From Naija with Byte: How to sell Digital Products in Nigeria

Hello my Naija people! I’m glad you found this blog and are interested in making money by harnessing the power of digital products. Guess what? You’re not alone. Many Nigerians, especially young people, are keen on this new type of online business – how to sell digital products in Nigeria.

It’s no secret that digital products offer a great way to diversify your income, especially in this brutal economic season Nigerians are facing, with the crippling inflation of goods and services. So, how do you come up with a workable idea for a digital product which you can sell in Nigeria and cash out big?

That’s what this article is all about. I can tell you with confidence that this is a great way of earning cool cash, all from the comfort of your home, without the hassles of a 9-5 job.

So, let’s get started.

Table Of Contents

Digital Product Ideas for Nigerians

Here is a list of digital product ideas that you can implement. Some of them may not work in Nigeria, but you have to conduct research to determine which ones are in demand in Nigeria.

Online Courses and Tutorials

Online courses are a big deal, especially with the impact of COVID-19. A lot of people took to the internet for new opportunities. You could develop courses in areas such as tech, business, language learning, or creative arts.

The good thing about a course is that you can create it just once, and it will make money for you forever! I have 2 courses on Udemy, and they make money for me every month.

Other sites where you could sell your courses include Kobocourse, Selar, Thinkific, Skillshare, etc.

E-books and Guides

e-books present a huge opportunity to make money by putting together your knowledge and experience in an e-book format and sell to hungry buyers who need your product. As usual, just create it once and cash out forever, as long as your knowledge remains relevant to the society.

Mobile Apps

This is an area few people venture into. If you can code, you could create a mobile app which people can use, then monetize it by ads. This is a great way to generate passive income for yourself.

You can upload your app to Google Play Store for the public to use.

Digital Art and Graphics

If you are gifted and skilled in graphic design and illustration, you could sell digital illustrations, graphic designs, templates, or printables (documents which people can download and print out for themselves to use). Printables include business cards, complement cards, invitation cards, etc.

You could sell on platforms like Creative Fabrica, Etsy, and Creative Market. Etsy is not open to Nigerians, but you can sell on the other places.

Music and Audio Products

You could produce and sell music tracks, sound effects for comedy skits or movie productions. A good place to list your product is Audiojungle.

Audiobooks

This is great for authors, and it involves turning your book into an audiobook. The bad news is that the popular audiobook platforms like ACX don’t support Nigeria. However, it’s a great digital product idea.

Software and Tools

I love this digital product idea. This is one of the most rewarding, and it’s also a bit difficult to set up. You’re going to need to be a developer or coder. If you’re good, you could develop software solutions, plugins, or tools for specific purposes.

I know of a WordPress plugin listed on CodeCanyon which has made the owner a substantial amount. This is just from one plugin alone (see photo below).

This plugin is just a form which allows you to calculate or estimate costs. The form could serve many purposes such as service cost estimator, mortgage calculator, loan calculator, etc.

So, let’s do some mathematics. If this product has sold 5,789 times, then it has made roughly 5,789 x 49 = $283,661 or two hundred and eighty-three thousand, six hundred and sixty-one dollars!!!

Now let’s translate that to Naira and it will give us at the current exchange rate of N1500 to a dollar: wait for it, 283,661 x 1500 = N425,491,500.

How’s that for passive income guys? This plugin was published on 26^th April 2014. This is 10 years it’s been on sale. That’s an average of 42.5 million every year!

Can you beat that?

This is not his day job; this is just something he created once and uploaded to a marketplace. Let’s say the marketplace fees are like 30%, he still gets a substantial amount every month. How cool is that!

You could create plugins for any of the CMS platforms like Joomla, WordPress, Prestashop, Magento, etc.

You could also create a tool that people could pay some money to use, such as SEO tools, website builders, AI tools like photo editors, PDF editing, accounting platforms, etc.

SAAS

SAAS, or software as a service, is when you create an online application which does something useful, and you make it subscription based. This is one of the most popular digital product models presently, and you can see good examples like Chat GPT Premium, SEO tools like SEMRush, Ahrefs, remove.bg, tools like Answerthepublic.com, and many others.

There are tons of websites which offer their online applications for a monthly or yearly fee, and they are highly profitable.

