- Hey all, it's Aurelius. Welcome back to the channel. In this video, I'm going
to share a simple system that you can follow so that you can start your very
own digital product business, selling things like online
courses, eBooks, templates, principles, or what have you. I'll walk you through the
various steps, starting with that problem, frustration or challenge that your
prospects are facing, validating that idea. Then coming up with a digital
product idea, creating it, getting a website up and running,
getting e-commerce ready, and then start selling and
marketing your product online. All that will be in this
video. So let's get started. Step number one is start with a problem. What exactly does this mean? I know it may sound self-explanatory, but in simple terms, it's
that itch that your audience, your prospects, are trying to get rid of. You know, it's that frustration, that challenge that's been bothering them. It could be something
related to money like debt, but on the other hand, in
contrast, it could be more so to gain, to gain time or save time, or it could be to save
money or make money. In essence, the bigger the problem, the more monetizable it will be. To keep things in layman's terms, highly monetizable areas can
include things and industry and areas such as health
and wellness issues, personal finance related issues, parenting and family, tech related issues. For example, if you're in a niche of sleep and how to get better quality sleep, you could come up with
a guide on strategies on how to get better quality sleep. If you're in the depth management or personal finance niche,
you could come up with a guide or perhaps a budget tracker
or a tool, or an app, or it could be as something
as simple as a spreadsheet that will help someone budget
and manage their finances. So these are what I call hungry markets and people are willing
to spend more in general, compared to a niche such
as kite flying, right? People aren't willing to spend as much, although it is a hobby, but someone who wants to get
rid of, you know, belly fat or to lose weight, or
to be be more flexible, or to gain more strength,
energy, fatality, or to get rid of their debt or make more money, is going to be a better
prospect than someone who wants to learn how to fly a kite. So your action step for this
step is to list as many issues, frustrations, and problems
that your prospects and your audience are currently facing. You know, what's stopping
them from moving on to that next step or to reach their goals? Because in the next step, what we're going to do is validate your idea and those list of things
that you've come up with. All right? So step two
is validate your idea. The first thing I would suggest
you do is to observe, okay? We're going to observe online to see what people are talking
about, what our audience, if you currently have an
audience, are talking about, what are their current
frustrations, challenges, but not only looking at
problems, frustrations, and challenges, but also
looking at the types of content that are resonating with your audience, or if not someone else's
audience that's related to your niche or your industry. In a practical sense,
what you do is you go into your social profiles, going to some of your content pieces and seeing what people are commenting. Now, this is one of my videos, how to start a business for $0, and I can take a look at the comments, have a feel for what
people are talking about, and engagement wise,
take a look at the views and the amount of comments
that people are placing on each of your content pieces. It could be on Instagram,
could be on YouTube, wherever you are currently
posting content on. And of course the analytics and the metrics actually say something about that piece of content
or that topic of yours. The more comments, the more views you get, the more that it resonates
with your viewers and audience. So these are all good green lights and indicators showing that this is what resonates with your audience. This is what perhaps you teach well and what you enjoy talking about. And that goes to say that
this is a great idea, this is a great idea
for a digital product. So let's say how to
start a business for $0. I would put that down as an
idea. It's validated, right? Right there in front of your eyes. And speaking of which, if
you don't have an audience, you could look at your
competitors, you know, content pieces, someone who's very closely
related to your niche. What I also like to do, because I'm quite established on YouTube, is what are those products and services that I'm
talking about on my videos? Getting actual sales, you
know, as an affiliate. So I also monetize in a way where I'm an affiliate of products, making a commission for
every sale that I make, and it goes to show as well,
this product is selling well, and so this is perhaps a product or something related I
could create based on that. And in fact, that's how my 50
digital product ideas guide came about and was born. I created a tutorial and a video sharing 20 digital
product ideas on YouTube, and people resonate with it. They liked it. So I went ahead and
