If you don’t already have a digital product or service, welcome. I’m stoked that you’re coming around to realizing the potential there is in creating and selling online. Now that you have an idea for a digital product or service then how to start selling online shouldn’t be what holds you back. I’ve created a quick and dirty rundown of the 5 steps to have your product or service online and ready to sell. Building a website and creating sales funnels can take time. Although they can be useful in your overall marketing strategy they can be created and added later.

#1. An idea! Digital product, course, service.

I know this one is a shocker but you need an idea for a product or service that you can start selling online. Your actual product doesn’t have to cost you a thing. 

You can offer digital prints if you’re a photographer or an artist. A customer can purchase the digital copy online then take it to their local printer to have it customized and framed to their liking. 

You can sell an ebook by creating it in Word or Google Docs. Then turn it into a PDF that is available for purchase online.

If you create a course you can record videos and create documents or a workbook. Then put it together in a zip file that gets emailed when purchased. Depending on how big it is you may have to share a cloud link through Google Drive or Dropbox.

Whatever you do make sure it’s still visually appealing so add imagery and change up the text!

#2. A landing page or sales page.

You need somewhere to send customers to purchase this product once created (another shocker I’m sure). If you have a website then create a separate landing page through your site and link the products there. 

If you don’t have a website then there are a few free site builders you can sign up for. They often have free templates that you can choose from so all you have to do is pop in your info. Just focus on creating one sales page though, don’t worry about all the other pages that come with the template.

As an alternative, you can sometimes purchase just a sales page but make sure it’s compatible with you’re website platform because they aren’t one size fits all.

#3. A way to receive payment.

Some website platforms will have e-commerce options built-in an e-commerce partner. Because it’s an integrated feature it should be fairly easy to set up and use!

There are also low budget options like Shopify Lite and PayPal Business that you can use separately. In Shopify Lite you add your created product and information through Shopify and they give you a purchase button to add to your landing page. I haven’t personally used PayPal but it looks like they would give you a purchase button to add to your website landing page and you would add the actual product through your website.

#4. The actual sales copy.

You don’t need a lot if you want to keep it short and sweet. You should at least include details around what the product is, why they should buy it, and how it can change their life. Remember that this is the only place they’re truly seeing and learning about your product. They’re on your page because they’re interested so don’t be afraid to sell here and get them to use that purchase button.

#5. An email marketing platform.

You need this to be able to collect the email addresses and set up your product to be delivered once paid for. Don’t skip this step. There are free platforms you can use for up to a certain amount of subscribers. You will thank me later when you aren’t personally sending emails every time a purchase comes through. You’re going to be massively successful so set yourself up for it. You’ll also be automatically building up an audience that you can then nurture and sell to later as you create more products and offerings.

Personally, I chose to pay for FloDesk right up front because it was the easiest to build and design in. I was already sold on the importance of email marketing so it was worth it to be set up for future growth. You can find discount codes from many people out there for 50% off for life. I’ll link my discount code at the bottom as well that you can save and come back to.

That’s it!

Those are my 5 quick and dirty steps for how to start selling online without needing a full website or sales funnel and starting from scratch. Creating the product should take the longest amount of time so you can do that first and the rest can be done in a day. Or you can start by setting up your sales page and selling your product online while you’re creating it! As long as you’re upfront about when the product will be ready you can definitely get the sales flowing first.

If you want more help to get set up or put together your offering then we send me a note and we can set up a call or a brainstorming session to dig into it together. Let’s Do It!

As promised: Click here for my 50% off FloDesk discount code.