You are going to need to learn how to build online apps, or you can hire a developer for a fee if you want to venture into this line.

Website Themes and Templates

If you are a developer, you could design and sell website themes or templates for platforms like WordPress or Shopify. There is a huge market for this kind of digital products, because these platforms are growing in popularity in an ever-increasing measure.

You can sell your themes and templates on Themeforest for a nice passive income stream.

Stock Photography and Videos

You can create and sell high-quality stock photos, videos, or animation clips if you have a background or skills in photography. A lot of websites like Shutterstock, Alamy, iStock Photos, 123RF, and many others exist to sell your products to their customers.

You will need a high-quality camera and a laptop to make the most out of this digital product business idea.

Print-on-Demand Products

You could design products such as T-shirts, mugs, or posters that are printed on demand when sold. This is great idea if you have an engaged audience such as a Facebook group, a blog, a YouTube channel, or an Instagram page with lots of followers.

You need graphic design skills to be able to pull this off effectively, by the way.

Membership Sites

Create a site with exclusive content, forums, or resources for a monthly fee. This is especially good if you are a professional in your field. You could offer a course through your website, which is only accessible to members.

The thing is, most Nigerians don’t like this type of product. You have to be very strategic in offering this type of product, and make sure that your product is very valuable and there is a market for it

Digital Planners and Journals

I’m not sure whether this type of product will sell in Nigeria, for the simple reason that Nigerians hardly journal, like Americans and Europeans. However, if you can come up with these kinds of products, I’ll encourage you to sell on marketplaces like Creative Fabrica, Creative Market, Etsy, Amazon KDP, etc.

Language Learning Tools

Develop language learning apps to teach people about your language. For instance, you could create a video course or app to teach your language. You could easily sell it to people who would love to learn. You need to be proficient in the language, however.

Resume and Cover Letter Templates

You can create professional and modern resume and cover letter templates to sell to Nigerians. Most people still use plain 1-page resumes in Nigeria. You can market your stylish and beautifully designed resume template to them and cash out.

Past JAMB/NECO Exam Questions

Students in Nigeria often demand for these past questions to enable them prepare for exams. You could compile and package these past questions into an e-book and sell to them.

Research what people want to buy

Now, here’s the fun part. This is where you explore what you can create and sell. At this stage, you have to research the internet and find out what Nigerians are looking for. You know, it’s quite tempting to jump in immediately and start creating something which you want.

It doesn’t work that way. What if there’s no market for what you want to sell? That means you end up wasting your time and money. You don’t want that do you? So here are great ways to find out what people want to buy.

Facebook ads

Look at ads on Facebook. What kind of digital products are you seeing the ads on Facebook? That should give you an idea of what’s selling.

Google keyword planner

If you know how to use this tool, it can give you some insight on what Nigerians are searching for online. Here’s the link to Google Keyword Planner.

Google Trends

This is another useful tool which shows you exactly what people are searching for on Google. The video below will explain better (it’s about 9MB).

Facebook Groups/Pages

You can easily find product ideas through Facebook Groups and pages. By interacting with other people, you can zero in on what’s in demand and create a product to satisfy that demand.

The key here is to create a product which is in high demand. If you negate this phase, you might end up creating a product which people are not interested in, thereby wasting your time and money.

Let’s move on to the process.

The Process of Creating your Digital Product

First of all, you need to decide which format in which you’ll deliver your digital product. Is it going to be an e-book, or a video course? Are you going to sell it on your own website, or a marketplace like Creative Fabrica?

Once you decide on these, you’ll need to prepare for the actual creation process.

Here’s a list of things you need generally, to create a digital product:

An idea
A PC
Internet connection
Cash for marketing

You already have your idea (be sure there is demand for it). You need a PC, whether laptop or desktop, and you’ll need to be proficient in how computers work. If not, you’ll have to contract the product creation to another person, and this can cost you some decent amount of money.

You also need an internet connection, and some money for running ads. I recommend Facebook ads or X (formerly Twitter) ads. Unless you have an audience, like a Facebook group or page, or even a YouTube channel with thousands of subscribers, you will need to advertise.

Creating your digital product

This stage is straightforward. Be sure to use simple language in your approach. Don’t use jargon, unless it’s a technical field.