created a guide out of it, sharing 50 digital product ideas. So that's the first thing I
would suggest you do, observe. Take a look around your
communities as well, Facebook groups, Reddit, perhaps, and of course, your current
and existing content pieces. The next thing I would suggest
you do is to ask, all right, asking is the best, and it's the best way to get feedback directly from your audience
or potential customers. One of the easiest things you can do is to create a simple Google form. And there's one simple question, and that is what's your most
burning question about blank? Where blank equals your
subject, your niche or topic. And when you put this
out to your audience, you'll get a bunch of responses. Of course, the bigger your
viewership and audience and subscriber base, the
more responses you'll get and the more data you can get out of it. But this is a really easy and practical way to gain
some feedback directly from your audience so that
you can get some ideas on what types of digital
products you could create. Furthermore, what you can do
is go on your social profiles and create an IG story on Instagram. You know, get some questions out there, just gain some feedback. And it doesn't have to be
directly about the product you are wanting to create. It could be something really subtle. For instance, I utilise
the YouTube community tab. You do need to qualify, and there's criteria to meet, so they can get features like this, but you can ask things like, you know, I'm reviewing a bunch
of ebook creation tools for the future video, and would like your input. So these little things I've
gained like 51 comments, you know, including myself, my own. But you know, you can see in this feed, I go and use things like
quizzes, or not so much quizzes, but polls, you know, you've
got questions as well, and just putting it out there
so that I can get a feel for, you know, what my audience likes and what they resonate with. Here's another one, what tool do you use to make eBooks and guides? Most people will answer
Canva, 70% of them, so therefore there's no point
of me, you know, creating or a guide or a ebook
based on these other tools or creating tutorials or
videos based on these, right? Most of my users, most of
my viewers are using Canva, so it makes sense to create
products and videos around that. You've also got Facebook groups and forums that you can go
to ask questions there to see what people will answer
based on your questions. But this step here is crucial. You wanna validate your idea before you actually start
creating your product, because you could be spending
weeks, if not months, creating that product
and finding out later on that you've wasted all
that time and perhaps money to create that and not make any sales because in fact, not many people resonate with it or like it. And at the end of the
day, it's not about you, it's about the audience
and your prospects. Just because an idea may sound good, it doesn't mean it will sell. So go ahead, validate your
idea by observing and asking. Moving on to step three, decide
on a digital product idea. I won't spend too much time on this step because I do have a couple of videos on some digital product ideas that you can get started with. Links will be in description box below, but here are my eight favourite types of digital products proven to sell. Number one, we've got eBooks and guides. Number two, content templates, number three, design templates, number four, trackers, number five, planners. Number six, online courses, number seven, systems and workflows and number eight, software and apps. If you'd like a more
elaborate guide on each of these digital product ideas plus more. Why not grab my guide that I mentioned previously
called 50 Digital Product Ideas. Link will be in the description box below. All right, step number four, we're gonna create a digital product. With the vast amount of tools that are accessible online. There's no reason that you
can't create a digital product, especially with the use of
artificial intelligence. Now, the first tool that one that you may already have is called Canva. All right, Canva is going to be your best friend in
digital product creation. If you don't have a Canva account, look in description box
below, sign up there. There's actually a 30
day trial of Canva Pro so they can get full features and all of the assets, things
like stock videos, images, and elements that you may want to incorporate into your digital products. With cva, you can practically create most of the digital products, and one including eBooks and guides. So if you put in ebook or let's say put in the size of A4, right? If you put in A4, you'll search and you'll see document A4 portrait. All right, we're gonna
create a blank canvas, and from here you'll get a
list of templates under design, and you've got a bunch of
templates that you can start with to create your ebook or guide. So for instance, we've got this building your personal brand guide. It's got 13 pages. This is a pro template. So therefore, again,
if you do wanna sign up for Canva Pro account, make sure to sign up using the link below so you can get access to this. Now, this is my demo account, so I don't have a Canva Pro
