As a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN), your expertise is valuable, but nearly as important as the content in your digital product, is the presentation.
Design, a persuasive product description, and the experience of your customers when interacting with your product is not to be overlooked. While we tend to think about these topics primarily for physical goods, they are relevant for digital products as well.
What are customers looking for?
Think about a recent purchase of a digital item. Perhaps it was an e-book, new music or an e-course. What was the key factor that lead you to click the buy button? Was the title and cover art compelling? Did you read the overview on the book flap or review testimonials? Did you read a few online reviews before purchasing?
It is likely that you did some, if not all of these in your purchase process. Your customers are taking a similar approach. Let’s dive into the aspects of graphic design, product description and the customer experience in more detail.
Graphic Design
Creating visually appealing graphics for your digital products doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive. There are a number of tools that are easy-to-use, inexpensive and produce professional quality results. Hiring a design firm or a freelancer to assist can be a good investment but, depending on your inclination and willingness to learn new skills, you can complete this task on your own.
One excellent design tool that is popular with RDs is Canva. This design program allows you to create images with easy drag-and-drop tools for a multitude of purposes including social media, printed flyers and business cards as well as graphics for your digital goods or website.
Canva offers a free version that allows you to create images, save the design for easy future access and revision, and download the image to your computer. What makes it easy to learn and quick to use are the templates that you can easily edit with our own text or image.
While the free version may be enough to meet your needs, the paid version, called Canva Pro is affordable ($12.95 monthly or $9.95 paid annually), and allows you to create a library of colors and fonts for your brand. It also gives you access to a stock image library and expanded selections of templates and fonts and the ability to upload your own fonts. The paid version of Canva allows you to easily organize your designs in folders for more streamlined access.
While the benefits of Canva are compelling, there is no reason to make the decision and purchase the paid version immediately, feel free to give the free version a test drive and compare with other options. Another similar option with a drag-and-drop design experience is PicMonkey. For those that need more advanced tools, Adobe Illustrator or InDesign are professional level programs that provide all the features you will need, but do come with a heftier price tag.
If design isn’t something you want to take on or would prefer to hire a professional, you can find freelancers on sites such as Upwork, Fiverr and Elance. Freelancers are a budget friendly alternative to hiring a design firm. Some freelance sites allow you to post your design job with a price or you can shop for a service offered by a freelancer at an established price.
Whatever your approach to design, make sure that your final product is appealing and connects with your target audience.
Persuasive Digital Product Descriptions
It might seem natural to make your product description focused on your product. However, this approach isn’t going to get you over the finish line with sales. It might work with a clientele that is familiar with your services or expertise but, to really drive sales, your product description must focus on your buyer. You must know the exact persona of your customer.
In order to create a digital product description that is targeted at your ideal client, you need to spend time understanding your imaginary customer. This means that you need to spend a great deal of time planning your product description. It isn’t going to be a quick, one-draft document. A well-written description should involve about 50% of the time in planning, an initial draft and then a few rounds of revisions.
Your focus should not be on listing the many features of your digital product. It should be on describing the benefits for your customer. For example, “contains over 100 recipes is a feature.” A benefit would be “reduce time spent meal planning with more than 100 recipes included.”
You must clearly connect the dots for your target audience. The features of your product don’t compel them to purchase. A clear understanding of how the product will benefit them will drive a purchase.
There are a number of excellent examples of well-written product descriptions on WellResourced. Here is are two examples to get your creative juices flowing. (1) Fitness Myths and Training Truths and (2) The Grocery Store Tour Toolkit.
Customer Experience
Consider the experience of your customer during the purchase process and how they receive the digital product. Does your process require numerous clicks? Do the steps in the process provide clear direction and address any hesitation that the buyer may feel when getting close to purchasing the item?
Think about a recent online purchase process. How easy did the online retailer make the purchase process? Think closely about aspects of the purchase such as a special discount pop-up if you hesitated during the checkout process.
Most robust e-commerce sites have a process in place to follow up with customers that abandon their cart or purchase. The reason for is compelling because statistics show that re-marketing can have a 30% conversion rate. Do you ever receive emails that read something like “Are you still interested in XX?” Basic sales strategies can mean the difference between thriving sales with your digital goods and results that are less than you expected.
After the customer purchases your product, does your digital delivery mechanism continue to create a positive experience that fosters future sales? Do you have a standard “Here is the product you purchased” email or do you have customized messages that demonstrate your brand tone and message? Each and every experience with a customer is a chance to build your brand and your business.
Making sure your digital product stands out from the crowd will take some effort and perhaps some new skills. However, spending time on design, a persuasive product description, and the experience of your customers will maximize your product’s sales potential.
Be sure to grab a copy of my FREE e-book, “Leveraging Digital Goods: More Money, More Business” with a BONUS getting started checklist.
