How To Sell Products With A Small (Or No) Audience
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Want to learn how to sell products with a small audience—or even no audience at all?
You’re in the right place!
In this guide, I share how to sell products with a small audience and make sales from day one, even if you have no followers or email list. By the end, you’ll understand:
- Why you don’t need a big audience to make sales—and what actually matters instead
- 10 strategies for selling products—even if you’re starting from scratch
- The best platforms to sell your products (and how to choose the right one for your offer)
- How to get your new product in front of buyers—without relying on SEO
- Creative ways to boost revenue—and turn product sales into passive income
- And more!
You’ll also see real-world examples of how I made sales with zero traffic, and how you can do the same.
💻 Bonus: This episode of The Profitable Travel Blogger Podcast includes options for learning through audio, video, or a text guide below!
💡Quick product selling tips:
-Lead with a product-first mindset where you create the offer now and use your content to attract buyers
-Leverage the power of collaboration to get your product in front of your target audience quickly
-Secure media wins with press tours and expert pitches to build authority fast
🎁 Bonus: Grab my free Profitable Product Launch Challenge, which will show you step-by-step how to create and launch a digital product with ease.
How To Sell Products With A Small Audience [Audio & Video]
How To Make Sales Without An Audience [Step-By-Step Guide]
A new approach to selling products without a big audience
If you think you need a big audience to sell products, think again. The truth is, you don’t need thousands of pageviews or followers to start making money—you just need the right strategy.
I’ve talked a lot about the power of creating your own products. And a common question I get is: “But what if I have a small audience—or even no audience at all?”
As bloggers, we often treat our websites like publications, focusing on driving traffic to monetize through ads and affiliates. The typical approach is to start from zero, then use strategies like SEO and Pinterest to grow pageviews over time, gradually increasing earnings.
But there’s another way: a product-first mindset. 📚🧠
Instead of waiting for traffic to build, you create a product and actively put it in front of your target audience, using your content and other strategic methods.
You can still monetize with ads, affiliates, and paid brand collaborations, but the focus shifts from waiting for pageviews to actively getting eyes on your brand and sales page.
🎉 Also, don’t forget to grab access to my free Profitable Product Launch Challenge! In just 5 days, you’ll learn how to plan, create, and launch a digital product that grows your income—on autopilot!
My experience launching a new business
I’m speaking from experience, as along with my travel blogs Jessie on a Journey and Epicure & Culture, I run NYC Photo Journeys, a site I launched in 2013 to promote my NYC photo tours.
I never planned to start a tour company, but after blogging on Jessie on a Journey—which I launched in 2011—readers kept asking me to show them around New York. Since I wrote about the destination often and was a local, the demand was already there.
That’s how I came up with the idea—by listening to my audience.
Quick note: While paying attention to your audience’s questions and needs is a powerful way to come up with product ideas, you don’t have to wait to have an audience you’re interacting with.
You can also monitor conversations in online communities, forums, and social media to identify common pain points. Or, you can take a different approach: create a product first and then build an audience around it.
Now, when I launched NYC Photo Journeys, I leveraged my small but growing audience from Jessie on a Journey. However, I knew I wanted it to stand on its own with a separate website—something I could eventually sell without my name attached.
Basically, I was starting NYC Photo Journeys from scratch, with a brand new website that had zero pageviews and social media channels that had zero followers.
Best ways to sell products with a small (or no) audience
But, I didn’t want to wait to earn money. I didn’t want to wait for traffic to come in to start seeing income in my bank account. So I took action.
Here are the main things that worked really well to help me monetize right away, and they can work for you too:
👀 1) Listed my tour on online booking platforms like Viator and Expedia to get in front of travelers immediately.
🏨 2) Partnered with local hotels and travel businesses to cross-promote offerings. In the early days, I reached out to hotel marketing teams to offer discounts to their guests. I also introduced myself to concierge teams in person to get on their radar.
