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Digital Products Not Selling? Here’s What To Do

This is the last episode in a series of 10 podcast episodes/blog posts all about digital products. Check out the other posts in this series below.

1. How to Create Digital Products That People Actually Want
2. 8 Digital Product Ideas for Your Service-Based Business
3. When is the Right Time to Create Digital Products?
4. How to Find the Time to Create Digital Products
5. 5 Ways to Validate Your Idea for Your Digital Product
6. 5 Limiting Beliefs Keeping You From Creating Your Digital Product
7. The Tools You Need to Sell Digital Products
8. Digital Products vs Courses – Which Should You Create?
9. Your Digital Product Launch Questions Answered
10. Digital Products Not Selling? Here’s What to do

It’s the final episode of this 10-part series and I want to talk about what to do if you already have digital products and they are just not selling.

More often than not when you create a digital product and then it doesn’t sell, you likely have a problem with one or more of these three elements – product, marketing, and messaging. 

After all, you have to have a good quality product that you know is something your audience want and need. You also need to be ensuring that your marketing and messaging is all working cohesively too.

Let’s say you have a product and you are doing everything right in terms of marketing but you’re still not making sales. It’s likely you’ll have a product or messaging problem or both. If you have a product but you’re not consistently marketing it, you have a marketing problem. If you have a product that has been validated and you’re consistently marketing it but sales are slow or non-existent, you’ve probably got a messaging problem.

10. Digital Products Not Selling? Here's What to do

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Let’s start by taking a look at each one of these three parts and address where you need to be making improvements.

Product problems

The first area we are going to cover is your product. Your product is THE most important part of the three areas I’m talking about today. You need to have a good quality product that your audience want and need. So let’s look at what you can do in this area.

1. You haven’t validated your product idea

I’ve spoken a lot about product validation in this series and that’s because it’s one of the most important things (if not the most important thing) you can do when creating digital products. If you haven’t validated your product idea, one of the reasons why your product isn’t selling well is that it just isn’t what your audience are looking for. Have you created a product that meets their wants and needs? Or have you created a product that you wanted to create without actually doing the research first? 

If you’ve skipped this part of creating your product, I’d highly recommend that you go back and do this. If you haven’t already, listen to episode 22 where I share 5 ways to validate your digital product idea.

2. It’s similar to other products available

Something that I recommend you do during the research phase of creating your product is to spend some time looking at what other products are on the market. The idea behind this is a) to help you validate that your idea is needed and b) to see what’s already out there and how you can improve upon it.

I spoke about this in an earlier episode but one thing I’ve been sure to do with Expand Your Brand is to make sure it’s different from other products on the market. Are there other products available to support business owners in building digital products? Yes of course there are. But what I’ve done with my program is included a huge marketing element that is going to support my clients in growing their audience before and after their product launch. 

I could have easily created separate products for each stage of the process i.e. building an audience, creating and launching a digital product, building out an evergreen sales system. There’s the potential there to create three separate programs or courses but I know that in order to create a successful digital product element to a service-based business, you need all three so rather than create and sell them individually, I created a longer program that covered them all. 

Something else that differentiates Expand Your Brand from other products is that it’s focused solely on supporting service providers.

So if your product isn’t selling, ask yourself ‘Are there other products available that are similar to mine? If so, how can I make this different?’

Marketing problems

The second area to take a look at if your digital products are not selling is your marketing. If you have validated your product idea and you know that you’ve created something that is different from other products available, it’s time to review your marketing activities.

1. You’re not talking about your digital products enough

The first marketing-related reason is that you’re not talking about your digital products enough. Something that I think is really important in online business is the idea behind selling every day. Now by this I don’t mean that you need to be saying ‘buy my product’ every single day of the year. There are more ways to sell than just doing so in this way.

You have the ‘hard’ sale where you are quite obviously promoting your product and letting people know where they can buy it which is what you would do during a launch for example, you have the ‘soft’ sale where you are subtly talking about your product either by sharing a testimonial or case study or showing behind the scenes. Then you have your evergreen sales system, where you are bringing people into your funnel every day and selling to them that way. If you’re not doing any of these things then that’s a sign that you’re not talking about your products enough.

It’s not a case of build it and they will come. It has to be a case of build it and then market it so that they come. 

