In this article, you’re going to get the perfect game plan to start selling digital products this year. So, we’re going to get into it a little bit, but if you’re feeling like you’re behind or you missed the boat, nothing could be more wrong. This is a perfect game plan to start doing it and exactly what to do to start from scratch.
And the good news is, you’re also going to get all the things you wouldn’t do, so you can save yourself some time, trial, error, pain, headache, blood, sweat, and tears.
There are five steps—basically, five things. The fifth step is the most important. (It’s “the brain” step.)
Step 1: Do a Happy Dance (Yes, Seriously)
Step one is actually to do a happy dance.
You’re going to do a happy dance because you are getting started in 2026, not 2016. Let me tell you why.
Why 2026 is a great time to start
The algorithms—the online space—have never been more welcoming to beginners and more difficult for people with bigger followings who have been doing this for a long time.
Algorithms back in the day worked like this: if you had 200 followers, the only people that could see your content were the 200 people who followed you. If you posted a picture or a photo, people who didn’t follow you would never see that photo. Your content would only be seen by your followers.
So if you had no followers, you had to work very hard for each one of those followers one by one by one. And consequently, you had to work very, very hard for your traffic one by one by one.
Versus now?
People who have followings of 200 people can have Reels that go viral and get millions of views or even thousands of views, even if they have a very little following. Your follower count has never mattered less. The barrier for entry for you if you are new and you’re just getting started has never been easier.
So get excited.
Step 2: Create One Specific Product for One Specific Problem
Second thing is one specific product.
You’re going to make one specific product that solves one specific problem.
Your digital product could be a course. It could be PDFs. But what you don’t want to do is make a product that teaches a lot of different things. A lot of newbies make that mistake. They think that their digital product has to be really complicated, or has to be overly filled with videos.
Every digital product isn’t going to solve every problem. Your digital product should solve one problem.
Example of “specific” (what this looks like)
A very specific example would be a course that is not “how to make money online,” and is not “how to make money with Instagram,” but is instead:
“How to get more sales with your Instagram Stories.”
A very, very, very specific offer solves a very specific problem. People know exactly what they’re going to get when they grab it.
So: one specific product solving one specific problem.
Step 3: Post Two Times a Day on Instagram (Exact Schedule)
Remember: this is the “starting from scratch” plan. No followers. No audience. No nothing.
Post two times a day on Instagram.
Here is the exact schedule:
The daily posting schedule
- 7:00 a.m. — Post a Reel
- 12:00 p.m. — Post a Carousel
Why those times?
Extensive testing shows best results with 7 a.m. Reel + 12 p.m. Carousel. These always do really well.
Why post at all?
Because:
Reels and carousels = traffic.
Traffic = sales.
If the goal is to get sales quickly, to make money quickly, to see success with digital products quickly, you need traffic. You need people to see that offer—the one specific product you made.
Think of your digital product like it’s in a store. We need to get people to go to the store. That’s your traffic.
Traffic is people coming to your checkout page to decide if they want to buy it or not. The more people looking at your checkout page, the more sales you make.
What should you put in the Reel and Carousel?
The content is simple:
- A little bit of footage
- A little bit of text that speaks to what it is you do
- A clear call-to-action that tells people to comment a specific keyword (for example: “comment GUIDE”)
Then, when people comment that keyword, they receive a DM (direct message) that leads them to a checkout page.
What this looks like in practice (written version)
Instead of “look here” or “you can see,” here’s the flow in plain terms:
- You post a Reel with simple footage + text that describes the outcome your product helps with.
- In the caption (and/or on-screen text), you say something like: “Comment ‘GUIDE’ and I’ll send it to you.”
- People comment GUIDE (or your chosen keyword).
- They automatically receive a DM (using an automation tool), and that DM contains the link to your checkout page.
- That DM link creates traffic to your checkout page—traffic that can become sales.
The same approach works for carousels:
- Build the carousel around the problem and result.
- End with a CTA: “Comment ‘HACK’ and I’ll send it.”
- DM → checkout page → traffic → sales.
You’re going to do two of these every single day. If you’d rather start with a few a week, that’s fine. But you can work up to two a day pretty quickly.
Step 4: Track One Goal — 100 Checkout Page Views Per Day
Step four is a goal:
Your target: 100 checkout page views every day
A lot of people don’t realize this, but you need more people to look at your checkout page than you think.
Your goal is to get 100 people every single day to view your checkout page.
When you do that, you’ll be making sales every single day—around $100, $200, $300 every single day when you work up to that. It’s not a goal you hit right away, but it’s your first “big girl” target.
At first, when you’re just getting started, you don’t know your numbers. You don’t know your data. And then you realize: “Oh, I only had 40 people view my checkout page this whole month,” but that’s why you’re not really getting enough sales.
As your reels and carousels start to build traction, you will get more and more clicks to your checkout page:
- From your link in bio (put your checkout page link in your bio),
- And from the comments people leave under your Reels (which trigger the DM link).
Step 5 (Most Important): Work on Your Mindset
The last step is going to seem kind of silly, but it’s actually the most important one:
Work on your mindset.
The more you work on your mindset—the more you work on literally understanding and accepting the reality that you can do this—the better.
Because if you don’t believe that this will work for you, you’re right. It’s not going to.
Book recommendations for mindset + money beliefs
- The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks
- You Are a Badass at Making Money
- Dollars Flow to Me Easily by Richard Dots
Understanding how money works, how abundance works—even if you’re practical and you like tracking click-through rates, views, and data—this is the secret. This is the key. It is the most important thing.
If you are struggling to believe that you can make this work, it’s not going to happen for you.
