When you can’t add extra hours to your day, you know it’s time to scale your business.
You may decide that you need a way to to meet and engage new customers. Maybe you just want to build community and continued value for existing customers without sacrificing more of your time. Or perhaps it’s time to create clearer pathways that include less expensive options to point the way to your more valuable products and services.
Whatever the reason, one of the fastest ways to do all of the above is by offering and selling digital products, including e-books, webinars and online courses.
But what topics should you focus on to move your business forward?
Most business owners can easily create a long list of topics for their digital products, but choosing ONE to work on at the get go can be overwhelming and seem next to impossible.
Do you fall into this category? If so, this article will give you strategies to help narrow your focus and get into inspired action.
Here are a few areas to consider:
BUSINESS GOALS
Every product or service you offer, including your online products, should “have a job” in your business. Before you can decide what you want your online course or e-book to do for your business, it’s a good idea to get clear on what you want from your business itself.
What are your goals for your business? Think about (and write down goals) for the following areas:
- Client demographics
- Community engagement
- Time it takes to run the business
- Revenue / product or service sales
- Any other markers that matter to you
YOUR CURRENT (AND DESIRED) MARKET
Think about who you are currently serving and who you want to serve.
Who are they and what do they want?
While it’s wonderful (and necessary) for you to be excited about your topic, it must also have appeal for the people you serve, or you’ll be wasting a lot of time and energy to create something that likely won’t sell.
To stay on track, ask (and answer) the following questions for yourself:
- What clients do you currently serve (demographics)?
- Are they the market you want to engage? Why or why not?
- Are you starting a new business or looking to re-engage longterm clients?
- Are there any other groups you want to engage?
- What are the pain points of your clients? What do they need help with?
- What questions do your clients ask over & over?
- Have they paid you for answers to this question or have they paid you for solutions to a certain problem more than once?
CIRCULAR PATHWAYS TO YOUR PRODUCTS & SERVICES
Every interaction your clients have with you or your website or your brand should leave them wondering, “What’s next?”
With this in mind, all collateral you create should point to another area in your business (a blog post or other resource, another product or service, an online community or social media post, etc).
Consider the following questions:
- What are your premium products and services?
- Do you have any topics that could create a pathway to purchasing these items?
- What are some of the struggles your target demographic has?
- What topics can start to ease those struggles while pointing to your premier products?
MARKETABILITY (keywords & other evidential support)
Remember, loving your topic isn’t enough. Others have to have interest in it too. If you do a google search for your topic and find nothing about it anywhere, this may be a topic that will be harder to sell. Ideally, your first digital product will exist someplace where the market indicates healthy interest.
The fastest way to get a sense of this is to google your topic. Hopefully you’ll find blog posts, forums, social media posts, sponsored ads, groups & reviews.
Look for the products with the best reviews and notice any patterns. What titles got the most people to purchase? What words occur most often in the most popular resources relating to this topic?
You can also do (recommended) a keyword search to target words and phrases that will help you optimize visibility and SEO for your product.
EASE OF TEACHING
This is a simple concept, but SO important to take into consideration. If you are creating your first e-book or online training, it can be very wise to go with a topic that you already know well for this first time through.
You may be learning new technology or developing a new skill set while setting up your digital products for the first time. So, let the topics and content creation be the easy part.
- Which of the topics that interest you could you teach in your sleep?
- What could you talk about, with little to no preparation, right now?
- Is there something that you do every day that others might want to learn?
Remember, you don’t have to be perfect or wait to become an expert. Share from what you know right now as you create your first courses, e-books, or webinars. Your audience will appreciate the extra effort, and you’ll appreciate the way your business booms!
ADDITIONAL RESOURCE
30 Day Online Course Creation Challenge – If you’re ready to scale your business by building your first online course, you might enjoy the step by step approach and customized content and support of this 30 Day Challenge. Work side by side with instructor and long-time course creator, Kellie Lin Knott (Co-founder, Life Mastery Business Academy) to pick a topic and build out your first course in 30 days or less. Generate extra revenue, engage your community, or automate your business. This course includes lifetime access, so you can go through it each time you’re creating something new. Start anytime!
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