Tech Without Tears: Your Essential Digital Product Sales Setup - Anna Addoms

Skip the tech overwhelm and build your digital product empire with only the tools you need.

Website: https://wickedmarvelous.com\

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaddoms

[00:00:01]: Hi, I'm Anna and today we're going to talk about how to create your essential digital product sales setup without the technology overwhelm. So I understand that the number one problem I hear from clients, from my community is that technology is overwhelming. It's the thing that stops you from building your business. And it's also often the thing where you can't figure out what tools you need because everybody recommends something different, everybody has something that is their method. And you need tool A, B, C, D, E, F, G. And then somebody else says, but wait, really you need tool X, Y and Z. And it's really hard to figure out what you really need to get started without spending a massive amount of money and increasing your overhead. So today we're going to talk about how to set up your digital product environment so that you can scale quickly, you can build, and you can do it without breaking the bank with only the tools you need to get started.

[00:00:59]: You can always add more as you go. Everything is built to connect and scale up. But we're going to talk about how to pick the right tools, which ones you really need to be focused on, and how to make the first step in moving forward. So I'm going to introduce myself. We're going to talk about what your minimum viable tech stack is, the three components that you need, and then we're going to talk talk in. We're going to get into the weeds about each of them. And then we're going to talk about how you get started and make measurable progress quickly. I'm Anna.

[00:01:38]: I love to talk about how to build a sustainable business so that you can do what you love and make money, how to use technology and automation without overwhelm, and how to gain visibility and growth in your business without spending a lot of money and making your business work for you and the way that you already work so that you can focus on what you do best and what you love doing in your work. So what is the minimum viable tech stack? The minimum viable tech stack covers the three foundational tools you need to launch your digital business without technology overwhelm and without buying into all of the shiny objects that don't move the needle. And this is what we're going to cover. So we're going to go over each of these three pieces. The three pieces that make up your minimum viable tech stack are an email marketing platform, a website or E commerce platform. They generally go together, but they can be separated, and then a payment processor, because if you can't make money from it, it's a hobby. So let's talk about email. Email is the number one component that you need to launch because in most cases email platforms also already have product and purchasing components built in, which allows you to have one system to start with.

[00:03:02]: Low overhead allows you to make sure that it is the dedicated channel that you use to that and that you control. Where your audience has already invited you into their inboxes, they've essentially said, I like you enough that I want to hear from you regularly. And you are not at the whims of algorithms, you are not at the whims of how people engage within a very tight window of time. And you are given more space to nurture and sell to your audience and give them what they're asking for, while also showcasing your expertise. So choosing an email service provider can feel a little complicated. There are a lot of them on the market and a lot of them say they're the best at certain things, that there are different things. They have all of these features. Some of them you don't necessarily know what you need.
 
[00:03:50]: So what I want you to consider are features and factors. So features that are worth considering are, do they have broadcast and campaign functionality that means one off emails that you send and schedule? So like I want to send a weekly email to my list, I want to be able to do that as a broadcast. So a broadcast is going to craft an email and I'm going to schedule it and it's going to go out once and it might happen and resend to people who don't open. But it's not an automated process. It's an I sat down and wrote an email and sent it to everybody on my list or a segment of my list. Does it have automations? Can you say when somebody signs up for this product or this action happens, can I automatically deliver it? Can I automatically send an email series that goes out consistently? So I want to say anytime you join my email list, you get a welcome, you get a welcome sequence. Which means that anytime you, anytime you join my list, you get an. You get a five email sequence that is delivered to you every single day for the first five days.

Janita Falschlunger [00:04:56]: And I don't have to think about it, the system does all of it for me. I just set it up. And when you join, all of that happens automatically. Ergo, automations, do you have the capacity to build landing pages and forms inside your tool? Is it something that is going to give you the functionality and features that you need to get started without necessarily needing another platform? And does it have product or Sales functionality. Can you build a product, the digital product, a service, an offer into it, and take payment on the platform using a landing page and a checkout functionality? Does it have that? Most of the platforms have that now. It's a newer thing. The other thing you want to consider are pricing and growth tiers. If you're starting out now and you have a small list or you have no list, you don't want to be paying a fortune for something that you don't, that you're not using to its full capacity yet.

