strategy

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Katie Gatti Tassin is the face and voice behind personal finance blog Money with Katie. She launched her first digital product, a course called High Earners Code, to help people. Along the way, she honed in on her launch strategy using an email waitlist. Check out how it works:

“Instagram is an amazing platform for creating content and reaching people. It is a great way to distribute free content. It's not a great way to sell something that costs $300. Now, while that does happen, people are very unlikely to make such a large purchase decision based on an Instagram post.

This is where I think waitlist-based email marketing is a really powerful tool. Part of the reason I prefer this is because people aren't really paying that close of attention on social media. It's hard to adequately address all the questions they may have about your product, even if they are interested in it. It's just not a medium where someone's trying to read a term paper and think critically. 

So if we don't think we can convert someone to buy an expensive product on Instagram, what can we do? Well, we can entice them enough to want to learn more. This is partially why the product has to be specific enough so it's easy to speak directly to your target customer.

You can use social media and your relationship with your existing content audience to share what the product is, who it's good for, and invite them to join this waitlist for the product to learn more about it. It's a much smaller ask. In these posts, I would include a few slides detailing some specifics - who it's for and why that person needs it.

The email waitlist strategy keeps the salesy language off social media, where you're probably just better off providing free value and creating a community. And instead, it relegates it to your inbox where you can build that hype privately with an individual.

And if they reply, have a conversation with them about it. I think this period of buildup, whether it be a few weeks or a few months is amazing for hype and excitement. That way by the time the product is actually live, you will have the purchase ready to go. They've already decided if they want to buy it, and you can create further urgency by timeboxing that launch price.”

Takeaways to use the email waitlist launch strategy:

• Use Instagram and other social media channels to entice people to learn more about your offerings.
• Direct your social followers to your email list.
• Keep the sales language to your email marketing messages.

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Watch Katie’s full presentation where she breaks down the whole journey to launch her course: 
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Recap

There are all sorts of strategies to get started selling your digital products online. But do yourself a favor and take a shortcut in the form of these entrepreneurs’ experiences:

• Pre-sell your course. While this requires upfront commitment and dedication, it can help you earn revenue while building.
• Dedicate your focus. Honing in one thing for one year can help you master your idea and avoid getting overwhelmed trying to do it all.
• Build your email list as a course waitlist. This can help you keep the sales-oriented language only to the people who are going to be most receptive to it!

Kajabi can help you get your knowledge out into the world (finally!) 

Ready to use these strategies and launch your own knowledge commerce business? Kajabi is here to help. Fully explore what Kajabi has to offer and start building your business during your free 14-day trial!

‍Still researching? Check out Kajabi’s free downloadable ebook guides on launching and growing a knowledge commerce online business!

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