Follow this guide to sell more as a Gumroad creator
Most creators want to earn more by selling more of their products. At Gumroad, our goal is to make that easy.
This article presents practical tips for leveraging Gumroad so you can sell more products as a creator and digital entrepreneur. Whether you’re an existing Gumroad creator or you’re interested in selling digital products, this article will help you:
- Get to know Gumroad;
- Sell the right products;
- Create an amazing store; and
- Optimize your marketing.
What Gumroad Can Help You Do
Gumroad is a platform for creators and digital entrepreneurs to sell digital products, memberships, and pretty much anything online.
With Gumroad, you can:
- Sell Anything - You can sell anything you want, whether it's a digital file, physical products, or a membership.
- Sell Anywhere - You can either sell your products through your Gumroad profile or seamlessly on your website with our embed and overlay.
- Charge How You Want - Sell in your local currency and choose between one-time, recurring, or fixed-length payments, or let your customers pay what they want.
- Grow and Engage Your Audience - With posts, email broadcasts, and advanced automation workflows, you have all email marketing the tools to build a loyal following.
- Connect Your Current Stack - Sell entirely on Gumroad or integrate it into your current stack. With Zapier, you can connect your Gumroad account to thousands of apps you already use.
- Don't Sweat VAT and Sales Tax - For digital products, Gumroad collects VAT as required and remits it to the EU. You won't need to fill out any forms, register for anything, or send anything out.
In short, Gumroad lets you create quality products and get paid for your craft, while you focus on improving it.
Selling the Right Products
Now that you know what you can do with Gumroad, let’s talk about what to sell.
Most digital products can be grouped into four sections:
1. eBooks
eBooks are easy to create, and it’s often the best and most popular way to get started with selling digital products.
Creating an eBook is as simple as:
- Open Google Docs or Microsoft Word.
- Write the content.
- Design a cover on Canva.
- Save it as a PDF.
- Create a Gumroad account (it takes 2 minutes).
- Publish it.
- Promote it.
- Get paid.
So if you have strong writing skills and have skills or knowledge worth sharing, then writing an eBook may be the best way for you to get started.
Another thing to consider is offering the eBook for free or using our “pay what you want” pricing, and this allows you to build your email list, so when you’re ready to launch a better, more premium eBook or course, you have a loyal following and audience.
2. Videos and Online Courses
Most people looking to buy something aren’t just buying the product, they’re buying the knowledge (and the creator’s particular perspective). They are there to learn.
When learning, some prefer reading, audio, and/or video.
Videos on Gumroad are generally more expensive than eBooks. So, if you’re adept at creating videos and feel that your material would be best consumed as video content, then maybe creating a video course is for you.
To get even more customers and sell more products, think carefully about your product offering. It might make sense to release some of your content as an eBook (at an enticing price point) and then offer the option of adding on (higher priced) videos for more in-depth learning.
It’s important to not get overwhelmed here.
Your product and presentation don’t have to be “perfect” - it just needs to be created and helpful. Work on improving from there :)
3. Templates and Designs
Templates and designs are a lifesaver for UI designers, artists, photographers, designers, and web designers too.
It saves time, and when you can save time for others, you can monetize what saves people time.
For designers, that might be Procreate brushes, Photoshop or Illustrator files, mockup sketches, icons, etc.
For developers, that might be themes or templates to help you code faster.
For photographers, that might be Lightroom presets or anything to help you edit faster.
4. Audio
If you’re a musician, you could create and sell your music or songs. Film studios, podcasters, streamers, and content creators are always looking for new audio to use in their productions.
If you’re more process-oriented and get excited by the whole creative journey, then you can increase your online sales by offering educational content as well.
Know how to play the piano well? Teach newbies the basics through a video course.
Passionate about electric guitar solos? Show your audience how to rock out with a video course that takes them from “plucking to ripping.”
Your passion will drive sales. Just find what you enjoy and think about the format in which you can sell that enjoyment.
Other popular audio genres could be stand-up comedy shows or podcasts.
Whatever it is, it has the potential to be sold online.
