Online Marketplaces For Digital Downloads

5 Marketplaces To Sell Your Digital Downloads

Sellfy

This is a platform that allows sellers to use e-commerce to sell digital products and other items online. Sellers get a 14-day free trial after which the seller must choose a plan starting from $0 for 10 products to $119 for up to $200,000 sales per year. To see all the plans and features offered see their pricing on their website.

Etsy

This platform allows creatives who hand-make their items to sell on their platforms. They also allow creators to make art that can be sold as digital downloads. This platform is one of the most successful e-commerce platforms that also doubles as a search engine. Each item listed on Etsy will cost you $0.20 each every month as well as 6.5% transaction fees or commission. Etsy also markets or advertises products offsite and if a sale is made from an Ad a 15% fee is deducted from your sale. To see the complete terms and conditions for selling on Etsy click here.

Easy Digital Downloads

This platform's goal is to make selling digital downloads easy. They sell e-books, PDF files, and plugins with WordPress. You can use easy digital downloads and their extensions to build your e-commerce store to sell digital downloads. Their pricing ranges from $99.50 per year to $499.50 per year. Check out their offerings and pricing here.

Shopify

Shopify has been credited with perfecting e-commerce and selling products online. Millions of businesses in 175 countries have transacted in hundreds of billions on the Shopify platform. You can create a Shopify account to sell digital downloads and access this huge marketplace. There is a 14-day free trial with plans ranging from $29/month to $299/month.

E-junkie

With their simple module of copy-paste a link to sell digital downloads, e-junkie makes it easy to sell digital downloads online. You can sell art, e-books, comics, merchandise, and more on the e-junkie platform. You can sell digital downloads on websites and social media, your online store, or on e-bay. Their pricing ranges from $5 to $40 per month.

These are great platforms to sell digital downloadable products and make passive income online. If you need professional graphic designers to help you create beautiful eye-catching style guides, fonts, and illustrations, take the time to find vetted professionals to set your business up for success.

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Highest Grossing Digital Downloads

 Five Digital Downloads You Can Sell Online

Digital downloads are designs that can be transferred from digital designer to customer for download to use online or print for display. Digital downloads are an easy way for creatives to make passive income online. Here are five easy-to-create digital products you can make to sell online today.

Niche Customized Cards

Think of a time when you had to give a loved one a card. Birthday cards, anniversary cards, or any personalized card to mark a special occasion. Customized cards make the gift a more treasured memento. Creating niche customized cards can earn enormous passive income. The goal is to understand your audience and design a downloadable card that speaks to the occasion. You would need unique topography fonts as well as appropriate illustration designs, that speak to the occasion. Customized downloadable card designs retail online for $1.50 to $4 each.

Flash Cards

A flash card is a card containing a small amount of information for the purpose of learning. It is a very effective way of breaking down knowledge into simple, digestible pieces. It is a great learning tool for toddlers or people trying to learn a new language. If you were to create flashcards to sell, the price will be affected by the printing material that you would choose to print on, ink as well as shipping costs. By creating downloadable flashcards, you give the buyer the freedom to choose the printing paper of their choice, or you would simply recommend the best printing paper for a good flash card. You would also lower the shipping costs which would affect the overall price. Downloadable flashcards sell online for $2.99 to $5.99

Sticker Designs

Stickers customize and add personality to laptops, notebooks, diaries, or school books. It is not an essential item, but people love buying stickers. A new trend is to buy sticker designs and buy plain stickers locally to print on your computer using your home printer. With cute, unique sticker illustrations or motivational slogans, you can sell downloadable sticker designs that make a great gift or stocking stuffer. Downloadable sticker designs retail online for $1 to $3.

Wall Decals

If you are looking to add personality and beauty to a wall, adding a wall decal can be an easy way to spruce up a room or customize a room for a party. Printable wall decors that use unique calligraphy and fonts to print out motivational sayings like 'Home sweet home' or statement words like 'bride' or 'baby' can be used as decor in a designated room. Downloadable wall decals retail online from $5 to $20 each.

