The easiest digital product you can create and start selling today (2022)

Since the start of the pandemic, the online world has seen tens of thousands of new entrepreneurs creating a new digital product business, often out of necessity.

From in-person or service businesses not able to generate the income they once did, to issues with shipping physical products or even those wanting to take advantage of the rise of Zoom and the changes in the way people now learn. There is a huge market just waiting for you to tap into!

But, in a sea of digital product ideas, where do you start?

And how do you come up with ideas for your digital products?

Just a heads up

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When you’re working out exactly what you want to offer you may find yourself rushing straight into building a big online course, perhaps with dollar signs in your eyes. 🤑

No doubt you've heard about people earning 5 figures every month from running a membership site or selling digital downloads like templates, and you want your digital product business to do the same.

Many coaches and mentors recommend that your first digital product or online course should be a $1k or $2k program, with the ideology that you only need to make a few sales to start making passive income.

However, the simplicity of running a membership, selling templates or creating a big online program often doesn’t work well if you’re newer at online business or creating digital products.

It's especially problematic if you’re still working out exactly what your audience needs and wants (and what you want to create!) You could end up spending months creating a digital product that you love, but your ideal customers don't want to buy. 

This is why micro products are so effective and are such a great way for new creators to start.

Micro digital products allow you to test ideas and get them to market fast.

Online courses and programs can take weeks or months to create. Even when you pre-sell them first for validation to ensure you’ve got a market - which I ALWAYS recommend. 

Micro products, like mini-courses and short workshops, can be set up and put for sale in a week or less. This allows you to get ideas to market quickly, see if they are viable and most importantly get feedback to improve.

One of my favourite micro products is a Playshop.

Think workshop minus the work and pretty much the quickest and easiest type of online product you can create.

A Playshop is more of an engaging interactive experience, rather than just being about educational content. Ideally bringing people together virtually and doing an activity together.

Because the focus isn’t on learning, you don’t need to spend days or weeks prepping slides, content or recording videos. You can take a few hours to decide on what you’ll offer and the structure. Perhaps another hour on working out an agenda, an hour or two setting up the tech and you’re ready to go! 

You’ll have a digital asset you can create, set up and get for sale in a day!

A playshop is something you can sell on its own for a quick cash injection into your business - perhaps even making it a once a month or once a quarter activity. You could offer it as a bonus to a bigger program or even sell for free or very low cost as a way to grow your list, the same way you might offer a mini course or webinar for free. 

The best thing is - because Playshops are so quick and easy to set up, it’s a fantastic way to test out ideas and get feedback before creating bigger programs and really get to know your ideal customers and what they need.

But what exactly would you do in a playshop if you’re not teaching? 

Here are 10 Playshop ideas to give you some inspiration:

1. Run a Q+A/pick my brain session

 Do you get lots of questions via email or social media asking questions about what you do, your processes or general advice? Turn that into a playshop and you’ll be killing a few birds with one stone! Instead of spending time writing replies on social or email, invite those who ask you questions to a Q+A session and spend the same time engaging with your audience and enabling others to learn from the information.

You could ask for questions to be submitted beforehand if you’re not comfortable answering on the fly or just open the call to anyone who has a question. Optionally, you could send the replay to everyone who registers.

2. Run a co-working or implementation session

There is great power in helping people get shit done! Sometimes, booking time in and making a commitment is the external accountability your clients may need. You can be there to guide and perhaps have breaks to answer questions, but the main purpose of the session is to help others implement and enjoy working with like-minded others in this often lonely entrepreneurial world!

3. Feedback session

This is a little similar to a Q+A session, however you’re offering feedback on someone’s work, rather than answering questions. Tracie from Indie Copy does this for B-You Collective members with copy reviews. She will look at the copy on sales pages, FB ads, website pages etc and give her expert guidance on what to change/improve to increase conversions (ie getting people to buy). Think about something you often give your clients feedback on and how you could formalise that into a collaborative session.

4. Step by step process

Is there something you do in your business every week or every month you could share with your audience, so they could do it too? Perhaps your social media planning, content creation, account reconciliation, weekly check in, analytics check etc? What you may do instinctively and have done for months or even years, could be new to someone in your audience and they might love to watch over your shoulder so they can learn as you do.

 

5. Planning session

This is perfect for coaches and creators who help their clients with plans and organisation. You could run a collaborative planning session where you map out goals for the next month/quarter/year. Maybe creating a business or marketing plan - where you provide the plan outline and during the session, everyone attending completes it, and they walk away with specific tasks/goals. Content creation for blogs, social media, or YouTube tied back to specific business goals is another example of a planning session playshop.

6. Step by step tech tutorials

This is perfect for software lovers/teachers like me. You could take someone through a specific aspect of software that you find easy, but others find difficult. Show how to do step one of a process, and let everyone implement it. Then repeat until the set-up is complete. This is like a guided implementation session.

7. Virtual Networking

As you grow your online business, your list will grow which brings fantastic opportunities. Creating environments for people in your world to connect with each other brings fantastic benefits. Use breakout rooms on zoom for small groups to learn more about each other and/or help each other. Perhaps try to curate a speed networking session to connect individuals. Share contact information afterwards to everyone who registers to increase connections.

8. Hackathon

This is commonly used in the tech space, but there is no reason it can’t be used in any industry where short bursts of intense work over a short period of time like a weekend, can have massive impact (look out for the Kajabi Course Creation Pyjama Party coming up in May). This would be the Playshop with the biggest time commitment, so be conscious of that when choosing to run something like this, lots of fun breaks will keep people engaged. It’s also likely to be incredibly beneficial for those who stay involved and finish the event.

 9. Run a Challenge

Challenges are often run over 3 or 5 days and are an epic way to build your list or launch a program. Cash In With Kajabi is our 5 day challenge that teaches you how to run your own challenge.

But what if you took the same concept and created a micro-challenge? Something that you could run in just one session and a quick follow up session? Challenges work best with a clear defined outcome, so think about something your audience could create or do, together, during a live session. 

Let us know if any of these ideas have given you the inspiration to create your own Playshop?

If you’d like a detailed step by step guide through the entire process of setting up a Playshop, our Kajabi Playshops mini-course will give you all the details (including Kajabi tech tutorials and 8 ways you can optimise your playshop for bigger impact).

We cover marketing strategy, the quick and easy minimum viable product set up, planning and more! It's just $37

Click here to learn more!

Cheers, Sue x