[00:05:51]: You want to keep your overhead as low as possible as you grow. What do the, what does the jump in price look like if you cross a billing threshold? Like if you go from a thousand subscribers and the next tier is 2,500, what's the price difference between the up to a thousand tier that you start with to the 2500 tier? Are you going to go from paying, you know, $30 a month to $90 a month? It's worth looking at that to make sure that you also know what your scalability looks like. The other thing you want to think about is what is your business type? What are you, what are you specifically trying to do? If you're selling digital products with delivery, you're selling courses, things like that, you want to make sure that the platform you choose is built to sort of integrate with those other tools that you want to use or are capable of helping you to do fulfillment and delivery of those products. Subscriber limits goes back to things like we talked about with growth tiers. If you are getting started and you're on a free plan that only gives you 300 users, what does the price change look like Once you cross 300 users? What does it look like as you continue to grow, and then also integrations with other tools. It's important that your email tool be broadly connectable to different tools and things in your business, because the reality is it's going to be a channel that you use consistently for deliverability and for marketing and sales. And so it's sort of the core of your tech stack that you need to be concerned about, and we want to make sure that it's compatible with the things that you're using now. You might not have an answer for all the other things that you're potentially going to grow with, and that's okay.

[00:07:34]: But looking at a plat, looking at these platforms and determining things like if I'm building my business to scale with Shopify, or I'm building my business to scale and sell digital products, in WooCommerce on WordPress. Understanding how the tools that you're using can connect to different things in the future like Book Funnel or to other e comm platforms, to your website to how easy is it for you to take things like forms and embed them in other places so that you don't have to do a lot of backend connecting? Take a look at those features. They're not necessarily something you're going to have an answer for and that's okay, but. But you want to know that your ESP can grow with you. Now my recommended ESPs are ConvertKit and it's what I use and it's actually called Kit. Now it's best for easy automation and email funnels and it has built in sales and product functionality so you can build a digital product to sell directly through Kit and you can handle all of your automation and email marketing through it as well. So it's a great hub starting place, starting place for this. But they don't have a free tier unless you're just doing one off newsletters.

[00:08:59]: If you need automation, you do have to pay for it right up front. Mailerlite is sort of the best free plan that has all of the features and affordable scaling, but it has a slightly less user friendly interface and it's got some additional complexity. So my biggest rule of thumb in all of these is to start looking at, get into them, look at their websites, go through their demos, see how they feel when you get to chance to sort of peek under the hood. The reality is choosing these things is it's important to understand that you need to pick what feels right for you and feels easy for you. Because what feels easy for me might not feel easy for you. What feels feels intuitive to me might not feel intuitive to you. So we want to make sure that you're choosing both the right fit for features and functionality, but also the right fit for the way that you operate. Because if you pick a platform like this that's not, that doesn't feel comfortable, that doesn't feel usable, you're never going to want to use it because it's going to feel like a hassle.

[00:10:01]: So then we have Moosend, which is best for E commerce sort of as a whole. They're built around segmentation and product listing and it's got a pretty easy to use interface and they've got good deliverability. And Klaviyo is the best in class for using Shopify. Now if you're using Shopify and Klaviyo, your overhead costs are going to be a little bit higher because functionally they are both more expensive platforms, but they come with a lot of that feature functionality that makes it easy to get started. It's just a balance of features and price and growth. And that's why we go through this audit process and review. So let's talk about the next component, which is your website and E commerce platform. So the reality is you need to sell at scale to sell more than a few products.

[00:10:52]: You can always start with something like an email service provider. But if you want to be able to show somebody a storefront where they can say, add multiple products to a cart and checkout, you're not going to get that with things like your email platform. You're not going to get that with cart funnels. You're going to get that in a true E comm environment and that's the next stage of leveling up. So once you've got email, then it's time to talk about your website and e commerce environment because that's how you're going to grow your product library. So you don't have to make this overly complicated. It doesn't have to be big. And while there are five pages on this list, the reality is you need about two of them to get started.