Printable Wall Hangings

If you've ever tried to decorate your home or office you know how important it is to have wall hangings. It's easy enough to reuse old frames or get them quickly and cheaply locally, but many people are looking for easy-to-print, beautiful wall paintings and pictures to spruce up their rooms. You can use cityscapes, illustrated versions of historical figures, or caricatures and illustrate pictures of them, You can also create other images that will work well as wall hangings and sell them as digital downloads online. There are pros you can commission for these types of artwork. Printable wall hangings retail for $5 to $15.

Digital downloads are bestselling products online on platforms like Etsy. Which digital download do you think would make you money online. Share in the comments below with our community of African freelancers.

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How To List Your Products For E-commerce

A Guide To List Your Product From Start To Finish

E-commerce is all the rage. Everyone likes the convenience of shopping online and having goods delivered to them wherever they are. The expansion of more affordable internet services in Africa means more people are looking to purchase goods on popular e-commerce sites. If you want to start a business, listing your product on e-commerce sites is a great way to check the viability of a product or customer niche. I will show you how you can list your product from start to finish.

Research The Platform

The platform you pick could determine the price you list your goods at, as well as the images and product descriptions that will be written for the item.

• Research how much your product sells on average on the platform. 
• The size of the images that you will need to use on the platform.
• The fees and commissions that will be paid for each sale.
• Marketing strategies that are used to market the product to the general market.

Once you understand these fundamentals you will be able to price the item to get more sales on this platform. You will be able to edit your images to suit the e-commerce platform, and by understanding the marketing strategies used by the platform you will know how to word your product descriptions to be seen by a large number of people and also where you could market your products outside the marketing provided by the e-commerce site.

Create Images For Listing

The images used on a product listing for e-commerce need to show:

• The product in its packaging
• Product out of its packaging
• Product in use.

The images need to be clear and on a white background. It also needs to be sensitive to how it will be viewed by the buyers. Does the e-commerce platform target more users on their phones or mobile devices? e.g Jumia or does it market to laptop desktop users like Amazon. Create your images with an understanding of where they will be viewed. If you need help editing pictures for e-commerce you can use a freelancer who specializes in images for e-commerce.

Create Product Description For Listing

Your product description is what buyers read to get an understanding of what your product is and is not. In your product description list;

• Name of your product including brand and volume
• What ingredients or materials are used to make the product.
• How the product is used.
• How to store or care for your product.

E-commerce sites will have a minimum amount of words required for your product description, keep that in mind while creating product descriptions. They will also have words or terms that are not allowed on their platform, I found that out the hard way while trying to sell bath bombs on Jumia and they barred me from using the word "bomb". Look at other product listings on the platform and determine the tone that you should use for your product description. If you need a pro to help you perfect your product description use this link. 

Create A Seller Profile

This is a requirement for most e-commerce stores. They will need you to create a seller account and seller profile detailing who you are and what you intend to sell on their platform. They will also ask you to list other legal required documents like your ID, tax documents, phone number, and address that will not be visible to buyers. All these are requirements for setting up a link to your items and a store profile designated just for you. Stay on brand by creating a cohesive brand identity such as logo design, brand colors, banners, etc.

List Your Product

Listing your product is the final step of selling your product on an e-commerce site. 

• Upload the images per requirements.
• Insert Product listings.

Some platforms will ask you to add more information while listing your product such as delivery options, and the condition of the product stating if it's new or used. Fill out all the fields and double-check for typos before publishing the listing. 

Look it over one last time and remember that, this is how your customers will see your product. Some platforms also have a preview option, where you can see what it will look like before publishing. Preview it, be really critical of everything you see and make improvements where needed.

Publish Listing

This is the call to action button for most e-commerce stores. Publish button allows for your product to go live on a platform. Some platforms require additional approvals for their corporate back-end team, but once it is approved it will go live on the website without notice. Only Publish the listing if you are sure it is as you would like it to appear to the public. Otherwise, save the draft until the changes can be made.

Once you publish, let go and let it live its best life on the internet. Check on the listing insights once a week to see how the customers are interacting with it. Depending on the reaction you can change the images used and tweak the product listing to increase more sale.

