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IE 465: How Selling Digital Products is a Game Changer for Veteran Bloggers with Kathi Rodgers
Tired of trading hours for the dollar by blogging? Here’s why digital products are going to be a game changer for you.
One of my favorite things to be able to do is to be able to interview clients that have seen tremendous success in ways that are a little bit outside of the box.
For a veteran blogger of 20 years, selling digital products was a leap for her. But as you’re going to see in this interview, it is a game changer and one that you need to be doing. Let’s dive into this interview.
How did you get started with selling digital products?
Kathy: I started blogging. Do you remember GeoCities? That’s how long ago it was. That was way before anybody really started blogging. It was like a precursor of Google. I started with that.
Later on, I moved to one that was called My Diary. That one was not very robust, but it was more of a blogging kind of platform rather than the other one had been. Then, I moved to having an old-fashioned blog, which was very modern at the time.
My domain name is almost 20 years old. I think it’ll be 20 years old next year. I’m a dinosaur. It’s kind of crazy. That is OakHillHomestead.com. Recently, I have started a podcast called Homegrown, Your Backyard Garden Podcast, and a second website, which is KathiRodgers.com.
Jenny: Your journey is always one of my favorites because we talk about how you have to be on WordPress and have all these plugins, but you’ve been on Blogger for how many years would you say now?
Kathy: Yes, almost 20 years.
Jenny: You’ve made it work for you and you continue to do that.
When you first started, how were you looking to monetize your site?
Kathy: When I first started, you didn’t make money from blogging. It was just sharing information. Then, ads came along, and I thought this was wonderful.
Homesteading has always been, or it started out to be, a very frugal mindset. You could support yourself without spending money on anything.
I realized early on that an audience that wasn’t really going to spend a whole lot of money. That wasn’t the point of why they were there.
Ads were wonderful because I didn’t have to ask anybody to spend money. I got paid just by the people that were coming. I was trying to be as helpful as I could and reached a lot of people and did quite well with ads.
Then things changed as they always do. Every year something in blogging changes. People started getting products, making products, creating products, classes, courses, videos, and so on and so forth.
I have moved along with that. Then, ad income kind of tanked there last year, including mine. Even though I had been thinking about doing digital products and had done a few, it then became more necessary to do it in order to sustain myself.
What was the first digital product you created, and what did you learn from that experience?
Kathy: There was a first product. My audience consisted of gardeners and new goat owners. That made up almost 50% of my audience, the goat people.
I took several of my best ranking, most popular goat posts and turned them into printables, PDFs, mini ebooks and those kinds of things. Each was maybe 10 pages.
I sold them at an Etsy shop. I started out with a dollar a piece because it was almost the same information that was available for free on my website.
I felt bad asking people to spend money on it. Now, Etsy’s fees have gone up and they have forced my prices to go up as well. I still sell those. I sell them as a bundle instead of individually, which is better both for my customers and for me.
Jenny: I think one of the things we’ve learned over time, right, is that it feels funny asking them for something that is out there for free, but we always say that if it’s all in one place, that is the value right? That’s why a digital product, which you created, just makes a ton of sense.
I think a lot of people struggle with what product to get started with. I think going to your most popular content and finding a way to reuse it in some way, whether it is the ebook of the information, a PDF that they can fill out worksheets, or whatever it might be. It is one of the best ways to get started with a digital product.
People are searching for that. Then, it’s easy to interlink your store within that content because you’re already talking about it within there. People are finding it, coming to it, and looking for that information.
How do you decide what type of digital product to create?
Jenny: Tell everyone about the new product that you’ve created because it’s one of my favorites. I’m a customer and absolutely love it.
Kathy: This one is called the Safe Harbor Emergency Binder System. It came into being because I had another very popular post that was all about how to put together an emergency binder.
One of the people in our mastermind said, “Why aren’t you selling that?” It took me a while to get around to it, but I did finally get it done. It is now live and doing reasonably well.
It is about putting all of your family’s information into a three-ring binder, or something else if that works for you. It does not include the binder, it is just a suggestion, but that’s because I want it to fit into your lifestyle. I need it to be portable.
We live in Tornado Alley. I want to be able to pick that up and take it into our storm shelter with us. I want to be able to put it in the truck when we have to evacuate because of a wildfire, which we have done.
I married a military man. We have moved over 30 times since we got married. I stopped counting at 30 times. I really can’t tell you exactly how many it’s been now. I know it’s more than 30, but I don’t know how many.
It always made me cringe when I would watch our filing cabinet be put on the moving truck because it was out of my control. I’m a bit of a control freak. I was worried that something would happen to that information. That’s your life; everything. That’s your identity. It can’t be replaced.
