- Digital Products — A Way to Monetize Your Talents
- Stock Photos and Videos
- Templates for Graphic Design
- Video Lessons and Online Courses
- E-books
- Music and Audio Tracks for Use in Video
- Themes, Templates, and Plugins for Popular CMS
- Meditations and Audio Tracks for Relaxation
- 3D Models and Resources for 3D Printing
- Meal and Workout Plans
- Digital Greeting Cards and Holiday Messages
Today in the field of e-commerce, anyone who wants to share knowledge, creative ideas, and digital products can become an entrepreneur. This is a new and fairly simple way to turn a personal hobby into a profitable business. What are digital products, what types exist, where to sell them, and how to promote them — learn all this from this article.
Digital Products — A Way to Monetize Your Talents
Digital products are intangible results of intellectual activity in various fields that exist only virtually (stored in cloud storage or on an electronic medium) and do not require shipping, which makes the process of receiving them by the buyer simple. After paying for the desired file, the new owner gains access to it and can start using it.
This format of trade relations perfectly meets the needs of our present time: speed, no hassle, convenience. Customers prefer digital products for the ability to instantly obtain relevant virtual material for self-development, leisure, work, or creative pursuits.
The entry threshold for sales platforms is quite low, making it suitable for people without a large startup capital. If you plan to sell through your own website — it is enough to purchase hosting for the website, register a domain, and possibly pay for some CMS plugins. If you decide to sell digital products through stock platforms, it’s even easier — most platforms do not charge an entry fee but take a percentage upon the sale of the product.
Today, many dream of entrepreneurship in the digital field, as a single intellectual product can be sold multiple times, startup capital is minimal, and online platforms make it possible to attract foreign buyers.
Technology is constantly evolving, so the variety of digital products increases every year. We have prepared a list of the 10 most in-demand virtual products.
Stock Photos and Videos
Visual content is in demand by many: media outlets, online stores, bloggers, experts who want to illustrate prepared material, and so on. Professional photos and videos are highly valued by a wide audience. To see this for yourself, try taking a neutral, high-quality photo and uploading it to one or several international platforms: Shutterstock, Adobe Stock, or Depositphotos.
Photo collection on Depositphotos
To help more buyers find your photos and videos and easily choose what they need, use the following tips:
- Use accurate metadata. There may be only a few keywords, but they should match the content as precisely as possible.
- Regularly upload new materials.
- Create collections from your images and clips.
If you don’t have a professional camera, you can even create content using a smartphone. The shooting quality of modern models is sufficient to pass the technical check on a stock site.
Also read: Extraordinary Ukrainian Businesses and Marketing Strategies That Truly Work
Templates for Graphic Design
These are digital products that include logos, banners, posters, and flyers. If you are a graphic designer, you can prepare this type of content for sale to users who are not well-versed in graphic design but need quick solutions in this area for their work. You can earn income from your work on online platforms such as GraphicRiver, Creative Market, and DesignCrowd.
Graphics templates on Creative Market
Video Lessons and Online Courses
Lately, many people around the world prefer self-education. Video lessons make it possible to master a new skill or even an entire profession. If you are a qualified specialist in a particular field, you should create your own informational product and share it with others. Access can be sold on platforms such as SkillShare, Coursera, Teachable; or you can use your own website or social media accounts as a promotion platform.
E-books
Today, e-books are a convenient and significantly cheaper alternative to printed editions. This category is one of the most profitable in the digital market, but the workload to create the product is also the highest: writing a single book can take from several months to several years. Moreover, sometimes it’s impossible to do without the services of a proofreader and editor.
E-books on Amazon
If you are already the author of fiction, manuals, or textbooks, you can take advantage of the opportunity to distribute them through the online resource eBooks. This frees you from the need to spend significant resources, as with traditional book publishing.