Do you have any products listed on e-commerce sites? Comment below and share with our community of African founders and freelancers.

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How To Create Facebook Ads

 Five Steps To Create Ads From Your Facebook Page

Facebook Ads can be the best way to market your products online. Facebook is the largest social media platform, whose foundation was based on keeping in touch with family, friends, and old schoolmates. For this reason, Facebook has a level of trust and comfort that most online shoppers want from a platform.

Facebook ads are not primarily for the Facebook market but for any business online that wants to reach its target audience. Brands and e-commerce vendors have set up Facebook profiles showcasing their products and informing the public of their presence in the market. It is easy to create effective Ads from a business Facebook page in five easy steps.

1. Boost A post

Create a post that will connect with your target audience. It could be a post introducing yourself as the new dental office in your city, or a post about your free parking policy for customers. Any post on your Facebook profile can be boosted to a target audience that can increase sales and inquiries to your business.

2. Promote Your website

On your brand's Facebook page, there is a section for a website. You can fill in this section and turn it into a paid ad that will drive traffic to your website. It is important to create a Facebook page with a strong brand identity that flows to your website. Use things such as logo, color scheme, and imagery that will tie into your brand story.

3. Drive offline traffic to your local business

Your Facebook page has a section dedicated to your store's location, city, and country. Use this section to connect as a local brand. Your address will drive new customers to your location when they are in your neighborhood. You can also create Facebook ads targeting individuals that are in your area as one of the demographics.

4. Create Infogram on how to use your product

Create informational posters and videos showing your customers how to use your product. As seen on TV brand popularity was increased by their compelling ads, showing consumers how to use their products. This removed the intimidation factor that comes with buying new gadgets and adds relatability to the brand. Good infograms can be turned into Facebook Ads to market to a wide audience.

5. Answer customer inquiries online

The Facebook chat feature is a great tool where your customers can give you feedback on recent purchases and get information on new products in your store. If you have a great message from your customer thanking you for quick shipping or good quality of your products. Screenshot them and use them as Facebook ads, showing your potential customers that they can expect to be happy customers as well.

These are five simple ways to create ads on your Facebook page. Have you tried any of these? Which ones would work well for your business. Comment below and share with our community of African Freelancers and business founders.

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Print On Demand Business

A Step By Step Guide On How To Start A Tshirt Business

If you are looking for a way to make passive income online, print on demand is the way to go. I will give you the steps to set up your business from start to sale! This can be used to set up any print-on-demand business, from pillowcases to mugs, to beach towels, but for ease of understanding, we will focus on T-shirts.

1. Design

Find a niche and begin designing catchy slogans or illustrations that will be printed on your t-shirts. You can get a great illustrator to design something that will translate well in merchandise. This is not necessary in all cases, you can simply design catchy phrases and words to go on your print-on-demand T-shirt. Examples of such catchwords are; Bride, cool mum, best dad, FBI, etc.

2. Pick a Print on demand company

Teespring

Redbubble 

Merch by Amazon

Shopify

Etsy

Printful

Please note that some of these companies are better at certain kinds of print-on-demand products. Look through their catalogs and find reviews of other users.

3. List your items

You can use the free listing option on most of these print-on-demand platforms and you can also set up a separate website with all your dedicated designs.

4. Run ads

Use your niche market to run ads on Facebook and Google. You can set the budget of your ads as high or as low as you want. Running ads is an essential part of setting up your print-on-demand business. You may make some sales without ads, however running ads will ensure your target market sees your t-shirts and considers buying them.

5. Make Sales

Once a sale is made, your print-on-demand platform will make and ship your t-shirts to your customers. When pricing you should price at a profit after considering;

• Item Price
• Shipping cost
• Ad costs

You will receive sales from customers, and make payments to your print-on-demand platform. They will make the T-shirt and deliver it to your customer. It is good to track the progress of orders for your customer and update them once T-shirts ship and estimate time of delivery, to ensure good customer service.

That's it, in these five easy steps you can set up a print-on-demand business from home and generate passive income.

Do you have a print-on-demand business? Would you consider this a way of making money online? Comment below and share your opinion with our community of African freelancers.

