How to create a digital product business on Instagram

Hello,

Creator Daniel here,

It has never been easier to grow an online following and to monetize it in a way that allows you to have a remote income such as with digital products.

There are thousands of people on Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Tiktok, Youtube, Linkedin and other social media sites, that have been able to grow their following and then monetize that following with relevant products.

Growing your following does not have to depend on luck and it does not have to cost money. Anyone can do it. All you really need is an internet connection, a phone and ideally a laptop.

However, you HAVE to follow the right strategy. While there is a huge opportunity right now, there are also many people who try and fail because they follow an ineffective strategy.

The method

No matter what you do, to make money online, it is necessary for you to get attention and then to funnel that attention towards what you are selling.

There are many ways to do this, but when it comes to selling low ticket digital products (less than $500) the main way to do it today is

1. To grow an audience on social media

2. Then to send that audience to an email list using free products as a lead magnet. You can use a platform like Gumroad to host the free products and create an email list for free

3. Then to promote the paid product to the email list. This is done using an automated welcome sequence when someone signs up to the email list and with regular emails that you send to the email list.

Once you have your free product lead magnet and the paid products made, it becomes a game of simply creating social media content that directs people towards your lead magnet. This is easy because you can just follow a repeatable process I will show below.

Growing an audience

Right now, the best place to grow an audience is Instagram. The reason for this is that you can gain traction quickly and go viral even if you have no followers.

This is because Instagram shows your reels to people who do not follow you. If they interact well with the reels then the reels will get recommended to more and more people.

In addition, it is easy to promote things on Instagram. This is because you can use stories, the captions and the link in the bio. Also, it is possible to automatically send people links using an application called Manychat.

If you’re worried about creating reels, don’t be. They are easy to make and you do not even have to show your face. The way to do it is simply to get footage related to your niche. You can do this yourself or you can use sites like Pexels or Pinterest.

Then what you do is you create 6-10 second reels. That start with a “hook” which is a sentence that captures the viewers attention then you quickly give information right after the hook.

The best way to come up with viral ideas is to look at reels that already went viral in your niche and to make your own versions of them.

Once the reels start going viral, you then tell people to get your free product by making stories about the free product, separate reels that promote the free product and with the link in the bio.

However, the best way to do it is to use a program called ManyChat. What this program does is it allows you to send people a link whenever they comment a certain word. So, in the captions of your reels, you simply tell people to comment a certain word in order to get your free guide.

Why you must then grow an email list

While you can direct people directly to your paid products from Instagram. It is generally, a better idea to get them onto your email list first instead.

This is because, most people will not be willing to buy from you straight away. So, you create email content that builds up their trust in you and then you link to your paid products from the emails.

However, the most important reason why you should get people onto your email list is that you own the email list. This protects you in the long term because you won’t need to worry about losing your social media accounts or having algorithms work against you.

Creating free products

There are many ways to create free products and the best way will depend on your niche. However, an easy way to do it is to create a free guide and to host it on Notion like I am doing with this one.

Then you can create a Gumroad sales page for the free product that you direct people to so that you can get their emails before they get the link to the free product on Notion.

Platforms like Gumroad automatically save the email for you when they download the free product.

Monetizing

So, once you have started building a following and sending people to the free product to get them onto the email list, it is then time to monetize.

If you are going to monetize with digital products, what you need to do is to create a product that solves problems for people in your niche.

These can be notion templates, digital planners, budget trackers or courses that teach a particular skill that you know.

To come up with product ideas, the easiest method is to simply look at what other people are selling in your niche. In addition to that, you can consider questions that people commonly have in the niche and how a digital product could solve or answer them.

Once you have made the product, you can start promoting it to your audience. You can do this by sending an email to your email list that you built up and to offer them an early bird discount, you can promote it in Instagram stories and with the link in the bio.

Next steps

I have created a full guide that teaches you in detail everything you can do to grow an audience and start selling digital products.

The guide teaches you:

How the Instagram algorithm works and how to use it to go viral

Different ways to monetize

Examples of ways people are monetizing

Examples of different niches

How to choose your niche

How to use Manychat to grow your email list

Case studies

Notion templates to systematize the process

And much more

Check it out here

Best,

Daniel