Scaling a service-based business without hiring a huge team or slaving away endlessly to content creation ultimately means selling PLR content and digital products like planners and courses. However, if you are anything like most of my clients, you recently discovered that generating predictable recurring revenue from PLR content is much harder than it seems without the right strategy.
Every day I see coaches and freelancers pulling their hair out because they are trying so hard to sell their PLR content in their Etsy store or WordPress site and they have no clue why nothing is happening. Especially, when it seems like nobody else is struggling to sell the same products.
Crazy frustrating right?
It doesn’t have to be!
If you’ve been mystified as to why your PLR products and content won’t sell, this is the post you’ve been wishing for during those sleepless nights. This is the post that will be the first step in turning your digital product suite from frustrating waste into a financial win.
Reason 1: Your Product Suite Doesn’t Make Sense
It can be all too easy to get swept up into a buying frenzy when it comes to purchasing PLR. Next thing you know, you’re sitting on an enormous library that would take years of your life to go through and you’re overwhelmed by it. Cut to the part where you panic and just start randomly listing your PLR products for sale without a plan.
You get where this is going right?
All to often when my clients call me in to audit their offer suite I see a totally mismatched product line with things like clip art, a planner or two in different niche, then a handful of digital papers and maybe a template. They are all over the place and as a result the algorithm and the customer is confused by what you offer.
Translation? Trust is lost instantly & probably forever.
The Fix For A Rando AF Product Suite
Get crazy intentional about the products that you list and the order that you list them by mapping out the phases, stages, and steps of your target buyer’s customer journey. This will instantly make clear the products that will be relevant and desirable. Scratching your head right now? Watch the video and read the blog post below for a deeper explanation.
Reason 2: You Don’t Know The Products
Although many PLR sellers are ethical some are just plain lazy and trying to make a buck so they will list the products for sale without ever looking at them. At all. Ever.
Then they wonder why they have no sales after 6 months.
My love, if you’ve never even looked at what you’re selling you need to take a step back and ask yourself why you really want to sell products. Is it to help people? Is it to make money? Both?
Wonderful! You can’t do either until you get to know your own product line. This isn’t me judging you it’s me dosing some tough love.
The Fix:
You need to use a rubric to help you refine the quality of every piece of PLR content in your library before you list it for sale so that you can sell it properly.
You can also use tools like Chat GPT to help you extract the key elements of the content with prompts like:
“Please review this content and use the MECE method to summarize it. Please also review the quality of the content and tell me how I can customize it and tailor it to me, my business, and my unique buyers to make the content more raw, real and relatable.”
Reason 3: You Don’t Have Enough Listings
If you are primarily selling on your own WordPress-based website with a tool like Shopify or Conversion Blueprint Funnels, this part won’t really apply to you. If you primarily sell on platforms like Etsy, Amazon and Creative Market, get ready for a brutal truth…
You need a minimum of 500 digital products listed in your Etsy store before it will start to rank and collect sales from organic traffic. That is according to Etsy store coach Jessa Bellman who has over a dozen successful Etsy stores filled with various niche-based digital products.
Other digital product sellers that have all of their eggs in the Etsy basket can attest to the fact that you’re forced to play the quality AND quantity game on the platform creating many challenges. If you’re not skilled in graphic design, copywriting and tech you have no choice but to outsource to meet that bare minimum of 500 listings.
The Fix:
There are several strategies you can use to scale your listings as quickly as possible like creating color variations of the same product. For example, if your niche is executive leadership and you have a mindset journal for executive leaders you can repackage that journal into ten different trending and evergreen styles.
You should also leverage batch creation and set up an assembly-line style schedule for yourself where you plan a batch of products one day, research them the next, then repackage another day, before finally listing and promoting them. Then the cycle repeats.
Finally, the best way to expedite the process of scaling your digital product store is to outsource to a digital product designer like myself that is versed in flipping digital products.
Reason 4: You’re Not Running Sales & Promotions
There is a big difference between listing a product for sale, marketing it, and selling it. Each one is a different code you need to crack to be successful in selling digital products at scale.
