Have you ever wondered, "How do I start a stationery business?" There are six key steps to build a profitable business while avoiding the overwhelm... 

1. Choosing a niche + market research

2. Mapping out your product suite

3. Creating your first collection

4. Planning and blocking out your calendar

5. Packaging + launching your collection

6. Marketing your digital planning business

Starting an online business can give you the freedom to be a stay-at-home mom, travel the world, or make time for other things that are important to you. Every business starts with an idea, but after that, things get a bit more complicated. To become the go-to business in the stationery industry, there are a few steps you need to implement as a new business owner. Grab a pen and paper, and let's dive in!

Choosing a Niche + Market Research

When I started my digital planning and stationery business back in 2018, I spent lots of time creating digital products for a variety of different kinds of customers. This left me confused and without sales, because I didn't know who I wanted to sell to! Creating a niche strategy is the basis of The Pink Ink framework. 

What is a niche strategy? 

A niche is a specific, targeted group of people to whom you want to sell your planners and products. A strategy is a plan that you implement to effectively attract and sell your products to that niche! To decide on a niche, you need to get specific. Simply saying that anyone who loves digital planning is your ideal customer isn't good enough. Your digital stationery shop should be built because you find a gap in the market that you can transform into an opportunity – that’s the key to success! 

Pro tip: When you decide on a niche, create an "I help" statement. This is a simple sentence that states what you do, who you do it for, and the transformation you provide. For example, at The Pink Ink, our "I help" statement is, "I help aspiring designers and entrepreneurs to create, launch and market a digital planner business so that you can transform your knowledge into income and design a life you love. 

Getting started with market research

Now that you know who you're going to target with your stationery business, we need to perform some market research to get to know the likes and dislikes of our target audience. A successful stationery business will serve their customers and create products that will solve their problems. Ask your target audience what their biggest struggles are, what their goals are, and what they want to see from you and your products. When you know the answers to these questions, it will be much easier to create products and make conscious marketing efforts that don't leave you feeling overwhelmed. You can create profitable marketing strategies that help you to increase revenue and website traffic (more of the right kind of website traffic means higher conversions). 

Now that you have a clear direction in which to take your business, it's time to brainstorm the products you're going to create to help your ideal customers! 

Mapping Out Your Product Suite

The Pink Ink takes a unique approach to mapping out product suites. We center our process around solution-based products. This means taking the answers to the market research questions you asked your target audience, outlining the problems they're facing, then engineering products that help them solve these problems. Let's see this in action with an example.

Let's say you're thinking of starting a digital stationery business whose niche is mompreneurs. You survey your audience through strategic market research and discover that their main problem is feeling constantly disorganized and overwhelmed with their to-do list.

With this in mind, you can create a product suite that helps mompreneurs, get organized, stay on top of their business and personal life, and feel less overwhelmed. As you create your products, it's important to do so in a sustainable way that protects your energy instead of increasing stress. That's where collections come in!

Creating Your First Collection

A collection is a group of products with one central theme. This is a much more sustainable way to produce products! Tell me - would you rather release a new product every week or month or every three months? I know what I would choose! A collection can include digital planners, digital notebooks, stickers, habit trackers, and any other digital products that are relevant to the theme of your collection.

An example of a collection is Rifle Paper Co., a big stationery business. Right now, their newest release is their 2022 collections! Instead of waiting until the beginning of the new year or releasing products throughout November and December, they get a head start with a variety of products now and can profit from sales from now throughout the new year.

Planning & Blocking Out Your Calendar

Even though it's called passive income, there's a lot of work that goes into designing products, marketing your business, maintaining your website, writing blog posts and captions, and so on. To effectively manage all the aspects of entrepreneurship, you need a calendar and time management system! Here are some ways to break down your work days so that you can finish everything on your to-do list...

• Content Batching Days - set aside one day a week or month to create and schedule all your Instagram captions, blog posts, Pinterest graphics, email newsletters, and other marketing materials you need to increase brand awareness and drive traffic to your website. 

• Financial Management - depending on how busy you are in business, set aside a day each week, month, or quarter to go through your finances and make sure everything is up to date! 

• CEO Days - these are days where instead of working inside of your business, you're working on your business. This means getting all the tasks that have been piling up on your plate complete - like completing the courses you've purchased, updating your website, outlining business goals, and practicing self care! 

• Product Creation - Set aside time daily or weekly to work on your new products. Set deadlines and launch dates for your products and collections so that you can easily pace yourself so you create your products in a timely manner without feeling overwhelmed. 

Every business is unique, so every schedule may look different, but effective calendar management can be the difference between feeling stressed and on top of everything! 

Psst - in Digital Planner Academy, you’ll learn how to block out your schedule for every phase of designing and launching a digital product. If that sounds like just the program you need, click here to learn more and enroll!

Packaging & Launching Your Collection 

Now, getting back to the process leading up to actually launching your products, it's time to package up and launch your collection! By packaging your collection, you can sell everything in your collection at once in a discounted bundle. Instead of making $20-$40 on every digital product you sell, you can make $50-$80+ by selling them all at once! Instead of selling 20 regular digital planners for $32, you could sell a bundled collection for $64 and double your monthly income! 

One of the most essential parts in actually having a successful collection launch is the way your market and actually go about launching. Set up a timeline and assign yourself tasks that need to be completed on time. For example, when I'm planning for a launch, I'll create three lists - pre-launch, launch, and post-launch and then add subtasks for all the tasks that have to happen before, during, and after the collection goes live.

Pro tip: Make sure you're engaging with your audience in the weeks leading up to and during your launch so that the maximum amount of people are seeing your content! Keep track of the people you interact with who seem interested in your offer and focus heavily on targeting them while you are launching to hopefully get them to buy from you! 

Marketing your Digital Stationery Business 

Now we want to make recurring sales so we can increase revenue! The best way to do this is by creating a marketing strategy that allows you to create content in a way that doesn't exhaust you but allows you to educate your audience while promoting your brand. SEO is a great way to do this passively, which you can learn all about here. Pinterest marketing and blogging are also two great, evergreen forms of creating content to help you increase brand awareness. Here is a list of all the ways and places I promote my brand... 

• Instagram 

• Pinterest

• Blogging

• SEO 

• Etsy

In addition to these places, you can also promote your business on Twitter, Facebook, Clubhouse, TikTok, and more! 

The Pink Ink Framework & Digital Planner Academy®

Whew! There's a lot that goes into building a profitable digital stationery business, but it's a lot more manageable when you have the right resources to lend a hand. This framework is exactly what we teach hundreds of students inside our signature online program, Digital Planner Academy. This is the go-to, self-paced online program for aspiring digital planner business owners with six modules that take you through every single step involved in starting, launching, and marketing a profitable digital planning business. Learn more about the course here! 

What are we talking about in each program module? 

1. Discover your niche with your zone of genius - After this module, you’ll walk away with the confidence that you’ve selected a niche that resonates with you and your zone of genius that will set your business up for long-term success.

2. Map out your product suite - After this module, you’ll have identified the winning products that will help you make a long-term living from your online business.

3. Create sold-out collections - After this module, you’re ready to design planners to make a sustainable income. The sky’s the limit!

4. Package your products - After this module, you’ll have the know-how to create stunning images, plan-with-with-me video for your digital products that sell like hotcakes.

5. Set up your Etsy shop - After this module, you’ll be ready to open an Etsy shop that’s inviting and set up for success.

6. Promote and sell like a boss - You’ve made it. You know all you need to bring in new customers and keep those who have already bought from you. Marketing superstar in the making!

Interested in learning more? Click here!

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