Anybody that’s had their identity stolen can attest to that. It’s just horrible. That’s one thing I haven’t had happen yet. I probably won’t because I’m very careful.
We moved once and we did not get something back that was ours. They lost something. We moved another time and ended up with something that did not belong to us. These things happen, and that was what worried me.
I developed this system that had everything in a binder. It had our birth certificates, our personal information, our insurance policies. It had everything in it. I could keep that in the car with me when we moved.
That was the beginning. It has morphed into something much bigger, but that was how it started out.
Jenny: I don’t live where I am going to have to evacuate or any sort of emergencies from where I live just outside Charlotte. For me, I’m at an age now where my daughters are starting to drive. There’s more complications in all of the paperwork and all of the information.
If something were to happen to me, I know my husband wouldn’t have the foggiest idea as to where to start with things, even simple things like passwords and paying bills. Your binder to me was a godsend.
Instead of losing sleep over the thought that my husband’s not going to know where anything is, I was able to put it in one place. You organized it. You told me what to put in there.
Recently, he had messaged me about needing a policy number. What would have taken me probably two hours to find, I turned around, grabbed it on my binder, took a quick screenshot of it, and sent it to him within three minutes. That’s not something I ever could have done in the past.
As I was running that mastermind, I am someone that isn’t necessarily your target audience, because I don’t live somewhere where I need to evacuate. For me, it was the peace of mind. I’m on the outskirts of your target audience, which I think is important for people to understand.
Just because you go into it with a very targeted audience (which you should!), you’re going to end up with these outliers that realize it will work for them. They need that. So I just love the way that your binder came together.
How important is email marketing in selling digital products successfully?
Kathy: Oh, it is so important. That is the main way that I reach people, other than the blog posts.
Search isn’t what isn’t what it used to be. AI just gives you answers instead of sending them to your website.
I don’t do a lot of social media. It has always been an uphill struggle for me. Homesteading is a crowded space these days. To get into that algorithm so that people see your posts, it’s just almost impossible. I don’t do a lot of it.
I spend time on email marketing instead. Once I get them on my list, I can talk to them about whatever. I can tell them the benefits, I can teach them a little bit about it, I can show them why it’s important. That is the heart of my business.
Jenny: Your email marketing, your subscribers are coming to you from your podcast, your anchor content, right? Your podcast has to repurpose into a blog post that then has an opt-in for them to come onto your list so that you can continue to grow it.
Because as we often talk about, the email list is the one thing that you own. Whereas, when it comes to social media, it’s not yours. Those algorithms are going to impact it every single day, You never know how it’s going to change, or go away for that matter.
What’s the biggest mindset shift entrepreneurs need to make to successfully sell digital products?
Kathy: I liked using ads because I didn’t have to ask people to spend money. You have to get over that. That’s the only way in this particular day and age that you’re going to manage.
That was a big shift. Also, moving from printables, which is where I started, very inexpensive ones, that had no place for people to go. That was all I had.
You have pointed that out many times. You have to have a customer journey. You have to have something for them to go from and to. That’s what I’m working on now. I did develop a set of goat record sheets that led in from those little printables that started out at a dollar a piece so they had something else to purchase.
They really don’t have anywhere else to go from that. I don’t have goats anymore. It’s still a big part of my audience. I still talk to those people and know a lot about goats. They don’t take that away from you. I don’t write about them anymore.
It’s just moving on with the times, with how the market has changed, how the online space has changed, knowing that you are going to have to ask people for money, which is a little bit difficult. But that’s the big mindset change that you have to make, is just moving on.
Jenny: When you say you are asking people for money, what do you do in order to get them to purchase? Are you saying “buy, buy, buy, buy?” Or is it more that you show them that you have the solution and make an offer?
It doesn’t have to be that salesy push. I think that’s the struggle that a lot of entrepreneurs, especially women, have with selling products. They feel like I’m a used car salesman, I’m pushing something.
But like I said, even when I was talking about your binder for myself, the binder is that peace of mind. I would have paid probably double what you charged for it because it is that peace of mind for me.
I didn’t know how to start. I had 85 different things, 17 different filing cabinets, and folders all over the place. You gave me a clear step-by-step of what needs to be put into it, how to put it together to make it useful for me. That is worth it. You didn’t even have to sell it. It was the solution. I needed that.
I think we need to get past. It doesn’t need to be a hard sell. You need to give them that peace of mind.
You need to show them that you’re going to save them money. You need to show them that you’re providing them with a solution that they really, truly desire. When you do that for people, it’s a natural “Heck yes! I need this.”