Talk to your audience in a relatable manner, in that way they will feel as if you’re talking to them. You may need to record your screen if you’re creating a course, or screenshots if it’s a PDF you’re creating.

Once you’re done creating your product, the next step is marketing.

Marketing your product

You need to have a marketing strategy. I repeat: have a working marketing strategy. Nigerians are one of the hardest places to sell things to online. This is because of fraud and scams which permeate the online space.

If you are selling things online, you will relate with what I’m saying here. Below are screenshots of an ad for a digital product (a PDF containing information to treat ailments using herbs from plants). Now this PDF contains all the information, and will be delivered once a person completes payment.

From these screenshots you can see that many people are willing to buy, but they are afraid of getting scammed! The seller is collecting payment using Selar.co, a reputable platform for hosting courses and other digital products.

Build a funnel
Run ads based on your funnel
Scale your ad budget

Build a funnel

A marketing funnel is a strategy for getting people to engage with your offer, and guide them through the process of completing the sale. Now when it comes to selling digital products, you are not seeing your customer face to face. You need a marketing funnel.

Your funnel will depend on the type of product you are selling. For instance, here are two popular funnels you can utilize:

Facebook ad > Landing page > Payment > Delivery

Facebook ad > WhatsApp > Payment > Delivery

A landing page is a page designed to minimize distractions and focus the user’s attention on the benefits of your product to them, and provides clear instructions on how to purchase and get the product delivered to them.

Run ads

Your funnel starts with your ad. I’m not going to go deep on this aspect. You can watch YouTube videos on how to craft effective ads on Facebook. There are tons of tutorials on that subject there.

Running ads effectively requires a lot of experience and knowledge about how Facebook ads work. I encourage you to learn more about this topic by consulting with an ad expert, if you can afford to pay for their services.

Scale your ad budget

This is where you double down on your ads once you notice that it’s working. The key here is to constantly monitor your ads and increase your budget where necessary.

My recommended strategy for selling your digital product in Nigeria

Here’s my recommended strategy for selling digital products in Nigeria:

Online Course

If you are selling a course, post it on a platform like Udemy. Don’t sell it through your own website because it might not sell. Nigerians like buying from an established and trusted brand and platform like Udemy, instead of through a new website with no reputation. This not just unique to Nigerians, but to humans everywhere.

When I published my online course on my now defunct website Design Squared (www.designsquared.com.ng), I did a series of adverts on Facebook for weeks. Guess what, no one bought the course, even though I priced it at N5000!

I spent about N15,000 on ads alone, and my funnel was something like this:

Facebook Lead ad > Email Newsletter > Freebie > Course Offer on Website > Enrolments

After the frustration of this experience, I immediately took down the website, uploaded the course to Udemy and guess what, in the first month the course made me $21.45 (see screenshot below)

Till date, many Nigerians have signed up to my course on Udemy. If I had continued to try to market to them through my unknown website, I wouldn’t have made this much money, if any at all.

See the screenshot below for how much this course has earned so far.

E-Book in PDF format

If you are going to sell an e-book in PDF format, my recommended funnel is something like this:

Facebook ad > WhatsApp > Delivery > Payment

Now you might say, what if they scam me by refusing to pay after I have sent them the e-book? That’s a legit question, but there’s a workaround.

The solution is this: make sure that you protect your e-book with what we call an open/permission password. This comes in 2 levels, open password and permission password.

The open password allows the user to open the file after inputting the password, while the permission password does not allow the file to be printed or copying the contents.

You can easily achieve this step by uploading the file to a website called PDF2Go (www.pdf2go.com/protect-pdf). It allows you to protect your PDF for free. If you have Adobe Acrobat Professional, it can do this too.

Explain properly to your customers in your Facebook ad that you are offering payment after delivery to them. When they are in your WhatsApp chat, explain to them that the file is password-protected, and that they will get the password once they make payment.

In this way, you will sell your product with confidence, and your customers will also buy with confidence.

Scaling your business

Like I said earlier, you can scale your marketing by allocating more money into your best performing ads. Facebook has such a huge audience and data which you can leverage to make money with your digital product in Nigeria.

Concluding Thoughts

How helpful was this article? If you have questions, don’t forget to drop a comment using the form below. Better still, you can contact me directly for any question that may be bothering you.

We win together!

From Naija with Byte: How to sell Digital Products in Nigeria