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How To Use Your Competitors To Fuel Your Success

 How Your Competition Can Lead To Your Success Online

It is easy to feel like an underdog when starting your business. You are the new kid on the block, the new product on the virtual shelf. You have no experience, no legitimacy. No matter what field, there are thousands of companies catering to that industry. There is also going to be, a big shiny competitor that seems to have it all together. Don't be intimidated! I'll show you how to use your competition as fuel for your company's success. 

Average Market Price

When deciding to launch a product it is important to understand the average market price for your product. You should know the average market price even before beginning production or shopping for raw materials. When you decide to venture into production, branding, and shipping, your product price should be way below the average market price in order to make a profit.

 If your market price is projected to be above the current market price, you must justify it to the consumer by increasing the quality of materials used or making it desirable by offering it to exclusive high-end customers. You can also go above the average market price by making the product customizable to each customer or to a customer base that will be willing to pay more for this product. This is how you use your competitors to determine the market price that will do well in the market.

Find A Target Market

You could look at your competition to determine the target market that is currently being served and the niche groups that are underserved in any industry. You never want to serve the same target audience as your competition. Your company will thrive when you find an underserved group within a community and cater specifically to them.

A good example of this is the sock industry, we all wore socks that were generic, basic, and cheap. Until the evolution into customizable socks. People now can wear socks with their names, their pets, and choose the colors they want. This is a more specific niche of consumers that are happy to pay more for socks with the face of their puppy.

Consumer Needs

In my country, we have a huge bank with ATMs nationwide and branches on every corner of every street. It's easy to open an account with them because they are everywhere, however, once you have an account, you get to know how unprofessional their staff is, and how difficult it is to get any issue resolved because of backlog.

If you observe this in any industry, you have very valuable insight that can propel your brand new company to success. Observe large, medium, and small businesses in your industry and look to find where consumer needs are begging to be met. Provide a solution to customer needs and you are as good as gold.

These are simple ways in which you can use your competition to fuel your success. Which one of these do you plan on using to propel your new company to success? Comment below and share with our community of African freelancers and founders.

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Creating A Brand Identity

 How To Create A Brand Identity From Start To Finish

Brand identity is the visible element of a brand. These aspects include color, design, and logo that identify and distinguish the brand in the eyes of the consumer.

Brand Strategy And Creative Direction

This is how a brand intends on building rapport and favorability in the market. There are four brand strategies;

• Line extension. Creating additional products in response to consumer needs.
• Brand Extension. Introduction of a new brand in a market, after consolidating in a related field.
• New brand strategy. When a firm creates a new brand to go with a new product.
• Fight brand strategy. This is the placement of a new brand or sub-brand in a higher or lower price point to capture a new market segment.

Logo Exploration And Design

A good logo should instantly be recognizable to the consumer, by being simple, unique, appropriate, and memorable. It should convey clearly a company's goal and why the brand exists. A good logo should also be able to exist in different sizes and be applied to different products, packaging, and signage.

Brand Elements And Assets

Brand assets are elements such as color scheme, specific font, or ad jingle that help to identify a certain brand. These only become assets once customers associate them with a brand. These brand elements serve a specific purpose to a brand;

• Unique to the brand
• Purpose-driven for the brand.
• Knows its target market
• Stays on-brand at all times
• Authentic to the brand
• Thick-skinned as a way to protect the brand

Brand Inaction

Brands must decide even before any incidents, where they will take action or where they will choose inaction. A brand should not respond to every opposition, query, or instance that occurs. For example, a bank robber may choose to wear a Nike jersey while robbing a bank and get caught. The press will blast images of a bank robber wearing a Nike logo jersey. This kind of instance requires brand inaction, by not responding to such incidences. Based on the product or service offered a brand can expect its name and image to get caught up in a way that disparages the brand name and brand inaction will be the most logical way to respond.

Presenting The Branding

Time requires that brands present themselves to the consumer in a way that is appropriate for societal norms that come with the changing of eras. A brand must be adaptable in order to survive the test of time. This could include changing the shade identified as their brand color from lighter to darker blue. Changing fonts to appear more modern yet true to its identity. Constantly tweaking aspects of the brand identity in order to remain relevant to the times.