account in my demo account, but what you would usually see
is apply all the templates, and once you apply it,
you can very well edit all of the pages that you see
here, including the interior. Now, here's another digital
product idea. Wallpapers, right? Wallpapers are really easy to create. Now, given that you perhaps
create a theme around this or that you've got a certain
aesthetic that you like and that your audience will like as well, and with this one I've just used abstract kind of backgrounds, and this was actually created
using Canvas Magic AI, right? So you can see some of the backgrounds and beautiful backgrounds
that it's created using AI. I didn't have to design a single bit. All you need to do, all right, I'll show you how to create wallpapers, is to make sure you
have Magic media enabled by going to apps and
searching for Magic Media. So if you search for Magic
Media, you will see it, okay, because I've already enabled it, I don't need to add it anymore, but you click once and
then it will be enabled on the toolbar. So click that once, this
will give you this field where you describe what
you'd like to create as simple as putting
in abstract background for desktop. This is a very simple prompt. You could go as narrow and
as detailed as you want. Of course, with Canva, Canvas AI, there are certain limitations. I'd say it's not as good as
if you were to generate text to image using something like Midjourney. So Midjourney will be another
great friend of yours. If you are looking to create designs, specifically text to image, you can convert any text prop into images. But with Canvas Magic feature, you're given 50 credits to use, even if you're on the free plan. And here we go, we've got
four wallpapers ready to go. Just click that once and then
I will put it into the canvas. It's obviously not to my liking and doesn't really go
with the theme of these, but yeah, that's how easy it is to generate a background
using Canva Magic Media. But it does come down to
the type of digital product that you've decided on. So once you've decided
on the digital product based on the previous step,
that's where you go ahead and create that canvas. So you can create it from here, or you simply search it from here. So let's say you're creating,
let's say a journal, okay? You've got some journal
templates by clicking this, or if you are looking to create something like a habit tracker or a tracker, you may want to search that, let's say Habit Tracker. And bam, you've got a list
of templates right there. All right, if you've made it
this far, congratulations, because this next step is going to be setting up your website. So step number five, get a website up. First of all, why have a website? Why not just build on social media? Well, the first and obvious reason is because you want to own
your own asset, right? This is your own website. You don't want to rent other
people's spaces and land. Too many things change on social media and it's completely out of your control. If your account gets hacked,
then you may not be able to recover it, whereas with
a website, it's permanent, it's there, you have
complete control over it. The next thing is a website
is better for branding. It makes you look professional and people will take you more seriously. I don't know about you, but whenever I look into a new business or a service that I'm looking to hire, then I wanna see their website,
I wanna see what they offer, I wanna see their portfolio. Maybe there's some of
their work as opposed to just seeing their social media. Also with the website
and as mentioned before, you do have complete
control of your website. So that that means you can
integrate all sorts of plugins. You can make the website and the way that it looks, the way that you want
based on your aesthetics and your branding. And essentially, a website
houses your entire business under one roof. You can share your
portfolio, share your work, share your more info about
your business, your services, and your products. Everything can be sold on your website. And I know what you may be
thinking, Hey, Aurelius, why can't I just post it on
marketplaces such as Etsy, Redbubble, and the like. Well, short answer to that
is Etsy is quite saturated. And for yourself to be established on there will take some time. I'm not saying it's impossible, but there's still work required. Plus with marketplaces, you're generally looking at
transaction fees, listing fees. So there's no be all end all. I'm not saying not to do
it, but I would prefer and much prefer to have my
own website that I can control and there's no fees, so I can sell it and keep 100% of the profits. And on that note, yes, some of these marketplaces
do market your products, but it's a hundred percent not guaranteed. You still have to go out there and market your products so they can actually build some traction. Build yet your reputation on these sites and marketplaces so that
people will, not just people, but also the website will
see you as a trustworthy and a authoritative seller. And again, because it's
not your own website, you don't have control. So they could decide one day, you know, they can boot you out, kick
