5 Lessons I Learned from Selling My First Digital Planner
I’ve always had a passion for productivity and goal-setting, but I never could have imagined where it’s brought me today.
I’m Shay, the founder of The Pink Ink®, and I’m excited to share the top lessons I’ve learned from selling my first digital planner! I left university with a Bachelor degree in marketing and a degree in graphic design, which makes sense when looking at the career path I decided to follow.
I’ve been running my online business for 5 years now (I can’t believe it either!), starting back in 2018 when I decided to put my graphic design and marketing degrees to work by starting an Etsy store selling digital planners. There were only a few other digital planner sellers at the time, so it was a risk but it was definitely worth taking.
To my surprise and excitement, it only took two weeks to make my first sale and only two months to reach revenue that covered my full-time income. Fast-forward six months, and I was established as one of the leaders in the digital product niche!
Today, I’d like to take the time to share my story and the lessons I’ve learned so that other entrepreneurs can grow in their own digital product business. It’s always been my goal to help others reach their fullest potential and create a business that sustains them. Throughout this blog post, you’ll learn valuable insights and lessons that can be applied to your own projects.
If you’re serious about creating a digital planner, it’s important to always be ready to learn. Keep in mind that with passion, hard work, and dedication, you can build a digital product that makes an impact. I'm still learning new lessons every day, even at this point in my business. There’s always room to grow- that’s half the fun!
Lesson 1: My First Digital Planner Will Never be Perfect
I admit that my first digital planner wasn’t great. The pages weren't consistent, links were missing, and there was a lot of room for improvement. But if I had waited until it was perfect, I never would have launched!
The truth is, your first digital product will never be perfect. I’ve since learned that striving for perfection is an unrealistic expectation, especially when creating something new.
As entrepreneurs, we have a vision of how we want our products to turn out. But the reality is, we learn so much through the creation process and by getting customer feedback. I’ve found that done is better than perfect. You have to launch, observe how customers use it, listen to their feedback, and then make changes to improve it.
With my planner, I started getting feedback immediately from my early customers with suggestions for new pages they’d like to see or tweaks to existing ones. Their input was valuable and helped shape my planner into something even better than my original vision. But if I hadn’t launched when I did, I wouldn’t have gotten that useful feedback.
The key is finding the right balance of good enough to launch, but still open to continuous improvement. Your digital product will get better over time, shaped by customer feedback and your own learning. In fact, you can use each improvement process as an updated release to increase your revenue and keep customers coming back.
The overall take-away is to strive for progress, not perfection. Launch, learn, and improve. That’s the real secret to success.
Lesson 2: The Best Selling Planner Will be Simple and Purposeful
When I created my first digital planner, I wanted to include everything to cater to as many people as possible. The result was an overwhelming, cluttered product that tried to be everything for everyone. I quickly learned that the most successful planners are simple and serve a specific purpose.
Once I narrowed down, my sales took off! I created a planner targeted specifically at busy moms, with the purpose of organizing family schedules, chores, and activities. By simplifying the features and tailoring them to this audience, the planner became a hit with mothers. My planner became a best seller and even got featured in Cassie Croggin’s blog, 20 Best Planners For Moms in 2023!
Be sure to keep your planner straightforward. Determine a clear purpose and audience, then design the planner around accomplishing specific goals for those users. My customers love the simple design, as can be seen on my reviews page, with Mary saying “Beautiful notebook! Love the color scheme and the simple yet chic design.” and Nathalia posting “So beautiful and clean look. I’m just in love with this!”
Here are a few more tips:
Focus on essential features that directly support the planner’s purpose. Leave out anything extra.
Organize content in a simple, intuitive way. Use spacious layouts that are easy to read and navigate.
Get customer feedback to ensure the planner is meeting their needs. Make any necessary changes to better achieve its purpose.
You can always release additional planners for other audiences down the road. Start simple.
The key is to niche down, determine your planner’s essential purpose, and design an uncluttered product that accomplishes meaningful goals for your target customers. Keep it simple and your planner will thrive!
Lesson 3: Be Open to Changing, Updating, and Adapting to Understand Your Audience
One of the biggest lessons I learned from creating my first digital planner was to stay flexible and willing to make changes based on customer feedback and market trends.
When I first launched the planner, I thought I had designed the perfect product that would meet the needs of my target audience. But after reading reviews and comments from customers, I realized there were a few key things I needed to adjust to better serve them.
My first digital planner was far from perfect, but that’s okay! In fact, my first customer sent me a message providing feedback and requesting changes. But I openly took their advice and with their input, I continued improving my planner to be more aligned with my customer’s needs and goals.