This is how to create a brand identity from start to finish. Have you worked on a brand identity before? Was it for your company or a client? Comment in the section below and share with our community of African freelancers.

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Digital Marketing Gigs For Freelancers

 5 Ways African Freelancer Can Monetize on Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is basically internet marketing. It is the use of online-based approaches to promote goods and services to customers. These promotional approaches are usually directed to;

• Search engines
• Social media platforms
• Email blasts
• Websites
• Videos

There is a huge opportunity for African freelancers to help brands and companies use these mediums to market their goods and services. Here are ways you can make money in digital marketing.

Creating Social Media Posts

You can create social media post gigs for clients who want to strategize their social media timeline. Infographics, memes, video clips, and sales promotions are a common way to make money online by creating social media posts customized for each brand. You can break it down for 10 days, 30 days, or even longer. Create engaging, relevant social media posts as a gig, and many brands and online companies will pay you for it.

Online Ad Strategist

You can create google ads, ads on search engines, and ads on social media for clients. The world of online ads is a confusing, time-consuming yet completely essential part of operating an online business. You can improve your skills in social media management by using google. Google digital garage is an online course by google that trains in digital marketing. You can receive certification for Digital Marketing completely free. This will give you the skills you need to deliver great online Ads strategies. There are also useful sites such as Ad Box, that will show you high-performing ad examples that you can use as templates to find success in your online ads.

Refining Target Market

Sometimes brands start out with a vague idea of what their target market looks like. A target market is a particular group of consumers at which a product or service is aimed. These people exhibit similar characteristics, have the same values, and share certain demographics. A good example of this is Tea drinkers versus coffee drinkers. These are completely different target groups, and even among the coffee drinkers, there are those that drink instant coffee versus those that buy whole beans and grind them each time they make a cup of coffee. A target market is very specific, and getting it right will determine better results while marketing to a group of people online. You can help brands find their target market.

Brand Identity

Just like matching your curtains to your furniture, it is very important to have a cohesive brand identity. A brand identity is an imagery, colors, and symbols used in a company's website, apps, and social media pages. You can create brand identity that will help them in creating logos, banners, posters, and images that they will use as a guide in their online presence. Websites such as Canva make it easier for us to create illustrations, graphics, and images that a brand can use to refine its brand identity online.

Sales Funnels

A sales funnel is the journey that the customer goes through in order to purchase goods or services from a company. Each step of the funnel takes the buyer one step closer to making a purchase. A well-planned sales funnel will define the actions a business needs to take to push prospective clients to the next step. You can create a sales funnel from search engines or social media ads and guide people from seeing the marketing online to a landing page on a website that shows product descriptions and guide them to buy from your client. Sales funnels are complicated and effective and this is why brands will hire you to create e-mail capturing, landing pages, and other means used in sales funnels.

These are five easy ways to make money using digital marketing. There are free certifications and great templates you can use for success with this gig on Fiverr. You can also create a Fiverr seller account to offer your services online.

What are some good resources you use for digital marketing? Comment below and share with our community of African freelancers.

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Tech Gigs For Cyber Security

 5 Ways African Techies Can Make Money In Cyber Security

Cyber security concerns are affecting African government websites, Parastatals, and companies that operate online. Over the past couple of years, hackers have disrupted online platforms used by Africans including websites run by African governments to renew documents and offer services to their citizens. There is a huge need for cyberspace used by these entities to be safe for them as well as their users. African tech professionals can use this as an opportunity to earn money in cyber security. 

Security Auditor

Independent cyber security experts are very valuable for companies that need to boost their website security. With high-risk transactions being done online such as banking and renewing documents, it is important that the website be safe for its clients and users of the website. As a security auditor, you could look for weak points that could be vulnerable to attacks on the website and recommend possible solutions.

Construct Instructional Courses

Constructing instructional courses is a simple way to break into the cyber security industry. Computer science experts and those skilled in cyber security knowledge can create courses that can help pass down the knowledge to others operating their businesses online. This can be especially helpful to smaller companies that do not have cyber security team within their company. You can provide for sale courses on specific topics online that can be used when needed. This can provide continual passive income for you.

