If you’re at the stage of product creation where you’ve decided that you want to create a digital product (or a new digitial product) then it wouldn’t be unusual if you didn’t know precisely what the product will be based on.

That’s actually a lot more normal than a lot of us would care to admit publicly!

There are a few problems with getting ideas for digital products:

1. What’s going to sell?

Unless you’ve got a working crystal ball, you won’t know the answer to this question ahead of time.

Big companies with even bigger budgets don’t know, despite the amount of research they spend money on.

If you’ve got stats for your website then you’ve got a head start over other people but even then – as a lot of investment products will happily tell you in their disclaimer – past performance is no guarantee of future success.

The best way is to just launch a product – with or without a fanfare – and then see whether the market agrees with you or not.

2. Broad approach or drill down?

Both work, depending on the circumstances.

It’s often best to create a broad overview product first – that’s something I’ve done on more than one occasion – and then create extra, add-on, products that drill down into specific areas.

For instance, keyword research is one of those things that can be broad – maybe when you’re deciding the overall topic your website will cover – or can be really, really, detailed. Or anywhere in between.

That applies in any market you care to name.

People thinking about personal growth might read an overview book or browse a few websites or lurk in a few forums.

So you could cater for them – lots of people do.

Or they might decide that they want to pursue a niche within personal growth – that could cover self confidence, goal setting or a myriad of other topics. Any of which would fit in with the “drill down” side of things.

And you could drill down further – self confidence could apply to dating, driving, exams, teaching, even typing out a blog post like this.

The beauty of the internet is that even niches that are almost microscopically small can be made to pay.

There’s a lot to be said for starting small and working up.

Which leads us on to the next point:

3. Rare or hard to find information sells for more money

Once again, you know this from your own life.

The daily news is everywhere. Which is hard information to deal with if you’re a newspaper publisher – they’re struggling to come to terms with this and are mostly losing physical sales faster than they’re adding paying web subscribers.

But what’s happening at your local digital camera club is rarer information – probably mostly only known to paying members.

If you’re just starting out with digital products, I’d strongly suggest that you start with the rarer information in your niche. The kind of information that people seek you out and ask you about.

Anything you find yourself explaining on a regular basis to friends and acquaintances is fair game for a digital product.

Because – by definition – if you’re being asked, it’s not common knowledge.

Once you get a few digital products under your belt, you’ll get ideas overflowing out of your head just by checking emails from your customers – anything they ask for clarification on is fair game for a digital product.

What next?

Once you’ve come up with some ideas, you need to use at least one of them to create a digital product. Otherwise you’re just dreaming!

If you’d like to know more, move on to this page that has an overview of creating a digital product, start to finish.