A Beginner’s Guide to Start Making Money Selling Digital Products for Designers

As a designer, you’ve honed your skills in creating beautiful, functional, and engaging visuals. But have you considered leveraging those skills to build a passive income stream? The digital marketplace is booming, and for creative professionals, it represents an incredible opportunity to monetize your expertise beyond client work.

This guide will walk you through the essential steps to start your online business selling digital products, a flexible and scalable way to earn money doing what you love.

Why Sell Digital Products? The Designer’s Advantage

Before we dive into the “how,” let’s look at the “why.” Digital products offer unique benefits that align perfectly with a designer’s skills and goals:

• Passive Income: Once you create a product, you can sell it an unlimited number of times without creating it again. This means you can earn money while you sleep, take on client work, or even on vacation.
• Low Overhead: There are no physical materials, shipping costs, or inventory management. Your main investment is your time and creativity.
• Global Reach: Your online store is open 24/7 to a global audience, breaking you free from geographical constraints.
• Establish Authority: Selling high-quality resources positions you as an expert in your niche, which can lead to more client work and other opportunities.
• Creative Freedom: You have complete control over what you create, allowing you to explore projects you are truly passionate about.

Step 1: Find Your Niche and Choose Your Products

The key to success is specificity. Instead of trying to sell to everyone, focus on a specific audience. Are you a whiz at creating modern UI kits? Do you have a knack for hand-drawn illustrations? Perhaps you excel at designing social media templates for a specific industry.

Popular Digital Products for Designers Include:

• Fonts and Typography Pairs
• Social Media Template Kits (for Instagram, Pinterest, Canva)
• UI Kits and Wireframes for Figma, Adobe XD, or Sketch
• Icons and Illustrations
• Procreate Brush Packs
• Website Templates (for WordPress, Webflow, Squarespace)
• Design Mockups (for branding, apparel, devices)
• Presets (for Lightroom, Photoshop, LUTs)

Step 2: Understanding PLR and MRR Products (A Smart Shortcut)

Creating everything from scratch is time-consuming. This is where PLR (Private Label Rights) and MRR (Master Resell Rights) products come in as powerful tools to accelerate your business.

• What are PLR Products? When you purchase a PLR product, you buy the rights to modify, rebrand, and claim it as your own. You can break it apart, use elements in larger projects, and customize it to fit your brand perfectly. For a designer, this is like buying a vector pack you can turn into a full branding kit.
• What are MRR Products? MRR gives you the right to resell the product as-is to your own customers. You typically cannot modify the core product before selling it. This is ideal for quickly adding ready-made products to your store.

Advantages for Beginners:

• Speed to Market: Launch your store with professional-grade products without the initial creation time.
• Cost-Effective: Acquire a library of products for a fraction of the cost of hiring a creator.
• Idea Generation: Use them as inspiration or a starting point for your own original creations.

It’s crucial to source these products from reputable providers to ensure high quality and clear licensing terms. Marketplaces like Earnera.co are a trusted source for a wide variety of digital products with transparent PLR and MRR licenses, making them an excellent resource for designers looking to build their portfolio of offerings.

Step 3: Create and Package Your Products

Whether you’re creating from scratch or customizing a PLR product, presentation is everything.

• Quality is Key: Ensure your files are well-organized, error-free, and in the formats your customers expect (e.g., .AI, .EPS, .PDF, .FIG, .PSD).
• Create Compelling Previews: Design beautiful mockups and preview images. This is your number one sales tool.
• Write Clear Descriptions: Explain what the product is, what it includes, the file types, and how it can help the customer solve a problem.
• Include Helpful Documentation: A simple PDF with instructions or tips on how to use the product can greatly enhance the customer experience and reduce support requests.

Step 4: Set Up Your Digital Storefront

You need a platform to sell your downloads. Thankfully, setting up an online store is easier than ever.

• Etsy: Great for beginners due to its massive built-in audience. Low barrier to entry, but higher competition and transaction fees.
• Gumroad: A minimalist, powerful platform designed specifically for digital products. Very easy to set up and start selling quickly.
• Shopify: Offers the most control and branding potential. You’ll need to add a digital downloads app, but it’s a professional solution for serious entrepreneurs.
• Your Own Website: Using WordPress with a plugin like WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads gives you full control, but requires more setup and marketing effort.

Choose one platform to start, learn the ropes, and then you can always expand to others later.

Step 5: Market Your Products and Drive Sales

Creating a store is only half the battle; now you need customers.

• Leverage Social Media: Pinterest is a visual search engine and perfect for designers. Instagram and TikTok are excellent for showing off your products in action through short videos and Reels.
• Start an Email List: Offer a freebie (like a mini icon set or a template) in exchange for an email address. This allows you to build an audience you can market to directly.
• SEO (Search Engine Optimization): Use relevant keywords in your product titles, descriptions, and tags so people can find your products when searching on Etsy, Google, or your own blog.
• Content Marketing: Write blog posts or create videos that show how to use your products. This provides value and demonstrates their usefulness.

Your Journey Starts Now

Building a successful business selling digital products doesn’t happen overnight, but it is one of the most rewarding paths for a designer seeking financial and creative independence. Start small, focus on quality, and learn as you go.

Remember, resources like Earnera can provide a valuable head start with high-quality PLR and MRR products, allowing you to focus on what you do best: designing and marketing.

Your skills are valuable. It’s time to package them and share them with the world.