📸 3) Hosted press events—including dedicated press tours where I invited media—and pitched myself to publications as an expert to secure media coverage.
📣 4) Leveraged my existing Jessie on a Journey blog and Instagram to promote my new brand. Along with linking my NYC Photo Journeys sales page in my blog’s main menu, I linked to the photo tour in New York-related blog posts.
🙌 5) Ran targeted Facebook & Instagram ads to expand my reach. To take it a step further, I hired a videographer and recruited friends as models to create a promotional video (shown below), which I used in some of the ads. If hiring a professional isn’t in your budget, don’t worry— even a simple, well-edited teaser video can boost engagement and drive sales.
💸 6) Created an affiliate program by recruiting bloggers and influencers who focused on NYC travel. I not only focused on creators who had a large audience, but who had an audience specifically targeting people planning trips to New York.
💰 7) Integrated affiliate marketing into my product experience. In my photo tour onboarding, I shared recommended NYC hotels, experiences, and travel insurance with affiliate links. When delivering client photos, I included an affiliate link to my recommended platform for prints and photo products with a special discount code.
🚨 8) Added optional upsells—such as a bonus folder of black-and-white images, rush delivery, and cancellation insurance—to increase both the value of the service and my revenue for each booking.
✍️ 9) Encouraged customer reviews by asking clients to leave feedback on TripAdvisor and Google Reviews after their experience.
📧 10) Built an email list. I offered a “NYC Local Guide” PDF as an opt-in freebie to get people onto my list. Then in the welcome email, I let them know about my tour.
Applying these strategies to your product
The best part of all of this is you can apply these same strategies to create and launch your own profitable digital product—no matter the size of your audience.
While this is a tour company example, these strategies work across different product types.
For instance, instead of listing your product on Viator, you might leverage Etsy to reach buyers if you sell printables, or Amazon if you sell books.
The key is finding the right marketplace or distribution channel that puts your offer in front of the right audience.
Creating an algorithm-proof business with products
In short, taking the actions mentioned above allowed me to grow a customer base and build up my reviews right away, even before my blog posts were ranking in Google.
Today, organic website traffic, review platforms like TripAdvisor, and referrals from affiliates and happy customers are the top ways I sell my NYC Photo Journeys experiences.
This is the beauty of launching your own products and services. You have more control over your income because you can get creative with how and where you promote—regardless of algorithms.
Become more profitable by creating additional products
The power of launching products doesn’t stop there. Over time, as I built up my audience and client base, I also was able to learn more about what my audience wanted so that I could finesse that initial tour product and also expand the services that I offered.
For example, when I started getting influencers asking for photo shoots without a tour competent, I launched NYC Influencer Shoots.
When I started getting people asking for help with planning their trips, I launched a Custom NYC Travel Planning service.
Listening to my audience as I grew allowed me to truly help people in the ways that they needed—while also becoming more profitable in the process.
Bonus tips for launching products without an audience
Before we sign off, I want to go over some tips for implementation. No matter what type of product you create, follow these steps when you first launch to increase profits, regardless of audience size:
✳️ 1) Grow an email list. When you’re just driving traffic to your blog posts, there is no guarantee these people will return. Get them on your email list so you can let them know about both your free content and paid products to continuously drive traffic and sales.
✳️ 2) Create an opt-in freebie that solves the same problem as your product. This way, you’re growing your list with people who would want your product. If you sell a course on photographing wildlife, a general travel packing list wouldn’t be the best opt-in. A Wildlife Photography Cheat Sheet would work much better.
✳️ 3) Automate your sales by setting up a funnel. There are many ways to do this:
- You could create a tripwire offer, as in, a special limited-time offer on the thank you page of the opt-in freebie.
- This being said, I personally wouldn’t create enormous discounts for your time-for-money services—like tours and travel planning—or premium offerings like a 10-module course. But you could offer small discounts or bonuses for these.
- Create an automated welcome sequence and let people know about your service within it.