Music and Audio Tracks for Use in Video
Background music or sound effects for video content are very popular among YouTubers, Instagram bloggers, filmmakers, and music video creators, as not all of them can afford to hire a composer.
We recommend that authors publish audio content on streaming services as well as on closed stock platforms, where a buyer can obtain a license to use the desired track only after payment. Your music composition can be purchased dozens or even hundreds of thousands of times.
Also read: TOP-7 non-trivial ways to earn money on the Internet
Themes, Templates, and Plugins for Popular CMS
Web designers, front-end and back-end web developers can turn the creation of themes, templates, and plugins for websites on popular CMS platforms — particularly WordPress, Shopify, and Wix — into a source of passive income. This type of digital trade is convenient for both office workers and freelancers.
It’s currently worth selling your work on international platforms such as ThemeForest. Before starting the development of virtual products, you should find out which ones are most popular. The simplest way to research this is to look at the number of items added over the past year in the categories that interest you.
Templates for WordPress on ThemeForest
Meditations and Audio Tracks for Relaxation
Due to the growing number of people suffering from anxiety, stress, and depression, meditation has become very popular lately, as this practice helps build stress resilience and improves mood. If you have a pleasant, mesmerizing voice and a microphone, you should try creating audio content that guides the meditation process, helping a person focus on their sensations and emotions.
If you are able to compose music using software or artificial intelligence, your way of monetizing your talent is by creating calming tracks that people enjoy listening to while being creative or falling asleep.
Pay attention to the following music directions:
- Ambient — a currently popular genre combining soft, enveloping music, distant voices, and subtle nature sounds.
- Neoclassical Meditation — piano, string instruments, and chimes, a blend of modern classical sound and silence that feels like a soundtrack to an inner movie.
- Binaural Beats — technically, these are different frequencies in each ear for "brain synchronization". This technique works for meditation, deep focus, or fast sleep. It is important to listen with headphones.
- Nature Sounds-Only — full tracks featuring waterfalls, forests, birdsong. Often searched as “sleep sounds”, “forest meditation”. Very relaxing. Perfect for sleep or grounding meditations.
Digital products can be sold through online stock platforms and promoted via TikTok and Instagram.
3D Models and Resources for 3D Printing
There is currently a significant niche for selling three-dimensional models. Know how to use a 3D printer? Then you have every chance to start a profitable business. To develop models from scratch, you need to be familiar with computer design applications such as Fusion 360 and SketchUp.
3D printing models on CGTrader
Many in this niche sell licenses that grant the right to print and distribute physical items. Platforms commonly used for this include Patreon, TurboSquid, and CGTrader.
Also read: How to Create a Mobile App Without Code with Minimal Investment
Meal and Workout Plans
More and more people prefer to achieve their desired physical shape on their own, without direct communication with a trainer or dietitian. However, some form of guidance is still necessary, and buyers like that it’s easy to purchase online.
If you are a fitness trainer or have experience in the field of nutrition, you can create online meal and exercise plans. But you need to know how to sell digital products in this category. Start by building an expert image through TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Charisma, a desire to help people, and experience in your chosen niche will help. You should also have documents confirming your qualifications. Meal and workout plans can be sold on a personal landing page.
Digital Greeting Cards and Holiday Messages
If you have illustration skills, it’s worth trying to turn the creation of digital cards or greeting animations into a profitable business. A small tip: start drawing what women like, as they are the primary buyers of greeting cards.
Access to these digital products can be sold, for example, on Depositphotos or Etsy — a marketplace that today also specializes in the sale of digital goods. You can create your own website with virtual products, which will be an important element of your personal brand. You can also promote your original work through Pinterest and your Instagram profile, where you can place links to greeting digital products available for purchase.
Business in the digital technology field is a profitable activity that, thanks to convenient stock platforms, marketplaces, or your own website, can be run without significant investment in physical infrastructure. By doing what you love, you can create popular digital products and receive a steady passive income.
Like the article? Tell your friends about it: 