[00:11:34]: So to get started with your website and e commerce platform, the pages that you want to consider having are having a product dashboard or library or shop. So like if you go to yourdomain.com shop, you want to be able someone to be able to see all of the products that you have available for sale or for download. Then you want to have individual product pages because the individual product pages are how people buy. And then you need a way for people to know who you are and to create credibility. And so an about page is a very useful tool in E commerce, even though it's more traditionally associated with service businesses. The other thing you want to make sure of is people always have questions. They always need to be able to access support. So you need an FAQ support or contact page that has a mix of these pieces in it and a way for people to get in touch if they have questions.

[00:12:27]: And then from a buying and management of order standpoint, you need a member login or account page. Now most ecom platforms build all of this in and then you just customize it. And they're basically preset elements of your website. So these are not things that you have to overthink by default, installing, working in any of these platforms. If you're using WordPress for instance, and Ecwid or WooCommerce, they build all of these pages into your website for you and then you customize them. If you're using Shopify, all of these pages are pre built. It's just essentially the. These are the big things you need to consider up front because these are the pages that are going to create your foundation.

[00:13:10]: Now once you have thought about these pieces, it's time to talk about choosing a website platform. Now choosing a website platform has a number of different variables and we want to make sure that you are thinking about it in a way that's going to make your life easier, not more complicated. So key considerations that I want you to consider and think about as you go through this process. How easy is it to edit or add content? Can you start with a template? What is your ongoing overhead cost? What is your monthly or annual fee so that you understand how much you're going to be spending on the platform itself, not just managing it, but like what is the overhead cost for having your website? Can you manage it by yourself or do you need somebody to help you with it? Do you need a developer? Do you have the capacity to do this without writing code? Do you need guidance? Do you need support? And then what are the delivery mechanisms for your products? Do you need to be delivering courses through a course platform? Do you need to be delivering digital downloads? Can you do that through your website platform or do you need to do it through your email platform? Those are things that you want to make sure you're thinking about so that you make sure that everything is you're choosing the best foundational site and platform for you so that it can grow with you. So my recommended website platforms sort of run the gamut. So this is a broad list. I'm a personally a WordPress person, so I am a big believer in using self hosted WordPress with either Ecwid or WooCommerce. These are both e comm store environments that work inside WordPress.

[00:14:50]: The reason for this is self hosted WordPress has a much lower overhead operating cost and WooCommerce and Ecwid have really low platform fees. As long as you're not doing something really complex. If you're doing something complex with subscriptions and things like that, I would stay away from WooCommerce. Canva is great for getting started. It's sort of like having a real sales like you can build real sales pages in real life. Product pages that just link out to your purchase experience. The reason I say Canva for getting started is because you can't build a full website in Canva. But it's great for landing pages.

[00:15:24]: Shopify is sort of your all in all in one true E Comm environment. It's more expensive, it comes with a lot of different templates and options, but it can feel a little overwhelming to set up and it comes with that higher monthly fee. But if you want something that's sort of all in one and gives you a little less friction, Shopify can be a good choice. Squarespace is also another one that has an E Comm setup. It's a little more complicated to use, but people like the style and design of it. It's one of the ones that I put on my list, but I don't always recommend it on an ongoing basis just because again, like Shopify, it comes with a fairly high overhead cost. Then you also have funnel cart platforms. So if you are not excited about or not needing to have a website where you have a true shop, where somebody can go to the shop page and add multiple things to a single cart and check out, then a funnel cart platform is great because you have every product has its own sales page.

 [00:16:26]: Every product can have upsells and downsells and order bumps and things like that. So you can increase your average order value. But everybody if you want to buy a product, you have to go through checkout multiple times for each product. You can't go through and add everything to one cart and checkout. So if you want to do funnel Carts, I recommend ThriveCart and Sam Cart. The other one I recommend is called Fourth Wall. But Fourth Wall sort of has a funnel cart functionality and has a true ecom environment and it is completely separated from other website management. So you can integrate it into things like WordPress or to Squarespace.

