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Running a lucrative business takes more than just commitment, knowledge and hard work. To be truly successful, you must constantly exercise and improve your creativity to develop and market solution-based products to your target market. Want to be productive, creative, and successful even from home?! Start creating and selling digital planners! It’s fun, profitable, and helps people improve their day-to-day lives!
WHAT IS A DIGITAL PLANNER?
A digital planner is an electronic planner typically accessed through a smartphone or tablet. Since these digital products come in a PDF format, you need to use a PDF annotator to write on them. There are a lot of downloadable digital planner businesses out there offering several designs, depending on the preferences of their target customers.
Today, more and more people are documenting their daily lives the digital way. These electronic planners can also be opened on multiple devices, allowing users to zoom in on specific areas and erase mistakes without wasting paper and leaving pen marks. Going digital is more affordable, portable, and economical! Furthermore, they offer more flexibility, especially for people on the go who love taking detailed notes.
HOW TO START A DIGITAL PLANNER BUSINESS
A digital planning business can be an excellent source of passive income, but only if you know how to do it right. This is not only about channeling your inner artist and making different templates. From design planning and development to marketing, things can get overwhelming really fast.
As customers start to order and your business gains more attention, you would want to create more products, increase website traffic, respond to inquiries and send promotional emails. Do you love organizing and planning things yourself? Then this is the best online business for you! Let me teach you how to set up a system to keep things from going crazy as you grow your business.
1. MAKE A THOROUGH PLAN
At this point, digital planning is no longer just a hobby. It’s a business, so treat it like one. Start by browsing downloadable digital planners online. Gather inspiration from Pinterest and check the ecommerce sites offering them. It’s time to make improved, prettier versions of these existing products and make planning more fun for your future customers.
What ideas do you want to offer to your target customers? How often do you want to release collections? There are three main things that you should focus on: the kind of planners you want to make, budget and the software to be used. In the end, the best designs depend on your branding and business goals. Try using productivity tools like Asana or Trello to map out your ideas and important dates such as collection launches and marketing timelines.
2. RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH
At this point, digital planning is no longer just a hobby. It’s a business, so treat it like one. Start by browsing downloadable digital planners online. Then, gather inspiration from Pinterest and check the ecommerce sites offering them. It’s time to make improved, prettier versions of these existing products and make planning more fun for your future customers.
What ideas do you want to offer to your target customers? How often do you want to launch collections? There are three main things that you should focus on: the kind of planners you want to make, the budget, and the software to be used. Ultimately, the best designs depend on your branding and business goals. Try using productivity tools like Asana or Trello to map out your ideas and important dates, such as collection launches and marketing timelines.
3. CHOOSE A NICHE
There is always a way to set yourself apart from others, even amid thousands of similar businesses online. When developing digital planners, find a niche or a theme that suits your interests and branding. What do you want to focus on? Is there a specific set of templates that you want to do?
If you’re a stay-at-home mom just starting her very first business, you may want to target this market. Why not make home management planners? This is something moms will find interesting and valuable, as they are continuously looking for ways to improve their daily routine and organize their households. Whatever it is that you choose to do, make sure that you enjoy it!
4. CHOOSE THE BEST CREATIVE PROGRAMS FOR YOU
Choose the programs that you want to use to create your digital planners. However, as a newbie, you wouldn’t want to splurge on Adobe Creative Cloud and other expensive programs. It’s perfectly fine to start small and affordable. Some even learn how to make incredible designs using free tools. Here are some of the best tools you can use as you begin your digital planner journey.
The learning process can be long and challenging, even with free and affordable software programs. It may take months to get used to one and make the most of its features. Therefore, make the most out of the above mentioned options before investing in more expensive tools.
5. DEVELOP A SIGNATURE DESIGN AND SEASONAL DESIGNS
Here comes the exciting part! Think about what designs you want to create and explore a creative program’s functions and features. How can you make your designs even more valuable and appealing?! Varying designs and templates are great, but having a signature design will help your work become even more remarkable and recognizable.