Kathy: I’m sure we’ve all been there. My grandmother once sent me a good sized check. We needed it. My husband was at work, and I put it in a safe place so I could show it to him when he got home.
What happened? I forgot where that safe place was in the space of about two hours. Both of us tore the house apart looking for this. Where would I have put this?
It was on a bulletin board on the wall. We didn’t think of looking there because we didn’t have a system in place. We didn’t know where to look. We didn’t have a place to put things.
Even now, I’ve started this binder system years ago. It’s developed and moved on. We still get things in the mail or do something and think we need to put this in the binder. Why isn’t this in the binder?
We’re still coming up with things that need to go in there. It’s kind of a living document. You just add things. You have to update it every so often too, take out the old expired stuff, and put in the new copies. But, it is so helpful. I have gotten to be so passionate about this because it has saved our marriage,
“I need the car title.”
“I think I gave that to you when you got it.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did.”
Now we know where it is. It has been very helpful in all areas of our lives. Being passionate about it and having a product that is going to help people, that takes away that fear of selling.
Jenny: A hundred percent. You think about adding things to it. My oldest daughter is of the age where she was able to get her permit. I had to go back to the DMV, which is always a nightmare, but I had to go back two or three times. I kept coming with the wrong paperwork.
If I had the binder and had checked off my list…now everything for her license is in the binder when she’s able to take her test because I know exactly what she needs and I’m going to make sure have it so I don’t have to do the DMV three times and waste hours of my life.
Kathy: Real ID was another thing where we had to have all of those papers that explained everything. Every time you change your name, you need things.
If you have had a divorce or whatever and you got remarried again, you have to have all of those papers. A lot of women don’t want that paper or a reminder of that. They had to go and get it anyway. Just hide it, put it in the back, don’t look at it. But you need to have it.
Life Happens Printable
This is a free 2-page printable called Life Happens. It includes the most important information for your family – your name, address, spouses name, phone numbers, employer information, household information – where to find the spare keys and where the shut-offs are for your utilities – just in case! It also has the name of your bank and so on.
Download the Life Happen printable here.
It even has where to find your spare keys to your house. We all have them and who knows where we put them. I have a drawer full of keys right now that I don’t know what they go to. We have changed some doors, some locks, and I really need to go through them and make sure that the ones that are there are the important ones.
Two years ago, we went out of town on vacation. We gave the key to a friend of mine who was going to come and take care of our cat and water the garden and so on and so forth.
The first day she texted me and she said, “I can’t get in the house. “
And I said, “Why not?”
She says, “Because you locked the storm door and I don’t have a key for it.”
You have to think of these things. Now I have a list. If I’m ever going to leave keys with somebody, I either have to make sure that I did not lock the storm door or that they have the key to it.
These things still can still come up. They still happen, and you learn from each one. You’re never going to make that mistake again. This also has a spot for a gate code, if you have a gate that you need to get through to get into your apartment or your house.
It is free. All you have to do is sign up and you will be able to print it, fill it out and keep it in a safe place.
Maybe tape it to the inside of a kitchen cupboard door because there’s some things on there that maybe you don’t want everybody to be able to see.
If somebody just randomly walks in your house, a repairman or whatever, you don’t want that on your refrigerator where everybody puts their important information and people probably know to go look there. You don’t want it there. You want it to be where everybody else in your family knows where it is, including your adult children.
Jenny: My daughter is getting to an age where she’s going to be driving and she’s going to be able to help with certain things. That would be important where all of this kind of stuff is because it is.
We’re at that stage where she’s going to take on a little bit more responsibility, knowing we’re all right. I love it. We’re going to link to that in the blog post as well as in the show notes so that people can make sure that they get that.
Kathy, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your story. Just knowing that you’ve been doing this for 20 years and have gone through the ups and downs. You hear so many bloggers that will get frustrated over the changes of AI, over algorithms, and the way that ads now work.
I think the biggest takeaway that I want people to be able to have from this episode is that your mindset has to be as a business owner. I need to know how I’m going to monetize.
Come up with a plan to have the content that is going to sell the products and services instead of going after what’s viral and what’s trending. It’s not anywhere because we all did that, right?
We went after those crazy page views. We put up that crazy content that sort of was our niche. It was a trend, but now it’s dead and gone. It doesn’t serve us anymore.
I think it’s really important when you start thinking like a business owner, have your own products or services, have these digital products so that you can continually make money and have the content that’s going to easily connect with it and it’s going to be great. I appreciate you.
Kathy: Thank you for having me.
Action Steps:
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