- For my NYC photo experiences and trip planning, I mention them in the first email—since many of these new subscribers are actively planning their trip.
- For my courses, I nurture new subscribers for a few days before pitching a special offer.
Think about what makes sense for your product and audience, and test different approaches to see what converts best.
✳️ 4) Include affiliate links in your automated welcome sequence—and within your product experience. If you sell digital products, you can share affiliate links right in the product content. Just always make sure to disclose when using affiliate links.
✳️ 5) Create other related products and add-ons to cross-promote and upsell. I’ve already mentioned some of my add-ons, but something else I do is if someone books a photoshoot or tour, I let them know about my Custom NYC Travel Planning service in their welcome email in case they’d also like their trip planned. You can also create checkout upsells, like related products that are only discounted at checkout.
For instance, when it comes to my travel blogger audience, one of my product lines is a series of 30-Day Action Plan calendars. If someone purchases, say, my 30-Day Affiliate Income Action Plan Calendar, they’ll be able to grab one of the other calendars for a discount at checkout.
Building a product-first business has given me more control over my income and growth—and you can do the same. Whether you’re starting from zero or already have an audience, the key is taking action and putting your offer in front of the right people.
Tools To Help You Make Sales With A Small Audience
Free Profitable Product Launch Challenge. Learn how to create, launch, and promote a profitable digital product in 5 days, so you can grow your income and turn your blog into a sustainable business.
Kit (30-day free trial included). An email marketing and automation tool designed for creators, perfect for growing an engaged list, setting up sales funnels, and selling digital products. They also have a built-in Kit Commerce platform for selling digital products as well as a creator referral network to help you grow your list faster.
Mailerlite. An intuitive email marketing platform that can help you build an engaged email list and set up automated sales funnels.
Teachable (code “JESSIEONAJOURNEY” gets you 1 month of their Pro Plan free). A course creation platform that lets you sell online courses, memberships, and coaching—plus, it includes built-in functionality for creating your own affiliate program to boost sales through referrals.
ThriveCart. A high-converting checkout platform that allows you to sell digital products, memberships, and courses with built-in upsells and affiliate options.
SendOwl. A user-friendly platform designed for selling digital products, subscriptions, and memberships, providing seamless integration with various payment gateways and marketing tools.
Invite: Free Profitable Product Launch Challenge
Learn how to plan, create, and launch a digital product that grows your income—on autopilot!
In 5 days, we’ll cover:
✔️ Day 1: Pick the perfect product idea that solves your audience’s biggest problems
✔️ Day 2: Map out your pricing, format, and bonuses—even if you’re starting from scratch
✔️ Day 3: Build an email list ready to buy from you (without paid ads!)
✔️ Day 4: Create a launch plan to maximize sales—even with a small audience
✔️ Day 5: Keep earning sales on autopilot with evergreen funnels and promotions
PLUS, there will be a live Q&A, prizes, and bonuses including a:
- Step-By-Step Workbook – Turn your ideas into a profitable product launch
- Profitable Product Launch Checklist – Never miss a step with this plug-and-play guide
- 3 Sample Launch Plans – Ready-to-use templates to simplify your launch process
➡️ Click here to grab your seat in the free challenge!
Launch Profitable Products With These Helpful Past Episodes:
- How To Create Content That Converts & Sells On Social Media
- How To Start A Blog & Make Money Step-By-Step
- How To Start & Scale A Paid Newsletter
- How To Make Money Selling Travel Itineraries
- How To Launch A Membership For Recurring Revenue
➡️ Click here for all profitable blogging podcast episodes.
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Selling Products Without Followers: Final Thoughts
Launching with a small audience can feel scary—but it also forces you to be smarter.
When you lean into clear positioning, smart distribution channels and genuine offers, you can make sales without waiting for “big numbers.”
Pick one path from today’s list, take action, and build momentum from there.
🎉 Don’t forget: Grab your seat in my free Profitable Product Launch Challenge to learn step-by-step how to create, launch, and scale your own products and services.