Digital Planners From Scratch or Using Templates

You're a brand new business owner with big dreams to build a planner shop. So what's stopping you from getting started? Deciding what products you want to create can be a struggle – will you sell custom digital planners? Physical planners? Printables? Not to mention, you have to figure out how to set up an online Etsy shop, market yourself, package your products, and the list goes on. Pretty soon you start feeling overwhelmed and you find yourself wondering what the best way to build a business is.

As expert planner designers, we have four years of experience designing digital planning products and teaching aspiring entrepreneurs how to successfully do the same thing. That's why we've put together this guide breaking down two of the most common and easiest ways to get started building a business – and that's by either starting from scratch and learning how to do everything yourself or using pre-made templates that come with a commercial license that you can edit and resell as your own.

Now, each of these might sound a lot better than the other to you right now, but we're going to dive deep into each option and explore the pros and cons of DIY planner design or using templates so you can make an educated decision as to what path is best for your business goals.

Planner Templates

What are they?

Planner templates allow you to create a sellable product even if you don't have expert graphic design skills. They are commercially licensed, predesigned planners, personalized journals, and base layer products that you can import into a design program of your choice to edit before you list them for sale in your shop.

When you buy a pre-made template, you can have a product ready to sell in just a weekend. At the bare minimum, all you have to do is change the colors, fonts, and add in your own branding. If you want to further customize the product, you can make sure each page relates to your specific niche or add in page layouts that your audience may also find helpful to have.

Our Digital Planner Kits are the perfect example of a plug-and-play template system designed to help new businesses create a digital planner in just a few days.

Who are they perfect for?

This approach is perfect for businesses with a B2C (business to consumer) business model. This means that you're selling products directly to the people who will use them. Most premade templates come with a commercial license, which means that you're allowed to sell unlimited copies of the products you create that are based off the template you purchased. A commercial license means that you can take a template, customize it, then sell it as a product (such as a journal, planner, notebook, etc.). It does not mean that you can take a template, customize it, then resell it as a template for others to use.

Templates are the way to go if you want to save tons of time. If you have a launch deadline and not enough time to get everything done that you were hoping for, then it may make more sense for you to invest in a template that will only take you hours to turn into a sellable product instead of starting from scratch and spending days creating the perfect item.

If you don't have a background in graphic design and don't have the confidence or skills yet to turn a blank page into the perfect planner, sticker pack, journal, or something else, then a template will do all the hard work for you. All you'll have to do is learn how to import your file, switch up the colors and fonts, then make any extra edits so that everything is perfect!

Psst! We're sharing design tips & tricks to help save you time and minimize the learning curve of a new design program by showing you all the little hacks that you might not know so you can make a planner with Keynote in t his free masterclass!

How to Get Started with white label planners

Before picking a template, you need to know your audience. Most template creators group their products by the audience they've been designed for. Knowing your niche won't just help you when you're picking out a template, but it will set you up for success as you grow your business. It will help you identify your purpose and stay focused on your mission, it allows you to make aesthetic branding decisions, and it will help you position yourself as the go-to digital product creator in your industry.

For example, if you want to create products for new mothers, you're going to be looking for templates that feature sections like doctors appointments, feeding schedules, meal plans, and so on. On the other hand, if you want to create a planner for business owners, you might want to choose a template that includes business goals, financial plans, and so on.

Your niche should be at the intersection of three things: your passions and interests, the problem you solve, and the services you offer. This ensures that you enjoy the work you do while still working in a profitable niche. We've put together a list of niches to help you find inspiration – click here to read a blog post where we talk all about finding your first niche in business!

To make things easy, take this short quiz and discover what niche could be best for your business in less than five minutes! All you need to do is answer a few questions and we’ll help you make the perfect choice. Take the quiz here!

Once you have chosen your target audience, you can start browsing templates on sites shop.the-pinkink.com to choose a template perfect for your needs and budget. As you're looking through the variety of templates that are available, make sure you take a look at what software is compatible with the template(s) you're interested in. Consider your building options and your skills, then choose a template that you can import into a program that...

You are able to use confidently
Is affordable if you have a tight budget
Doesn't have a huge learning curve

Psst! You can read more about some of the most popular design programs for digital products in this blog post!

Pros

Allows you to skip all the prep work and launch your business quickly
Saves you hours of time as opposed to starting from scratch
You'll be confident knowing that you're selling a fully-functional product approved by an expert
You can focus your time on work you enjoy doing and takes a high priority as you prepare to launch your business
If you use templates for all your products, they'll all have a similar aesthetic and increase the professional appeal of your online shop
Launching is stressful, but when you invest in a template, you'll have much less on your mind than if you had to spend days designing a product from step one

Cons

You don't have the same complete design freedom as you get when you start from scratch
They require an investment that may vary depending on your budget and the kind of product you create
Templates are typically generalized, so you may not be able to find one that always fits your exact needs
Cannot be white-labeled and resold to business owners as a template they can use to create products to sell
Because templates are a digital product, refunds are typically not allowed, meaning that once you make this investment, there's no going back

Starting from Scratch with planner design

What does it mean?

