How to design a digital planner for 2024 + start making passive income!
There are only a few months left in 2024, which means it's that time of the year again when we start making plans for our 2024 digital planner! If you want to sell a digital planner at the end of the year, now is the time to strategize what will go into your planner, how you'll launch it, and get to work! We're going to help you create a schedule for designing your digital planner in this blog post by breaking down what you'll need to do each month this year to have a successful launch.
Psst! These strategies can be used in years beyond 2023 – so while we're focussing on the upcoming year in this blog post, the action steps we're outlining can be applied to nearly any digital planner or product launch.
August: research & strategize
Every successful launch is built on a strategic foundation. To understand what our audience needs in a planner for the new year, we need to do some research! It's time to go undercover as a consumer and learn the struggles, goals, and needs of your audience so you can create a solution-based product.
Once you know what your niche will be looking for in their new yearly digital planner, it's time to strategize what layouts and pages you're going to include. Try thinking outside of the box this time – your audience isn't looking for average solutions that they can find just anywhere, they want something unique!
A great way to understand what your audience needs is by polling them or creating a survey. If you have an engaged audience on Instagram, think about polling your audience and asking them questions like...
What's your biggest goal for 2025?
What was your biggest struggle in reaching your goals this year?
What would help you to reach your goals in the new year?
How did your yearly planner help you this past year?
What was your planner lacking?
What features will you look for in your next planner?
You can also add these questions to a survey (something like Google Forms or Airtable work great!) and send it out to your email list. Additionally, you may get more responses when you add an incentive! Something simple like a Starbucks gift card, a shop discount code, or a free sticker pack can motivate more people to share their genuine feelings and struggles with you.
September: sketch & design your planner collection
It's time to put the research and strategy we've gathered together into some designs! Break out your notebook or your iPad and get to work brainstorming different layouts, features, and sections your planner will include. Make sure to consider the needs of your audience!
For example, let's say your audience is planning on focusing heavily on their health in 2023. You may want to add in pages for meal planning, grocery lists, workout routines, doctor's appointments, and so on. By sketching your ideas before creating them in a design program, you can think through what will work and what won't. Once you get started, the ideas will keep flowing and you'll be able to create a truly unique planner.
Once you've sketched out your ideas, it's time to digitize those ideas and start bringing them to life on your laptop! We suggest using a program like Apple Keynote or Affinity Publisher to design your planner since you can add hyperlinks to turn your sketches into a workable planner you can easily navigate.
✨ You can read about the pros and cons of these two programs to decide which is best for you here!
October: test & package your planner collection
You've built out your digital planner, now it's time to make sure it's working and ready to be listed in your shop! Take some time during month three to test your digital planner. Ask yourself the questions below to make sure your planner is fully functional...
Do all the links in my planner work and lead to the right place?
Are all layouts relevant and useful or would the space be better used in another way?
Are there any essential pages missing?
Are there any typos?
Will this planner help solve my target customer's problems?
Once you've tested your planner and confidently answer each question, it's time to package your planner so it can be listed in your shop! Packaging your product should include more than just emailing your customers with a button to download a PDF, it should be an exciting experience! Make buying your products just as fun as getting a package from your favorite brand delivered to your front door!
November: pre-launch your planner collection
Get your audience ready and excited for the official launch of your next yearly digital planner! This month should be spent educating your audience on why digital planning is a great tool, how to get started with digital planning, and why it's important to start using a digital planner. This kind of consistent content will help your audience get used to hearing from you and get them ready to buy from you when it's time to launch!
This month will also give you time to schedule your marketing content for the actual time you spend live launching in December. Launching is a lot of work, so the more work that you can get done beforehand, the better! Write social media captions, design graphics, film reels and TikToks, schedule social posts, write and schedule emails, and don't forget to make sure all your automations are ready and working! You'll also need to create mockups that show what it looks like to use your products in real life.
Check out our best seller Canva Mockups that helps you create beautiful Product images with few clicks, click here!
December: launch your planner collection
It's time for all your hard work to finally pay off by launching your digital planner! Set aside a week for your official launch – this week you'll spend promoting your products on social media, answering questions, and dealing with customer service requests in your inbox. This week should be filled with promotional content on social media and on your email list.
We love using a waitlist to collect emails of potential customers and allowing them to shop for the new launch before everyone else with an early bird discount. You can also run a giveaway and give the winner a free copy of your yearly digital planner – both of these are great ways to raise excitement and get your audience engaged with your content so they're ready to invest.
But it doesn't just stop there! There are more ways you can make your launch even more profitable. Think about doing these five things during your launch month to experience an even more successful launch...
Gather FAQs
Ask customers for testimonials
Run a promotion
Offer an upsell
Market on multiple platforms
You can read about our favorite launch strategies in this blog!
✨ If you want to have a step-by-step systems with proven strategies tailored to Digital planner business, check out our signature program the Digital Planner Academy® here!
Have a ready-to-sell planner in one week!
Don't have enough time to design your planner this year? We've designed hundreds of planners and in just one week, you can have your own ready to sell! Our custom digital planner design services are perfect for entrepreneurs ready to monetize their signature systems to start making passive income. Together we will research your target audience, validate your ideas, then design & create your planner and package it to sell. This is something you can customize to fully fit your brand! In addition to creating your digital planner, we can check off other items on your list like mockups, stickers, notebooks, and social media images. Learn more about our custom design services here.
Our shop is full of products that can help you build a digital planner in no time at all! Be sure to check out some of these well-loved products:
Digital Planner Kits — these best-selling kits come in ten different editions so you can pick the perfect one for your niche, customize it, and then sell it to your customers!
Digital Planner Starter Pack - The Plug-and-Play digital planner pack, helps you create a professional digital planner without the hassle of starting from scratch.
Digital Planner Base Pack — this is the perfect pack for beginners! Including 12 different templates for digital planners and notebooks in both vertical and horizontal layouts!
Canva Mockup Kit — these mockups allow you to easily add your product covers so customers can visualize your products in their lives!
Etsy Shop Launch Guide — a 70-page interactive, PDF, step-by-step guide + tool kit to start an Etsy shop selling digital products!