you out for no apparent reason, and you wouldn't know why. So you don't want to build and put all your eggs in one basket. With that said, it's crucial
to have your own website and to get your own
website up and running. You need a thing called web hosting. A web hosting service that I recommend to not only sponsored this video, but I actually use for some of my smaller projects
is called Hostinger. Hostinger is not only affordable, starting at just 2.99 per
month on its 48 months plan, but you're able to host up
to 100 different websites. You get daily backups
on its business plan, which I do recommend you go with. You also get a bunch of
other features and benefits, including a free domain registration. So this would otherwise
cost you 10 plus dollars, $20 US. And what I really love about
hosting a wire recommended to beginners is because of
its hosting a website builder. It uses AI, and you'll see later on in
the steps of website creation where you can simply enter a text prompt and outcomes your website. So that's included there,
including 150 designer templates. You also get access to
some of its smart AI tools, such as it's copywriting tool,
heat mapping tool, SEO tools, and also the e-commerce features where there's 0% transaction fees again on the business plan. So at this stage, go ahead, sign up, use the link in description
box below, and add to cart. Now what I'll show you in the next step is how you can save a little bit
more of your hosting plan. So let's say you go
with the 48 months plan, which you'll save more on. If you look down below, you'll see an option
called have a coupon code, click that once, enter coupon
code Aurelius, and then apply. So what you'll see is further savings and now up to 74% off the hosting plan. So it comes down to this and simply complete the rest of the steps to get the hosting you're good for the next two years if you
are on the 48 months plan. Now I'll talk about how
to set up your website after registering for web hosting. You'll see the guide,
all right, this wizard where it's gonna ask
you, do you wanna create or migrate a website? Because we're starting from scratch, and that's what I wanna show you. What we're going to do is
click on create, click on next, and you're given a couple
of options in terms of what tool do you want to
use to create your website. You do get WordPress support. So if you do want to
create a WordPress website, and if you're a bit more technical, then why not go the WordPress route? But in this demo, I'm just gonna
show you how to use hosting as AI website builder. So we'll click that, click on create, and the next step is
choosing a domain name. This will be your www.yourdomain.com, or it could be .co, .net,
.org, what have you. So select that from this area here. Then you'll land on the steps to create your website using AI. We're gonna click on start creating. Simply fill in the areas
such as the brand name, the website type, whether you are going to start an online store,
a blog, a landing page. So you're given a few
options there as well as this one's important,
describing what your business brand or website's going to be about. So in this case, I've
just put in a tech website that sells aesthetic desktop wallpapers and templates for tech enthusiasts. I can also do is click on
personalization settings, and you can choose Surprise
me, modern, minimal, elegant, or bold. Let's go with modern and colours. I'll just click on Surprise Me. And at this point, let's go ahead and click on create a website. And now what it's doing is
it's building the website, coming up with different things and elements for your website. Now let's skip ahead to
the finished product. All right, that took
about 20 seconds, I'd say, and here is the result. All right, so we've got
aesthetic wallpapers, it's come up with a heading. We've got the subheading here, and down below we've got some
of the features of the page or the website, got stylish
wallpaper collection and other pages related to it. Here we've got the e-commerce section where people can buy the wallpapers, even though these are
all just placeholders, but I'll show you how to edit
and customise these later on. And just looking down below, right, we've got different features, we've got our story, and it's pretty good. It's laid out the foundation
that we can use so that we can start customising
it rather than creating, designing from scratch. As you saw, zero technical skills required and I didn't have to code a single bit. And further along this tutorial, you'll see that I won't
need to touch any code or things like that. It is mobile friendly too. So if we click this,
we can see the preview, what it looks like. So yeah, switching between that. Also got shop area, the gallery contact, and the add to cart buttons. And from here, we don't of
course publish this website and tell everyone to visit it because the next step is
we're gonna edit the site. So if we click on edit
site, we can go ahead, follow the builder prompts
and the steps right here. Otherwise you can go ahead,