I also noticed that as the years progressed, new tools, apps, and methods for productivity and business organization started trending. To keep the planner relevant, I released seasonal update packages with templates, worksheets, and resources focused on the latest tools and strategies.
By consistently reviewing feedback, analyzing reviews, staying on top of trends, and being willing to adapt the planner to better serve my audience, I was able to increase customer satisfaction, drive more sales, and build a loyal base of repeat customers.
The lesson here is that a digital product, or any product, is never really “done.” It requires continuous optimization and refinement to remain valuable and appealing to customers. Staying open to change helped make my planner a success.
Lesson 4: Promote More and Create Less
It’s easy to get carried away with the mindset that the higher-quality the planner is, the more people will buy. While that’s true to an extent, who will buy if there’s no customer base? That’s why promotion is so important.
One of the biggest lessons I learned from creating and selling my first digital planner was that I spent too much time designing and not enough time marketing for it. Many entrepreneurs go all-out with creation, which often leads to a great product with low sales. I recommend switching it to focus on promotion and your collection launch instead of creation. Even if your planner isn’t perfect, there are always future updates.
Here are a few strategies I’ve since implemented hat have made a huge impact on my sales:
Build an email list ahead of launch. Start growing your list at least 3-6 months before you launch using lead magnets like free checklists, workbooks, or cheat sheets. This gives you time to nurture your subscribers and build excitement for your product.
Create a pre-launch waiting list. About a month before launch, set up a waiting list to build scarcity and hype. Offer a discount or bonus for those who sign up early. This also gives you an engaged group of buyers as soon as you open your cart.
Run a quiz or contest. To generate buzz, run an interactive quiz, worksheet, or contest where people can enter to win a free copy of your product. Promote it on social media and your email list.
Focus on Pinterest marketing, which can be learned about in our Pinterest Marketing article. Drive tons of traffic to your site in the weeks leading up to your launch through Pinterest marketing.
Don’t stop promoting after the launch! So many product creators launch their item and then move onto creating the next thing. But to get the most out of your launch, you need to keep promoting and marketing for at least 2-3 months after. Use sales, discounts and email marketing to keep momentum going. Check out our promotion blog articles for more information!
Lesson 5: Automating and Templating Your Planner Will Save You Time in Future Updates
One of the biggest lessons I learned was to automate and create templates for my digital planner. At first, I designed each page individually, picking out colors, fonts, and layouts for every single page- I was working on it for days! I soon realized I needed to streamline my process if I wanted to scale.
I invested time upfront to learn the high-quality, robust design program, Affinity Publisher, that allowed me to save styles, colors, and layouts as templates. Then I could apply those templates with a single click to multiple pages. This cut my design time exponentially, which provided me with more time for promotion and building my business.
Automating the digital planner also meant I could quickly and easily update it for the next year. Instead of designing a whole new planner from scratch, I just updated the dates in my templates, and a new version was ready to go. This saved me hours of work and reduced the possibility of mistakes.
It can feel overwhelming to attempt the automation process, but we offer easy-to-follow steps and tips within our Affinity Publisher Design Course and Digital Planner Design Mastery Course. We review how to automate adding dates, colors, and styles to create multiple versions in just a few clicks.
The shift to creating reusable templates is a game changer. Your future self will thank you, and your customers will appreciate quick updates and new versions!
Learn and Improve
Creating my first digital product was a learning experience. I made mistakes, received feedback, and adapted. Even now, I'm constantly improving the planner and my process. The key is to not be afraid to make mistakes and improve. Your customers will appreciate your willingness to keep progressing and adapting.
The lessons I learned from creating and selling my first digital planner were so valuable. By continually improving, keeping it simple, staying open to change, promoting more, and learning automation, I was able to find success. I hope these lessons help you on your journey to creating and selling your own digital products.
My journey to the successful digital planner business I have today wasn’t easy, but it was definitely worth it. Out of all the lessons I’ve learned, these are the top ones I wanted to share because they have shaped the current success of the digital planner business. I encourage you to take what you need and apply it to your own business!
Get Started Today
Now that you have the top advice in the market at your fingertips, it’s time to start selling! It can feel overwhelming when you’ve never done this before, though. You may need an initial push to get started or maybe even a more in-depth, step-by-step walkthrough of how to build a digital planner business, which is why we offer our Digital Planner Design Mastery Course.
By signing up for the course, you’ll work alongside mentors who run successful digital planner businesses and other students in the same shoes as you. You’ll also receive tools and resources that can help you put into practice the lessons you’ve learned in this article. Still not sure? Check out Alice Lima and Yuval Hacohen’s stories to hear first-hand experience and results from the design course.
If you’re ready to reach success and put these lessons into action, the Digital Design Mastery Course is only a step away! I can’t wait to see you there!
