A digital product is a single item like a template, planner, guide, mini-course, ebook, membership, etc. A digital product ecosystem is a connected system built from your expertise where each product has a defined job and leads to the next.
Why the difference matters:
Your digital products can make up your digital product ecosystem as long as they are connected to what you do and lead to your offers. But having a bunch of random digital products does not mean you have an ecosystem. Confusing the two is why hiring a designer or someone that can make something look good for you leads to a product that may not sell. You need strategy behind them.
When I tell people I am an instructional designer, I usually get a blank stare. I get it. It’s not a common title you hear. But when I tell someone I design digital products based on someone’s expertise, it makes a lot more sense. There is more to it though. An instructional designer can have different expertise too. I happen to be really good at strategy and organizing a business owner’s knowledge into a digital product ecosystem.
What makes a Digital Product Ecosystem?
We know a digital product is more than what you will create in a night while you watch TV. It’s not your average Canva template you are throwing up on your website and hoping for the best. A digital product is one format or file. You probably have one in your business. A freebie, a workbook, a client prep guide, a template of some kind, or a mini-course. This is design and something you can handle or hand off easily.
A digital product ecosystem is not a single file. Every piece has a defined job that leads to another step. We’ve talked about this for a while on Katy Calls BS. I define the four layers you need in your business:
- Authority: The first layer and builds trust with your audience before they work with you.
- Support: This layer helps existing clients get better results.
- Core: Your main product sits here and is tied to your primary transformation.
- Expansion: The final layer reaching people you may never work with one-on-one.
An ecosystem is strategy first, design second. Instructional designers look at what the audience needs and then design.
Why the mix-up happens:
Templates are all over the places and so are the posts about how easy it is to create them. It seems easy enough, right? Hiring someone to create them for you or doing it yourself feels like progress. You see the result of your work and check it off the list.
“Make a digital product” and “build a digital product” are NOT the same.
Business owners are not shown the value of a digital product ecosystem often. We think, oh digital products! Money, cool! If only, it were that easy.
With a flooded market, the social media delusion, and desire to have extra income, we want to believe it IS that easy. A lot of times there isn’t a strategy behind the digital products selling on platforms, it’s luck. Or they really are just pretty.
Design vs. Strategy:
Design answers: does this look good?
Strategy answers: does this work? Does it lead somewhere?
You need the person who is going to answer both design and strategy questions. If you have an website that works and leads to your offers but doesn’t look great, you are missing something. The same thing happens with digital products. Sure, they work if the design is there. Imagine if the strategy was there too.
Let’s say you are creating an client onboarding guide. Built as a standalone product with no context, it’s a generic PDF with a few of your brand colors, but otherwise pretty basic. Built as the entry point to your authority layer, free or low cost, tied to the questions you get from new clients, it becomes the thing that brings someone into your world. Now they know how you think and it takes them to your paid offer. That is packaging your expertise instead of having a random product.
Why does this matter more for service business owners?
Digital products for service businesses run on different rules. What you are selling is your experience, judgment, process, your specific way of getting something a result. A product that doesn’t connect back to that, one that doesn’t prove your expertise or lead somewhere is competing purely on looks in a market full of well designed products. That’s a fight you don’t need.
A 4-Question filter before you hire:
Run any product idea through these before you hire.
- What do I know that most people in my industry get wrong or oversimplify? If you can’t answer this specifically, you’re not ready to design anything yet. You need to get some clarity.
- What job is this product doing? Bringing people in, supporting clients, building authority, or extending your reach. “Make money” isn’t a job, it’s a wish.
- What does this lead to? What comes before it, what comes after it, and for whom. If that answer is “nothing,” it’s the file sitting in a folder, not part of a business.
- Am I hiring someone to help me execute a decision or make a decision for me? A designer should never be answering question one through three for you.
If you land on “not sure yet” for any of these, that’s a good starting point!
What now?
Where does this fit into your business? Generic vs. specific, packaging vs. substance is the reason I wanted to create Behind the BS. It’s the reason we are seeing a shift back to real content. People want the connection to humans. I think we always did but we lost the plot for a second.
Don’t forget about all that you bring to the table. If you are staring at a list of products you want to build or like most, have digital products on your list, book a Digital Product Infrastructure Audit. It’s a deep dive into your business and where digital products can fit.