So if you have a banging offer suite and the register refuses to ring, odds are you’re not really out there selling the products. I know that digital products are meant to be passive income but if you need get the ball rolling and seed your store with an initial round of buyers, then by all means hit the bricks and sell sister.
Oh, and don’t be afraid to think outside the box when it comes to who you’re selling your digital products to. Continuing with our previous executive leadership example, you could be approaching retreat centers and corporate HR departments to establish large-scale sales instead of waiting for individual sales.
The Fix:
Get raw and real with yourself about what your current approach has been to marketing, promoting and selling. Again, those are all different skills and activities. When was the last time you actively tried to sell any of your products? When was the last time you tried to secure a large purchase order for your products vs. praying for individual buyers? Don’t be afraid to play bigger, babe.
Reason 5: You Didn’t Reposition & Repackage The PLR
If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a billion times…
If you’re not going to repackage the PLR, don’t bother to buy it in the first place. It’s bad business all the way around. Plus, there are already tons of people out there selling it that way which means when a buyer sees it on your store, they’re more likely to assume you stole that product and are unethically selling it against the law.
Not a good look.
The fix:
Either work with a digital product designer like me to flip your PLR for you or take the time yourself to research the right angle for the product to give it a new name, reskin it in a new brand with new packaging and new mockups, write a compelling product description based on the urgent and important needs of the target buyer and get it listed before moving onto the next product.
Reason 6: Your PLR Products Don’t Solve The Right Problems
I just alluded to the next big reason your digital products might not be selling, did you catch it? If your products don’t solve an urgent and important problem for your target buyers, you’re never going to make a sale. This economy is structured in a way that people are more discerning than ever with their purchases. That means unless your products are going to move mountains for them, they will move on.
The Fix
If you’re unfamiliar with with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, I suggest doing some reading on it to become more versed in what problems people are willing to pay to solve. The better you know the psychology of your target buyers, the more obvious it will be what they want to buy so you will know what products to list. Again, research on platforms like Insight Factory can reveal buying trends which indicate an in-demand problem people are currently paying to solve.
Reason 7: You Don’t Publish Products Consistently
SEO is part of the digital product game. That means, the more consistently you publish new products, the more the algorithm and search engine will favor your store. So again, this comes down to an organized and streamlined production line with predictable production. So if you have been posting a random product here and a few there, that could be a big reason why you’re not moving the needle.
The Fix:
Find a production and publishing schedule for your digital products that is sustainable for you long term. The most important thing is that you commit to it and honor that commitment. If you could use some peer support and motivation with this, subscribe to the Daydream to Done series where I design a new digital product on YouTube every day for 100 days straight to prove how possible it is to scale your digital product suite.
Reason 8: You’re Focused On Social Media More Than SEO
Social media can be one sales channel but if you think it will be your whole business that’s why you’re struggling so much right now. Social media is toxic AF for your mindset and your perception of your business, not to mention it’s a creativity killer.
If you’re serious about scaling and developing multiple streams of income for yourself, you need to ditch the social media and get serious about SEO. All that time you’re wasting scrolling and comparing yourself you could be creating products or posting fresh content to your website where you sell your products.
The Fix
Think of social media for business like fast food: it can satisfy your cravings for a moment but it won’t be good for you in the long run and later you’re going to wish you had made a more responsible choice. So again, challenge yourself to not log on to social media until you have posted fresh content to your website or a new product to your store and watch what happens to your bottom line and your mindset.
My prediction?
Both will soar to new heights beyond your wildest dreams.
Jumpstart Your Digital Product Sales
Still feel stumped when it comes to selling digital products? I’d love to offer my perspective on your current offer suite and why it isn’t selling! Feel free to email me (sarah@scaling-with-soul.com) or comment below with a link to your store and I will film video feedback for you on the next best steps to take to jumpstart your digital product sales.
Want me to repackage a digital product for you for on my show Daydream to Done: Digital Product Design Diaries and feature your store too? Let me know in the comments.