I’ve worked with many online entrepreneurs who are struggling with turning their passion-project into a business. They want to earn more working less and be able to support their family through the work they love.
But here’s the good news! In today’s day and age of online everything, truly anyone with access to a laptop and some creativity can start and grow an online business.
A couple of weeks ago we talked about WHY you should be selling a digital product as a blogger, but today we are going to dive into the first steps of that process to actually MAKE IT HAPPEN!
It really takes TWO here:
An idea. And consistent, sometimes mess, action towards your goal.
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Grow an Online Business through a Digital Product or Course
The best way to start and grow an online business is by looking for problems that others are experiencing. This means asking yourself what needs to be improved in your online marketplace, and the types of services you would need if you were a customer.
In other words – is there a GAP in the marketplace that you can fill?
You’ll be far more successful if you can create something that fills a gap in your industry than if you create a carbon copy business of what’s already out there.
Now what?
Awesome – you’ve found your gap and identified a problem, or two, that you can help solve for your future clients.
Now think about monetization strategies related to solving those problems. You can then create content that demonstrates how your service will solve these issues for your prospective customers – so they can see how much better life could be with your solution.
Some of the best ways to help solve prospective clients problems or pain points is though TEACHING. Create an inexpensive e-book, or charge for an hour long masterclass. Consider building out an online course over time that tangibly transforms your clients lives or businesses in some way. Long term success in any online business comes when people believe not only in the benefits of what you are providing but also trust that YOU are the person to help them achieve their goals.
The Know/Like/Trust factor is HUGE in the online business world. Why? Because this is a HUMAN TO HUMAN space. You are selling to real humans with real families and real lives and real problems and real dreams.
Connect with them. Laugh with them. GROW WITH THEM. Meet them where they are at.
That’s when you will truly start to see alignment in your business and the sales coming through.
Once you’ve decided on your main monetization strategy/digital product delivery, it’s time for market research!
Connect with some of your ideal audience members and have a conversation with them. Whether via DM or on Zoom, ask them about their lives, businesses, goals. Ask them how your product/service would BEST help them. Listen to the words they use, how they describe the problem, and how they describe what it would feel like if your product/service was the solution.
Take notes. Then use some of this language in your eventual marketing campagin. Repeating back language that your community uses themselves is a surefire way to connect with them on an even deeper level. (Plus they’ll think: Dang! She was really listening!)
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Finally, it’s time to develop that offer and get out there and sell it! We’ll talk more about what it means to develop and sell a digital product in our next blog post. But for now, follow these steps to get started in your online biz build:
- Identify a gap in the market or a problem you can help solve for your clients.
- Decide on your monetization strategy (will you develop an e-book? A masterclass? A full blown online course?)
- Connect with your people! Ask them questions. Listen to the language they use. Take notes and consider what they WANT when you go to develop your offer!
- Start working on creating the offer that your clients cannot WAIT to buy (afterall, they kind of helped you create it, didn’t they?) 🙂
Feel free to email me at info@creatorscoachingco.com or DM me on IG @creatorscoachingco if you have any questions!
Until next time…
XO,
Ana
Everything is very open with a very clear description of the challenges. It was really informative. Your website is very useful. Thanks for sharing!