Consultant

An independent cyber security consultant can be useful to a company trying to plan its online presence. As a consultant, you can offer valuable advice on how to set up a company's online presence from the website, databases, servers, and even social media presence. You can also perform assessment tests and offer your expertise in how cyber security can be boosted.

Create Cybersecurity Apps

A sure way to serve a large population with cyber security needs in Africa is to create an application to solve a problem. Computer programmers and app developers could find a pain point in cybersecurity and create an app to resolve it. These apps can be used by a company to log in their employees in their systems. These apps can also do things like scanning their websites for bugs and detect robots used to log into their systems. Wherever there is a need an app can solve it and make you money.

Create Cyber Security Content

With a vast number of free platforms allowing you to create content for free, like blogger, Youtube, Facebook, and TickTock you can attract a large following if you create content that is valuable and relevant to your audience. Creating cyber security content is a great way to be a trusted reliable voice on a topic that can lead you to create apps, creating courses as well as public speaking gigs due to your expertise in the topic.

Most importantly we need to ensure that the online space is a safe place for Africans to do transactions, get information and buy and sell goods and services so that we can make money online and use the convenience of the internet.

How do you think we can make online spaces more safe? Comment below with our community of African freelancers.

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5 Businesses You Can Start With Zero Investments

 How Anyone Can Start A Business With Zero Investment

Starting a business with zero investment is a great way of determining if a business is worth reinvesting funds into. A lot of fortune 500 companies were started with zero investment, as well as the wit and skills of their founders. Here are five businesses you can start TODAY with zero investments.

E-commerce Reseller

E-commerce sites are often free for e-commerce resellers to list their products, later charging for commission and other fees. If you have a supermarket or mall within walking distance from your home. You should go there and see what products you could resell online. Look through a group of products that interest you, the sky is the limit. If you have a new baby, maybe you have come to learn about products that are useful to new parents. If you love doing your hair and makeup, you may come to know trendy useful products that you could use to build a customer base online. List the products on the website add fees and commission to the price and wait until you get an order before you buy the products from the supermarket or mall to relist. You would be surprised at how many products you can resell online for a profit.

Build Websites

Even without software design skills required to build websites, you can use website building platforms that are easy to use. These drag and drop website builders allow you to simply change different aspects of a website by adding and removing features. They even have pre-set templates that can be used by just changing the name and images to reflect the brand or company of the user. You can market yourself as a website builder and use the free trial period in order to create websites for your clients. Mark up the registration required by the website builder and also have an option to charge your client for weekly or monthly changes as needed. This website-building business will cost you zero to set up but can give you great financial rewards as recurring income.

Dropshipping

This is a form of retail business, where the seller accepts customers' orders online or in person without keeping the stock and fulfilling customers' orders directly with the manufacturer or distributor. The distributor will then deliver the goods to the customer. The drop shipper considers the cost of the goods, and delivery costs and marks up the price of the goods to make their profit. Once orders come in the seller will use the customers' payments to repay the distributors who will ship and deliver items to the buyer.

Travel Agency Business

Travel agencies usually arrange travel for their clients. This can be the purchase of flights, accommodation, tours, admission fees, and more. The easiest way to get started with this kind of business is to create custom travel arrangements for your clients. This can be done by calling or even emailing hotels, museums, beach clubs, or any activities your guests would be interested in. Finding their rates, negotiating lower rates, and reselling to your customers. You can also approach local restaurants or clubs and negotiate a rate for all the guests you bring to their establishment. This method is especially effective if you live in a high tourist country.

Vlogging

Vlogging is documenting experiences in video form and uploading them as content to help your audience experience a different place or navigate an experience through your eyes. With platforms like Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, and TickTock, monetizing short and long video content. You could record content online and post on these platforms completely free. This can be very rewarding if you find your target market and speak to them directly. Read how to rank on search engines, to make sure your content gets seen by as many people as are interested in your topic.

Have you ever started any of these businesses? What was your experience? Share in the comments below with our community of African freelancers.

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