click on anything that you see. Let's say you do not like the heading and you wanna say for techies or something like that, you
can do so making it smaller. All right, so if this
doesn't fit, no problem, we can always adjust it, edit the text. You know it's changing
the size, the font style, and we even relocate it. Okay, reposition right
there somewhere there. Doesn't quite make sense there,
but you get the gist of it. Everything that you see can
be edited in this fashion. Drag and drop, click and edit as you wish. Now what's also great about
the website builder is if you click on add section, they've got these pre-made templates, you can go into the different sections. Let's say you want to add a new headline. They've got these pre-made
templates based on headlines. So taking a look at
them, got testimonials. So let's say you've got
feedback from from customers, you can insert that right away. One click, all right, there we go. All you need to do now is customise it. If you ever stuck writing
content, for instance, you can always go here, AI Writer. That's the AI feature that
you can use to prompt the AI to help you and assist
you in writing whatever it is that you'd like assistance with. Inside pages and navigation is where all your pages are controlled and where you can navigate
and edit the specific page. So let's say you want to
edit the contact page, click that once. There we go. Want to add a page? All you need to do is click
on add page and go from there. The website is fully customizable
in terms of appearance. By simply going to website styles. You can go and edit
individual colours of the page and the elements, such
things such as buttons and texts and fonts. Going to fonts, you can
choose the font combinations. Going to buttons, you can also choose the
style animations too. Under AI tools, they've got a bunch of useful and helpful AI tools
so that you can use it to speed up the process, making you more efficient
in the website creation. Now let's talk about how to
add your digital products or digital products into your site. Go to online store. All right, there's this
online store feature. You'll see the placeholder
products that have been set up. You can either go into one of them and then we can edit that
specific product right there by replacing things and just editing everything that you see. Otherwise, you can go back to online store and we can click on managed store, which will have to do anyway so that we can set up
our payment processes, give your store a name
and continue with the rest of the setup process. Make sure to complete these
steps here where it says, add your first product,
set up a payment method, so quite a number of
payment options available. PayPal, of course, Stripe. So credit cards, go back to products because this is where you want
to go and add your product. If we click on add product,
you're given a few options. So we wanna add a digital product. In this case, click on digital, drag and drop any
assets, images right here that will showcase your product. So this could be like your
ebook cover, could be a banner or something that shows
what your product is. Give your product a name,
fill in all the details. Make sure of course you add a description using the AI rudder if need be. Pricing all here. And this is where you simply
add and upload your zip files. Could be your ebook,
your PDF files, all here. So it fully supports digital
products, no extra extensions, no extra plugins required. All built in to the E-commerce store. Built into hosting it. At this point, take your time, design your website the way
you want, change the copy, put in the text that you want,
add the different sections of your landing page, and then creating the
different pages as well. You may need like an
about page for instance. So go ahead, create those
pages, customise them, customise the for as well. If you ever get stuck
with the website builder, or if you need to ask something,
just simply click on Ask AI and then ask what it is, what's a technical issue
you're currently having? And then you should get an
answer using its AI assistant. Also, checking the mobile device view so that it all looks good as well, because in the mobile view, you can as well edit anything you want, moving things around, and essentially just
customising it the way you want. But once you're ready to go
live, all you need to do is hit that Go Live button
and you are good to go. So again, make sure you get
your website up and running. Start with hosting a link
will be description box below as well as the coupon code, Aurelius, so that you can save further. All right, moving on to step
number six, that is marketing. Without marketing your website and your digital products,
no one will ever see them. So you can have the most fanciest, most aesthetic looking website, but if no one sees it,
then you're not going to get any sales at all. Common sense on (indistinct), and what you actually have
to do is putting the work of getting people over. And one of the steps that I like to take is utilising social
media because it's free. It's free traction, it's free
eyeballs, post content to it. You don't have to post on a daily basis or multiple times a day. I don't even do it.