Create an Amazing Store
You have a great product, but how do you convince others it’s great?
How do you handle payments and the delivery of your digital products?
If you already have a website then you’re halfway there! Gumroad provides you with the ability to embed a store into an already existing website through the use of widgets. This allows you to have a store without having to re-think or overly tinker with your design (brand identity) just to make it fit with a standard store template.
An example of this would be Kyle’s freelancing bundle which allows visitors to purchase his product from Gumroad without ever leaving his custom, non-Gumroad landing page. He achieves this with a custom purchase button widget that links up with Gumroad.
Another route, and the most popular, is to use the tools offered directly in the Gumroad eco-system.
Daniel Vassallo has a popular Gumroad landing page that comes equipped with a store for easy product and membership selection with a simple checkout process.
Here’s how to create an effective Gumroad sales page in 6 steps:
1. Start with your dominant headline and value proposition.
Consumers are scanners.
80% of page visitors will only read the headlines.
Your main headline should be an eyeball magnet that screams your value proposition.
Your audience should read it and know the value you provide.
Underneath your headline is your sub-headline.
Here you introduce your product.
Explain how your product creates value.
2. Address the pain points
After you’ve gained a consumer’s attention, hook them in.
How?
By addressing their biggest pain points.
And the problems they wish to solve.
Doing so opens the door to reveal your product as the solution to their problem.
3. Reveal the solutions and benefits
When Steve Jobs announced the iPod for the first time, he didn’t say, “5GB of memory.”
No, he said, “1000 songs in your pocket.”
Steve Jobs knew to promote the iPod as a solution to people’s problems.
Do the same.
Promote your product as a solution to your consumer’s problems.
4. Provide Social Proof
Social proof is a psychological phenomenon.
People copy the actions of others.
It makes them feel secure in their decisions.
This is why it’s essential to display social proof on your Gumroad page.
Showcase your happy customers to your potential customers.
5. Share the Details
Consumers want to know their money is well spent.
Here’s how you do it:
- Inform and educate customers on everything included.
- Put the value of your product on full display.
- Let the details go to work.
6. Create a sense of urgency
Most of the time, consumers aren’t ready to make a purchase when they visit your sales page.
It’s your job to push them over the hump and create the urge to make a purchase then and there.
Put this all together and you’ll turn website visitors into customers.
Here are 3 Gumroad creators who do this well:
Optimize Your Marketing
You won’t automatically sell products, even with the best website.
Why?
No one will know about your products if you don’t let them know about them.
To get the message out there, you need a strategy of targeting the right groups of people and getting enough people on your sales landing page.
Here are three ways to market yourself online:
1. Be active on social media
Show your passion for your craft by creating social media profiles where you can engage with your audience and share what you know. It’s a great way to build credibility and generate traffic to your sales landing page.
- Into design or photography? Use Instagram and Pinterest
- Into tech? Use Twitter and Reddit
- Into comedy? Use YouTube
Hang out where your audience hangs out and provide value.
2. Use Google ads and Facebook ads to target your ideal audience
This costs money, but it’s often a very effective marketing channel to generate more sales of your digital products.
3. Take advantage of Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission every time you promote a creator’s product and generate a sale via your exclusive affiliate link. You only receive your affiliate commission after you generate a sale.
So let’s say you get a 30% commission on a $100 course, which means after a confirmed sale, you’d earn $30.
On the other hand, as the creator, affiliate marketing is the process of you putting together a group of people with similar audiences who promote your products for you and receive a commission when they generate a sale for your product
Collectively, affiliate marketing is a performance-based way of scaling your business/products without high startup costs.
Gumroad Affiliates Earned Over $4,300,000 in The Past 18 Months
Here’s how to create an affiliate program with Gumroad:
Conclusion
The most important part of selling more is not overcomplicating your process.
Start with what you know.
Launch before you’re ready.
Optimize and improve.
Just focus on getting started and simply improve as you grow in your Gumroad creator journey.
One day, you’ll look back and marvel at your progress and the number of products you were able to sell!
To your success,
The Gumroad Team