Let your signature design be the basis of your collections. The same, but different! With the help of your signature format, you don’t need to create everything from scratch every time. Templates are major time savers. All you need to do is tweak your existing designs with your signature style as a guide.
Instead of reinventing the wheel every time, use your remaining time to make limited-time collections, seasonal digital planners, and look for new inspiration for new releases.
6. DESIGN AHEAD OF TIME
The best thing about running a business from home is that you can work anytime you want. For others, though, getting rid of distractions and managing their time in their comfort zones can be difficult. This is why it’s important to avoid working on digital planner designs at the very last minute.
Create your digital planners ahead of time. The earlier you get things done, the more productive and relaxed you will be. That way, you’ll have plenty of time to design more pages, get creative and step up your marketing game. Procrastination is not an option. Working on business tasks in advance will help you make more time for yourself, family, and friends.
7. FIND THE BEST PLATFORM TO SELL YOUR DIGITAL PLANNERS
Time to sell your digital planners! There are many platforms to sell your beautiful creations without paying upfront fees. However, to stay competitive and run a profitable business, you must go for an ecommerce site that implements improved technology and protects sensitive information 24/7.
So, which platform should you choose?! Etsy and Shopify are two outstanding platforms you can explore. Etsy and Shopify are the Top Ecommerce Platforms Today for those who want to sell products and services. The former is a marketplace, while the latter is more flexible and scalable, allowing business owners to create sites that mirror their brand.
8. PROMOTE YOUR DIGITAL PLANNERS
After creating digital planners comes marketing. You need to put them in front of your potential customers, or else they wouldn’t sell. Look into SEO, email marketing, and social media marketing to showcase your products. Without effective marketing, they wouldn’t even know that your business exists.
In addition to offering bundle discounts and sales, make your digital planners stand out by growing your followers online and building hype. Leverage the power of social media and interact with your audiences! Tell your target audience how your digital planner will benefit them and what makes your pages special.
Each time you launch a collection, share relatable stories and visuals that can instantly captivate them. Another idea is to make step-by-step videos showing people how you use digital planners. It’s like sharing some behind-the-scenes videos of your life and how planners make your routine easier.
9. CREATE AN AFFILIATE PROGRAM
Affiliate Marketing involves earning a commission in exchange for promoting or selling another business’ products. Sales can be achieved in many ways, from social media and web content creation to product integration. This Strategy is rapidly gaining popularity among small business owners and bloggers as it has low start-up costs and gains a high ROI.
You may want to start an affiliate program for your digital planners to increase your sales and strengthen brand recognition. Find influencers in your niche, and then offer them commissions for every sale. Different affiliates can have varying commission rates, depending on how massive their following is.
Affiliate marketing can be a huge source of traffic for your business! You can start selling digital planners and then expand your product offerings, gradually building your online business empire. Signing up on Amazon is a great way to start. Then, to ensure a hassle-free fulfillment process, leverage reliable FBA Prep services to maximize customer satisfaction and boost your sales.
10. MAKE ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENTS
Be prepared for a lot of challenges as you go along. At some point, you won’t sell enough planners, find it hard to explore creative programs or have time management problems. That’s OK and normal for someone just finding her way to success. What’s important is you know how to make adjustments and improve your work process.
It’s almost impossible to get things right at once. So, try a new approach when your current strategies are not working as expected. It doesn’t mean that this business is not for you. You just need to analyze the situation, tweak your system a bit and see if it works this time. Running any business is about a series of trials and errors until you gain your desired improvements.
START YOUR DIGITAL PLANNER BUSINESS TODAY
Productivity and creativity become more attainable when in the company of digital planners! If you love designing, planning, and organizing, then there’s no reason for you not to share your passion with everybody. Set up a digital planner business and help people as they achieve their goals in life, one beautiful page at a time!