[00:17:01]: But the reality is it's a fully posted environment to build a store. So it's kind of like Shopify with funnel components. And fourth Wall is built on the is predicated on the idea that they make money based on when you make money, which means that they take a fee when you sell, not an ongoing subscription fee. And so your fees to Fourth Wall will be higher as you scale. But if you're not making any money, Fourth wall is not charging you anything. So now the third thing we have to talk about is payment processors. So here's the thing. A payment processor is the way that you make money, which means that we want to make sure that you are set up to accept payment for any of your products, that everything is built to integrate with your chosen platforms and that you Are not running it into any risks of how your money is being handled and held.

[00:18:03]: So the number one rule of thumb is your payment processor should integrate with any platform you choose for both email and your website and e commerce environment. So the things you should consider is your money being automatically transferred to your bank or do you have to manually go in and do that for you? Is it a universally accepted form of payment online and does it have a good reputation? Now, in addition to it being universally accepted online, you might eventually or might balance digital products and physical spaces where you want to be able to take payment in person. So you might also want to consider, is there a way for you to accept payment in person, not just on a website? So the the three primary payment processors that you have that are universally accepted, with some caveats are Stripe, PayPal and Square. Now, Square is less universally accepted and used than Stripe and PayPal. Stripe is the number one payment processor online in the world. With a few exceptions, you can't take payment in India because of their high level of consistent fraud. PayPal is one that consumers love because all they do is log in and then they don't have to think about finding their bank information. They don't have to do any of those things.

[00:19:28]: However, PayPal as a seller comes with some risks and limitations. PayPal does not automatically transfer your money to your bank. Stripe transfers your money on a rolling 24 to 48 hour cadence. PayPal will hold your money in your PayPal account as your PayPal balance until you choose to move it. And sometimes they put an additional hold on it and it's harder to get your money out of your PayPal account. PayPal also is more likely to side with the consumer if you, if they file a complaint, you are more likely to lose your money to PayPal because they will refund the client, the customer. Square is owned by, Square is the parent company for Squarespace. And so they are the payment processor of choice for that.

[00:20:13]: While it is widely accepted in the United States, it is not as common and has less integration functionality with other platforms. So functionally, if you're looking at universal acceptance, Stripe and PayPal are your two go to payment processor choices. Now the other thing that we need to talk about is person to person payment platforms like Venmo, Apple Cash, Square Cash and Zelle. These are not considered digital product platforms consistently. They're mostly used in the service space, but they come with some different limitations and they have and you have to be really clear that if you are going to use any of these options to allow people to pay, you have to make very sure that you are using it as a business and not as an individual, because otherwise it's just sending money person to person and any and the transaction information is not protected, which doesn't protect you as a business. There are also some tax liabilities that come with using these platforms to take as a payment method. Again, as I said, this is not a common. These are not common payment processors in digital products.

[00:21:23]: They're more common in the service space, but they need to be covered in the context of it changes things. So now that you know about what you need, now we need to talk about how do you get started? What do we do next? So the first thing I want you to do is choose your email platform and craft two things. You're going to need a short welcome sequence to let people get to know you so they can also know what to expect. And you want to build out your first broadcaster campaign email. And that might be something that you craft that shares a new offer or is highlighting a new change in your business. But you want to put those two things together to give you a cadence and a structure so that you're well on your way to building automation. Then I want you to choose a website platform and craft your first product page or your about page, because those two things are going to be the needle movers your about page builds, know like and trust. Your product page obviously helps you monetize faster.

[00:22:24]: And then the first thing you need to do is the last thing you need to do is choose your payment processor. You need to make sure you have a way to make money. And once you've set up your payment processor, you need to connect it to your bank account. And those are the first two steps that happen with this. Because it takes about 24 to 48 hours for your business to go through the approval and verification process. And once you've selected your payment processor and set it up, you need to make sure that you have a way for your money to be delivered to you, which is your business bank account. So those are the three things that you fundamentally need to get started to make sure that you are well versed, well set up and ready for foundational success in growing your digital product business. You also have access to my minimum viable tech stack workbook, which takes you through evaluating and working through these different pieces, making sure that you pick the right the tool that's the right tool for you.

[00:23:22]: I'm always happy to answer questions, but the workbook will get you set up and on your way, and I hope that this helps you feel confident in building your tech stack for your new business.