My Raw Notes on Why Your Digital Product Isn’t Selling (And How I Fixed It)

Struggling to sell your digital product? I break down the 5 biggest mistakes that are holding your digital marketing and stopping creators from getting their first sale—and show you how to promote smarter, even with a small audience.

Scrawled at 11:47 PM after another coffee, laptop glowing, heart still racing from another creator’s “zero sales” panic message…

Mistake #1: Waiting for “Perfect”

Just killed my own momentum last week.

I spent 3 weeks tweaking my Canva template pack:

• Redid the cover 12 times
• Rewrote the sales page again
• Changed fonts until my eyes blurred

What happened?
Radio silence.

Then I remembered Ali’s email:

“I launched my budget tracker with a handwritten PDF. Sold 17 copies in 4 days. Then I updated the design.”

My aha moment:
Digital products don’t need to be polished—they need to be published.
→ Action I took:

• Launched my next product with a deliberately messy thumbnail (coffee stains visible)
• Added “Version 1.0 – still cooking!” to the description
• Result: 3 sales in 24 hours from people saying “I love that it’s real.”

Stop this:

“I’ll promote it when the website’s perfect.”
Start this:
“I’ll share it today with one sentence: ‘This helped me stop [pain point]—free version below.’”

Mistake #2: Selling “Features” Instead of “Feelings”

My most embarrassing launch ever.

I posted:

“30-page PDF checklist! 12 templates! 5 bonus worksheets!”
…crickets.

Then I tried:

“Remember when you spent 3 hours pricing your digital product only to feel like a scammer? This is how I stopped undervaluing my work and sold 47 copies in 2 weeks.”

Boom. 12 DMs in 6 hours.

Why it worked:
People don’t buy templates—they buy “I finally feel confident charging $29.”
→ Action I took:

• Scrapped all “features” language
• Wrote every caption like I was texting a friend:
  “Ugh, I used to feel [pain] too. Then I did [simple fix]. Now I [transformation].”

Stop this:

“My ebook has 15 chapters!”
Start this:
“This is how I went from ‘Is this worth $7?’ to ‘OMG I’d pay $47 for this.’”

Mistake #3: One-and-Done Posting

The “shop open for 1 hour” trap.

I posted my digital product once.
Then waited.
Then panicked.

What actually works (from watching 200+ creators):

• Day 1: Free tip → “How I stopped [pain] in 10 mins”
• Day 3: Behind-the-scenes → “My messy first draft vs. what sold”
• Day 5: Social proof → “3 people used this today—here’s how”

Real example:
Mark (a barista) sold his budget tracker by:

1. Posting a free “3-Minute Money Check”
2. Sharing his failed first attempt (with red ink corrections)
3. Quietly saying: “If this helped you, the full version’s in my bio.”

→ 19 sales in 16 days. Zero ads.

Stop this:

“I’ll just post it once and hope.”
Start this:
“I’ll show up 3x this week—only when I have value to share.”

Mistake #4: “For Everyone” = For No One

My worst mistake: “This is for busy moms AND freelancers AND students!”

The truth:
If your product solves one specific problem for one specific person, it sells.
If it solves many problems for everyone, it vanishes.

What changed for me:
I narrowed my “printable planner” to:

“For overwhelmed nurses who forget to eat lunch.”

Suddenly:

• Nurses tagged me in comments
• They shared it in their groups
• Sales doubled in a week

→ Action I took:

• Added “NOT for: [non-target]” to my description (e.g., “Not for CEOs—this is for solo creators like us.”)
• Result: 37% higher conversion rate.

Stop this:

“My product helps anyone who wants to save time.”
Start this:
“This is for [specific person] who struggles with [exact pain] every [specific time].”

👥 Mistake #5: “I Need 10K Followers First”

The lie that almost made me quit.

I thought:

“No way I’ll sell without 5k followers.”

Then I saw Lena (a mom of 3 with 287 followers) sell 32 copies of her laundry schedule PDF by:

1. Sharing in one Facebook group (no spam)
2. Commenting genuinely on 5 posts daily
3. DM’ing only people who asked: “Where’s the paid version?”

The math is brutal:

• 100 real followers who trust you = $500 sales
• 10,000 random followers who ignore you = $0

Stop this:

“I’ll promote when I have more followers.”
Start this:
“I’ll serve 5 people today who actually need this.”

Why This All Clicked for Me

👉Last month, I launched digiplaybook—my system for selling digital products without being loud.

Not because:

• I’m a marketing genius
• I have a huge audience

Because:

• I finally stopped promoting and started relating
• I focused on one problem for one person
• I posted consistently (even when no one commented)

✔✔Real results from quiet creators:

• A teacher sold 63 copies of her “5-Minute Lesson Planner” in 12 days
• A nurse made $387 with a “Shift Survival Checklist” (0 followers)
• A student sold 29 copies of her “Student Budget Tracker” while working part-time

This isn’t magic. It’s method.

✨ One Tiny Shift That Changed Everything

That “premium” feeling you see in top-selling digital products?

It’s not about design skills.

It’s one sentence that flips how people see your product:

“This isn’t just a —it’s your [transformation].”

I wrote this down in “The One-Touch Premium Method”—a free 2-page guide. No email. No pitch. Just the exact wording that turns “meh” into “MUST-HAVE.”

If you’ve ever thought:

“My product feels too simple…”
“I don’t know how to price it…”

(It’s how my students sell $29 products when they used to give them away for $5.)

Final Note to My Past Self

You don’t need:

• A perfect product
• A massive audience
• “Marketing skills”

You need:

• One simple product
• One real person you’re helping
• The courage to hit “publish” before it’s “ready”

Your digital product isn’t a “digital product.”
It’s the quiet solution someone’s been searching for.

Let’s make sure they find it.

Hey! 👋 If this post saved you time, stress, or another “I give up” moment…

Do me a tiny favor? Share it with one friend who’s also grinding to make extra cash — but hates “guru” nonsense.

I don’t do fake scarcity, pop-ups, or “DM me for the secret.” Just real, messy, human advice.

When you share, you keep this blog alive… and help me afford more coffee (and fewer 3 a.m. panic sessions).

— Remon STS 💙