2. You’re not driving enough traffic to your sales page/funnel

Another reason is that you are not driving enough traffic to your sales page and/or funnel. Selling digital products is a numbers game so you need to be growing your audience daily. If you’re not doing so, you’re not going to make the sales. There are many different ways to drive traffic to your website both free and paid so it’s about choosing the right marketing strategies for you, your business and your audience and then ensuring that you are doing them consistently.

3. You haven’t built up enough trust with your audience

The third marketing-related reason your products may not be selling is that you haven’t built up enough trust with your audience. 

Just like any relationship both personal and professional, trust is one of the most important things that will guarantee its success so if you haven’t built trust with your audience, this could be a factor.

Think about your own buying behaviours. Who do you buy from and what is it that they do that’s built the trust between you and them? The price point of your product is going to play a big part in trust as you don’t need to have built up much trust for a lower-priced $50 product but if you’re selling a $5000 product, then your audience is going to need to believe that you are the person that can help them.

Messaging problems

Now, let’s move onto the third and final element – messaging. If you know that you haven’t got a product or marketing problem, then it’s likely you have a messaging problem. Messaging plays a big part in marketing but I wanted to address it as it’s own separate piece here because your message is so, so important.

1. You’re focusing on the features, not the results

Are you sharing too many details about what’s included in your product rather than talking about the transformation and end result your product will provide? If you’re nodding your head then it’s time to change this.

Your audience doesn’t necessarily care about how many calls are included or what workbooks or modules they get, they care about the transformation. They care about how this product is going to help solve their problems. How it’s going to help them achieve their goals. Yes, there are going to be some people who want to know how many calls there are but don’t focus on this as your sole message. Include the information on the sales page, address it in an email or two and move on to the more important part.

2. You’re not speaking to the different buyer types

You may of heard about the different types of buyers from the ones where details are the most important thing to the ones who just want to know how it will help them to the ones who need to feel emotionally connected to the outcome to the ones who make decisions fast. 

Your message needs to speak to each one of these types of buyers so if you’re not doing so, it’s time to fix this. 

3. The messaging around your product is unclear

Another problem you may have is that the messaging around your product is unclear. Does your message clearly tell people what your product is about or is it a bit confusing? Clarity plays a big part in messaging and if your message is coming across as unclear, you could be turning customers and clients away.

Have some people review your sales page and your marketing copy and ask for their feedback. If their feedback is that they don’t quite understand how your product is going to help them or they aren’t quite sure if this is the product for them, you need to get clearer in your messaging.

4. Your messaging isn’t delivering any urgency to buy now

The final reason why your digital products are not selling is that your messaging isn’t delivering any urgency to buy now. By this, I don’t mean your standard ways of delivering urgency in terms of doors closing or the price increasing. I mean messaging that goes beyond these methods. I mean using the words in your marketing to speak to them about why now is the right time to invest. Why they should buy now instead of waiting 6 months. There are ways in which you can word this to get your audience thinking and to help them come to the realisation that the sooner they invest, the sooner they will get results.

So there we have it, 9 reasons why your digital products might not be selling and what you can do to fix them. Let’s do a quick recap on the reasons, shall we?!

  1. You haven’t validated your product idea
  2. It’s similar to other products available
  3. You’re not talking about your digital products enough
  4. You’re not driving enough traffic to your sales page/funnel
  5. You haven’t built up enough trust with your audience
  6. You’re focusing on the features, not the results
  7. You’re not speaking to the different buyer types
  8. The messaging around your product is unclear
  9. Your messaging isn’t delivering any urgency to buy now

We’ve reached the end of this 10-part digital product series. I really hope you’ve enjoyed listening to these episodes and that you’ve got some good takeaways from them to help you on your digital product journey.

Be sure to check out the other posts in this series. Here’s a reminder of them again.

1. How to Create Digital Products That People Actually Want
2. 8 Digital Product Ideas for Your Service-Based Business
3. When is the Right Time to Create Digital Products?
4. How to Find the Time to Create Digital Products
5. 5 Ways to Validate Your Idea for Your Digital Product
6. 5 Limiting Beliefs Keeping You From Creating Your Digital Product
7. The Tools You Need to Sell Digital Products
8. Digital Products vs Courses – Which Should You Create?
9. Your Digital Product Launch Questions Answered
10. Digital Products Not Selling? Here’s What to do


If you’re looking for support, accountability and guidance in building digital products into your business, be sure to check out Expand Your Brand, my 12-month high-touch group program for online service providers who want to grow their audience, launch their digital product and make consistent sales.

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