How to market your digital product

Knowing how to market a digital product is no cakewalk.

After all your hard work designing and developing your digital or SaaS product, the final stage belongs to the all-important launch and promotion. But entering the digital product market is competitive.

To ensure you find success, you must attract as many of the right eyes as possible to your digital products (and keep them there) using the latest product marketing techniques.

Let’s explore.

6 steps to product marketing success

Now abundant across every industry with capabilities constantly evolving in the pursuit of innovation, digital & SaaS products are no longer the future. They very much remain undisputed as the "here and now".

But knowing digital products are a relatively new mainstream phenomenon, marketing them relies on a different approach than your traditional “physical” products.

For one thing, digital products are less tangible. And secondly, they tend to offer technical solutions for complex issues. That's a tough break when selling products within a fiercely competitive and rapidly growing online market. Here are a few tips to get you started:

1. Digital product strategy

An accurate, well-defined product strategy is by far the most effective tool when looking to scale your digital or SaaS product. This is because it helps you define and build:

1. A product that solves a real, burning problem
2. A clear ideal customer profile and target market
3. Effective messaging when communicating with potential customers

You can apply an array of techniques and have a huge advertising budget, but if you don't have an accurate product strategy in place, it's unlikely you'll get the results you're looking for. If you'd like to get a comprehensive assessment of your existing product strategy, complete with a 25+ page report on where you can improve benchmarked leading digital & SaaS brands, you can take our free digital product strategy assessment.

2. Simplify your messaging

When you’ve been up to your eyes in digital product design and development, it’s easy to skip over the simplicity of your product and forget how to understand it through the comprehension of the consumer.

For any person yet to encounter its brilliance, your product remains mysterious without clarity and clear messaging.

Sometimes, to sell things, we feel pressured to use complex, technical jargon to describe the features and capabilities.

And although the technicalities are true and mean well, we have to remember our audience has an average attention span of eight seconds! So, when selling your product, it needs to make an impression instantly.

3. Run with the value

Before you even create your digital product, you should have mapped out the benefits for the user. Just like your design and development, you should market your digital product with value in mind.

Firstly, is it useful?

Secondly, is it usable?

And lastly, can it be used?

Ensuring all the points are covered in your design and development means you have a marketing message based entirely on its value to the user.

Useful, usable, and used without complication.

In marketing, it’s crucial to bring these to the forefront. Whether you’re writing a social media post, website content or launch email, ask yourself, “Why should users care about your digital product?”.  

4. Stick to your pricing

Consistency is crucial. Not all people respond well to change, especially when they see something priced high one day and lower the next.

It can give off the wrong impression.

So, you want to be sure of your pricing structure.

While we all need to make money, it’s no good tainting your reputation by bringing prices way down or hiking them up too high.

Check your competitors and price accordingly.

Obviously, allow some leeway, but when the price is right, the price is right.

5. Use the right channels

We assume you already have some platforms for promotion in place, like a website and profiles across social media, etc.

So, with a sales place to direct your user, such as a product or contact page. Next, you should utilise the various digital marketing channels to set them on the right track. Here are some digital marketing solutions to adopt:

SEO

Is your business using the right keywords and answering consumer queries related to your digital product? With 49% of shoppers using Google to find new items or products, your brand must adopt SEO techniques to optimise your website content, landing pages and online publications. 

The ideal scenario for your digital product marketing efforts is having your consumer find your product when looking for it as a solution. Often this is a result of asking search engine questions and scanning through the results.  

Landing pages and product pages help generate sales and prompting retargeting for any visitor that didn’t convert makes smart business sense.

When you’re doing your keyword research, focus on user intent. In other words, consider what your target audience will be searching for. Their pain points/market needs will mirror their search history, so it’s about creating content that serves these requirements.

For example, Airbnb could focus their keywords on the type of properties their customers are looking to rent:

• “Villa for rent in Denmark”
• “Villa in Denmark”
• “B&Bs in Denmark”

Guest blogging is another way to build credibility and leverage the power of another website to drive more traffic back to yours.

Social media

It sure seems a tantalising prospect, having the potential to reach millions of new consumers with a click of a button when looking to market your digital product.

But beyond casting the biggest net to catch as many new leads as possible. It pays to be patient and treat social media as a local community rather than a global soundboard.

Social media can be used in various ways across organic and paid social posting to develop brand awareness, build consumer relationships and plug your products.

It also provides an ideal solution to repurpose content and post-user-generated reviews and testimonials alongside paid ads that focus more on selling.

Influencer marketing

While not all digital products will apply, influencer marketing has gained significant traction as a prominent source of promotion, with 92% of marketers believing influencer marketing is effective.

And influencers don’t need to be celebrities with millions of Insta/TikTok followers. Micro-influencers and local thought leaders can prove worthwhile. They just need to be regarded as a trustworthy source in your industry.

Reviews and testimonials

So, people have found your product/brand on social media, search engines or through influencer marketing. Now you need to prove your digital product is worth the investment. And what better way than through the opinions of your satisfied consumers who have already invested? 

Reviews and testimonials are crucial to determining whether your digital product sinks or swims.

Before fully launching your digital product, try providing free trials for trusted consumers. You can gauge the reaction and adjust accordingly. Or if you’ve already recently launched, incentivise your trusted community to leave a positive review. You can do this by offering further discounts, exclusive content or gifts.

6. Buyer personas/journeys

It’s important to assess the data you gathered during the digital product development stage to form a clear identity of the type of user you’re trying to attract.

Granted, these people might not be willing to engage with your digital product on the first attempt. In fact, there could be at least five touchpoints involved before you create a genuine brand advocate for your digital product solutions. And each stage may require tailored content to persuade your user to become a loyal consumer.

For example, you can map your customer journey from awareness to consideration, purchase, retention, and advocacy. The first stage exposes your user problem. Following their interest, you move to their consideration and display your solution. Eventually, at their decision, you turn provider.

Think of sending personalised emails, sharing useful buyer guides/how-to guides and developing follow-up video tutorials. It’s about creating a funnel to attract the right people and ensuring they keep coming back for more by establishing loyalty.

Let us show you how to market your digital product

Here at Stoked, we not only specialise in the design, development and launch of digital products, but we know how to market them too.

In aligning your messaging, value propositions and target market, we aim to drive a fast and seamless adoption to the market with long-term results.

Get in touch for more details on how our digital product marketing services can help your business.