How to Market Digital Products Without the Gimmicks

Do you know how to market digital products effectively? Sometimes it takes a little extra creativity and outside-of-the-box thinking to develop smart marketing tactics for your digital products. It’s hard to sell someone something they can touch, see, or test, but it’s far more difficult to sell them something that is intangible.

The way to overcome those difficulties is to provide crystal clear communication to your prospects about your product or service in a way that allows them to realize the value they’re missing out on.

How to Market Digital Products

Rule number one: Never tell your audience how your product or service will help them. Show them instead. Most prospects will approach the discovery process with skepticism. At the first sign of a sales pitch, they’ll immediately put up red flags. Once that happens your job of selling becomes almost impossible. Learning how to market digital products requires that you communicate in the most genuine way possible.

Three Ways to Avoid Making a Sales Pitch

1. Show the Value – Find ways to demonstrate value without the help of discounts, and other promotions
2. Be 100% Transparent – Tell prospects exactly what your product or service will do without exaggeration
3. Use Social Proof – If you have testimonials or reviews, use them

Show the Value

A great product or service will have value for multiple buyer personas. A smartphone offers different value to different people. A 55-year-old mother might see value in the ability to communicate with her kids wherever she goes. A high school student could see value in the ability to play games, post on social media anytime they want, and look trendy. Value is relative to each individual prospect. When you know how to market digital products in a way that presents value to your audience, the entire process becomes much more efficient.

How to Demonstrate the Value of a Product or Service

• Show how it can improve prospects’ lives
• Show how it can remove problems, obstacles, and difficulties
• Show how it can save prospects’ money
• Show how it can save prospects’ time

There are countless ways to demonstrate the value of a great product. Find innovative ways to promote the product without being salesy and you’ll earn the trust of your audience.

Be 100% Transparent

Have you ever watched one of those movie scenes where the guy takes his girl to the county fair to win a prize? They choose a booze with a massively awesome prize planted out front, plop down 5 dollars and play a few rounds until they win.

The only problem is the man running the booth reaches behind the counter and pulls out a worthless prize that in no way relates to the one being promoted. Naturally, the couple reacts with confusion that quickly turns into frustration and then anger when they realize the advertised prize isn’t being awarded. Needless to say, the shady tactics of the man operating that booth resulted in the permanent loss of business. In fact, that couple probably went home and told their friends and family about their terrible experience.

Marketing digital products can be just like that booth at the fair. If you advertise features, benefits, and opportunities your product can offer, you have to deliver. Gimmicky marketing tactics will alienate your audience and destroy brand credibility.

Use Social Proof

What does social proof have to do with learning how to market digital products? Everything. People crave validation that what they’re doing is the right thing. Social proof occurs naturally in the human world through the recommendation of friends, actions of crowds, and endorsements by celebrities, to name just a few scenarios.

Common Methods of Social Proof

• Reviews
• Testimonials
• Recommendations
• Endorsements
• Sponsorships
• Ratings
• Case studies

We’re surrounded by examples of social proof on a daily basis. Five-star rated Netflix Original series, audience’s that clap after performances, people who laugh along with sitcoms that use pre-recorded tracks of laughter. They’re all examples of social proof.

Understanding how to market digital products effectively requires demonstrating value, being transparent, and using social proof. Working those three elements into your digital product marketing strategy will offer prospects a way to realize tangible significance.