We’ll cover exactly how to create a PDF, price it, and publish it for sale. Plus, there’s a few tips on how to improve your sales and marketing processes to make the highest revenue possible.
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Selling PDFs can bring in a few benefits. These are the biggest three that creators love most:
George Pitts is a great example of a creator who leveraged digital products like PDF and online courses to bring in a seven figure revenue since 2018. His courses also focus on how to create, promote, and optimize digital products to generate revenue, build a strong brand identity, and educate your target audience.
PDFs can be fantastic lead magnets to bring in new potential sales for your courses or other higher-priced content. When someone purchases your PDF, consider launching a marketing drip campaign via email to see how they like the content or to offer them an exclusive deal on a different product in your marketplace.
If you’re a new creator or trying to establish a stronger reputation in your niche , selling digital products is a great way to build some credibility. You can publish as many pieces of content as you’d like and keep them up to date as your niche develops. Then, share it with leads or customers to extend their experience with you.
Where can you sell a PDF online?Choosing where you sell your PDFs online is an important decision which can affect how much the time, money, and content requirements. At the highest level, there are two ways you can approach online PDF sales and it’s also okay to use both of these approaches at the same time.
The benefit to selling on your own marketplace is that you can customize the branding, have more in-depth analytics to user behavior, and often you’ll earn a better margin.
If you want to take advantage of a third party marketplace tool, there are plenty of great options out there! It’s easier to get started with online marketplaces than building your own website and often you’ll have opportunities to do paid advertising directly on their platform. Plus, you’ll get views from the customers that may have originally come to the site for another vendor’s page. Here are a few places to try if you want to sell PDFs through an online marketplace:
| Marketplace | Best for |
| Gumroad | Support for new sellers |
| Etsy | Selling locally made or handmade items |
| Facebook Marketplace | Being part of buying and selling groups |
| Amazon | Global reach and advertising solutions |
Make sure to read through these steps carefully as they’ll ensure that you create a thoughtful piece of content that will appeal to your target audience (and therefore will be more likely to earn sales).
Types of content you can create in a PDF file are pretty limitless, but some examples include:
Don’t forget to add your own information and a call-to-action in there so that readers can contact you later if they need to. This is usually best placed in the introduction or at the end of the document.
It can be a good practice to get feedback from several people in your target audience while you’re creating content. Facebook groups, Reddit threads, LinkedIn, or your current customer base can be helpful spots to find people in your target audience.
You should also get someone to review the copy for grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Often once your PDF goes live you won’t have a lot of opportunity for editing it so review, review, review in this stage!
Depending on the type of content you’re creating, you might want to add specific design details. For example, are you creating a white paper that needs a cover page? Have you added your own branding like logos, colours, and fonts to the document? Are some examples in the PDF copyrighted (and in need of an overlying text that says “Sample” or “Copyrighted”)?
Adobe has a great explanation on the many different elements that you can change when preparing a PDF file for export. A big determinant factor is whether your PDF Is expected to be printed or for digital use only. Printers use CMYK which is a different colour system than RGB that computers use, so the appearance of colours can change slightly. PDFs also come in various file formats that might change how the layout appears or which device type they can be opened on. Some file formats may need a special application to access (or you can even password protect them).
These are just a few examples so do thorough research on the format you need for the file’s intended usage.
How to price digital productsRemember that the pricing that you set at the start of your PDF sales journey doesn’t have to stay that way forever. As you launch more digital products and gain more sales, your understanding of your target audience will likely change a lot. It’s important to stay attuned to how your customers respond differently to various pricing strategies or promotions. Test around a few options and eventually you’ll settle on a high performing strategy.
Tips for managing online PDF salesThe basics for designing and launching a PDF for online sales are above. And if you did just those steps, you’d be fine. But if you want to take your digital product sales strategy to the next level, try these tips!
A sales funnel is a crucial element when you’re monetizing content online. It creates a process for how people are expected to hear about your product and eventually convert into a paying customer. There are many steps along the way that help convince potential customers about what your product is and how it can meet their needs. An extended sales funnel will also look at future upsell opportunities to build customer loyalty or generate referrals. See here for an in-depth guide on how to build your own sales funnel.
Never lose sight of the data. Your e-commerce platform, online marketplace, or other monetization tool should provide you with detailed insights about your sales, marketing activity, and target audience. Some things that you can keep track of include:
One of the biggest benefits to selling digital products is that they are relatively low maintenance. The one part that you do need to check in on consistently is the relevance of the material. Depending on your niche, topics may develop quickly or slowly. For example, the field of math doesn’t change that fast so if you’re designing templates to help elementary students learn multiplication tables, you won’t need to regularly update your content unless the local curriculum has changed. However, if you’re a baker creating PDF formatted cookbooks, you might want to update your digital PDFs whenever you update a recipe, launch a new recipe, or customize recipes based on seasonal ingredients.
There are different tools out there that can make editing a live PDF document easier. Traditionally, one challenge with selling PDFs was that it couldn’t be updated once it was out in the wild. A best practice is to sell your PDF as a live link to the file rather than the actual file. It’s easier to redirect a link that affects many channels at once rather than needing to update each individual channel with the new document.
With 4+ years of experience leading brands in the tech & security industry, Alexandria loves to write about making the day-to-day more efficient. In her free time, she enjoys biking and traveling to find hidden gems around the world!
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