Starting from scratch is exactly that — it's getting started without the help of a template or done-for-you service. It requires a much lower financial investment and a higher investment of your time. It means that you'll identify an audience for your product, brainstorm ideas, turn your ideas into a digital concept, build your digital planner out, test it, then list it for sale.

While this may seem like a lot of work, it can be very rewarding! If you're able to commit hours each week to building your business, starting from scratch will allow you to make all your own decisions and completely customize every aspect of your digital products to create a truly unique experience for shop visitors.

Who is this perfect for?

At the beginning of this blog post, we mentioned that pre-made templates are a good fit for businesses selling directly to consumers. When it comes to starting from scratch, this is a good option for all business models! It makes more sense for businesses that if you will be selling to businesses, to start from scratch instead of using a template. This allows you to make your own white-label planners available for purchase by businesses that want to buy their own planner templates with a commercial license. It also gives you the potential for more business growth since you can offer template customization services.

If you have plenty of time and want to take things slowly by learning how to use a design program, create your own planners, then market and launch them all by yourself, then starting from scratch makes more sense! If you have a tight budget, it may make more sense for you to DIY as much as you can and prioritize the money you are able to spend on areas of your business where you'll need the most assistance.

How to Get Started with making planners

Whether you're starting from scratch or using a pre-made template the first step is the same: you need to identify who it is that you're going to be selling to. When you know your niche, you'll know the struggles that they're dealing with, the goals they have, and what kind of planner is going to work best for their lifestyle. Now you can build a product around the person you're going to be selling it to! This ensures that your product will be successful and in demand. Take a look at the blog post about niching down linked in the suggested resources section of this blog article for more information on how to do this.

Now that you know the target audience for your digital product, it's time to get the ideas out of your brain and onto paper! This rough draft of your ideas will help you identify what sections you want to include, what page layouts will best fit your ideas, and approximately how long you want your planner to be. Make sure that this idea you're bringing to life will work with the lifestyle of your customers — take into consideration their routines, habits, and goals.

Once you sketched your planner, it's time to turn your ideas into your digital masterpiece! Working out what we want to do on paper first means that when we add our ideas to the design program, we can put out heads down and get to work instead of having to spend extra time fleshing out the details and possibly missing an important link or page. We recommend using Apple Keynote (a free program for Mac users!) to design your digital planner. Save time as you bring your planner to life, you can copy and paste as many pages as possible and edit the layout so you don't have to keep re-creating shapes from scratch. Building out your sketches may sound overwhelming, but as you gain experience designing digital planners, you'll get more familiar with the design program and smooth out your own signature process for creating digital products.

Congratulations – you've designed your first digital planner! Now it's time to test it and make sure everything is in working order.

Download your digital planner and open it in an app that your customers will be using.
Check to make sure that all your hyperlinks are leading to the right place, that you haven't skipped a layout or a certain month in your planner, and check for typos or out-of-place elements as you go.
Once you know your planner is functioning correctly, you can work on packaging it in a way that your future customers will enjoy "unboxing"! When you create an enjoyable and memorable experience, your audience will keep coming back for more products since every part of their journey is fun!

Now that all the hard work is done, it's time to list a product for sale in your shop. Make sure you also create mock-ups and a fun product description that will have your audience itching to press the "add to cart" button! Since you're creating products from scratch, you have room to scale your business by offering custom design services to an even wider audience. Since you know how to design a planner and have done it for yourself you can offer to bring other business owners' ideas to life and design them their very own digital planners for an additional source of income! Take a look at how we're doing this for business owners by browsing our custom digital planner design services page.

Pros

Allows you more room to scale and grow your business in the future.
Gives you complete design freedom to do whatever you want!
Ensures that you'll have a product unlike anything else on the market.

Cons

It takes a lot more time to design a planner without the use of a template.
You will have to invest time in learning how to use a design program to bring ideas to life.
You'll spend hours and maybe days on tedious tasks like testing the links in your planner and building hyperlinks between sections and your product.
There's more room for error when you're starting from scratch since you don't have the help of an expert on your side.

Tools to help you get started with building planners

Building your business without the use of templates doesn't mean that you have to do it all on your own! In fact, it may be best to invest in a resource that will teach you the skills and strategies you need to build a thriving business.

Our signature program, Digital Planner Academy®, teaches inspiring business owners how to start, launch, and scale their own businesses selling digital products and planners. This program will walk you through identifying a niche for your products, how to use popular design programs to bring ideas to life, and how to test their products so that they're ready to be launched and used by your target audience. We highly recommend Digital Planner Academy to anyone ready to start their own business but not sure what exactly to do first. You can learn more about the program here!

If you have a smaller budget or want to get started by just using some free resources, our blog is full of digital gems that walk you through specific elements of being a digital shop owner. Take a look at some of our best blog posts linked below for help with various areas of your business...

✨ So which will it be? Are you going to start from scratch or use a pre-made template?

No matter what you decide, we would love to help you bring your ideas to life in one way or another! Make sure that you're confident in your choice because it will help you to launch a shop and product that excites your audience just as much as it brings you joy to bring to life. Make sure to head on over to our shop to take a look at the variety of products and resources we have available to all kinds of shop owners as you start your digital stationery business journey!