But consistency is key. What you want to do is
create content that educates and builds your credibility and authority. People want to see that
you are someone trustworthy whenever you do recommend your offer because your content
may have delivered value and it has built that awareness about your
specific topic or subject. And I believe in the law of reciprocity, the more you give out,
the more you get back. And it's just a human thing,
right? It's human nature. And the key really is consistency. I've been posting on my YouTube
channel for the past four or five years on a weekly
basis, delivering value, educating people, and I feel
like it's just given back to me like tenfold, right? Even though it may not be
every single subscriber, but in terms of monetization methods and in terms of opportunities,
it has just come back to me. And the issue I see with
many beginners is just because they've posted 10 videos or 10 pieces of content on Instagram, they think that it's just not working. They have gotten 100
visitors on their website, and it's just not converting. People aren't buying their
product when in fact, it's just not enough people, right? It's not enough data. You can't base your product
sales based on 100 visits. It's just not enough. Hey, you should see it is
that you're planting the seeds and you're refining as you're
going along, you're tweaking, you're getting better, you're
improving along the way. And there's this saying, right? The power of 100, put out
100 crappy things online, 100 crappy pieces of videos
to get better at your craft. Just getting traction based
on those improvements. How this all can benefit you by posting content on a
consistent basis is you can see every single piece of
content as an opportunity to get a sale or get a new
subscriber to your newsletter. For instance, every
single video that I post on my YouTube channel is an opportunity. Tell the world about my product, or it could be affiliate products. You see here in the description, I'm promoting my 50 digital
product ideas guide right here. Of course, I've got my
website links here too, as well as affiliate
products that I recommend. On Instagram, every
single piece of content is an opportunity for you to use a call to action for people to visit your link in the bio. So right here is where they
land. I'm using beacons.ai. They can go ahead here, learn more, click on one of the related links here. So yeah, don't see social
media as a waste of time. You're actually planting the seeds, and that's how you should see it. You're gonna read the
benefits based on, you know, your consistency and action. Other than social media, what I recommend you do is to start an email list, all right? Start a newsletter. It doesn't have to be something
like a weekly newsletter. You could just make sure
you collect those emails. And the platform that
I recommend you start with is ConvertKit. I can recommend a tonne of
others. I actually use Drip. Something a little more
simple is ConvertKit, just because as well, it's free
for up to 1000 subscribers. So that gives you an opportunity, right? You don't, you don't have
to fork out so much upfront. You can start for free,
create a landing page, tell people to subscribe
to your newsletter. And it could be a bribe, right? You could give people a free
guide, let's say five ways on how to do X, giving it
away for free in exchange for their email address. So that way, once they
are in your database, once they're in your email
list, that's when you can go. You provide content, of course, educate them about your subject, build awareness, at the same
time, more opportunities to let them know about, here's the product that I'm offering, here's what I got, here's how it can help you, or whatever automation you want to create. You can do all this using ConvertKit. Alright, and finally, step number seven, and perhaps the most
important is to be patient. The success of others that you
see online is the end result, the end product. They don't usually show
you the behind the scenes and the amount of work
that they've put into what they've achieved. And it's not an overnight
success, certainly wasn't for me, started back in 2005, six,
I've created a business that I'm really happy with. It's given me the freedom, flexibility, and the financial stability, right? And this only happened like 2019. Previous to that, it was kind of like trying different
side, gig side hustles and building up to a point where, yeah, this is what I really love
to do and it's my passion. And don't mistake in
patience with waiting, because you can wait all day,
but nothing's gonna happen unless you take action yourself and don't wait for that saviour. No one's gonna save you
except yourself, right? Only you have will have
discipline to push yourself. Keep yourself accountable
to make the right you know, decisions each day and take action. Of course, every decision's
not gonna be right, but at least if you're
doing something each day, every small little bit
will move you forward and get you closer to your goal. At the end of the day,
you have to take action. It's up to you. I've laid out the
foundations and the system and this is exactly what I
would tell someone to start with if they were just starting online or if I were to start all over again, I would start with these steps. All right, I know this
video was quite lengthy, but hopefully you got value out of it. And if you did, by all means, give this video a quick thumbs up and just make sure to get a website. Link will be in description box below for hosting as well as my
coupon code, Aurelius,. Till next time, I'll leave up a couple of relevant videos on here and one there. But take care for now and
I'll see you in the next one.
