When you are setting up your digital scrapbooking business, using freebies can greatly increase your chances of drawing in the visitors.

Digital scrapbook freebies often take the form of templates, backgrounds, embellishments or brushes – things which are used for creating digital scrapbooks – but that’s only part of the story.

What about a sample digital scrapbook as a freebie? Something people can download. Use it to show off your abilities as a scrapbook designer. Very reassuring for your potential client if they’re new to the whole digital and downloading thing.

Set it up so you ask for their email (so you can send them a copy) and you’ve got an excuse to get back to them and add them to your mailing list. A mailing list can be can be an extremely valuable asset and it’s remarkably cheap to have a specialist company manage this for you (I use GetResponse).

Other digital scrapbook freebies? Well what about the aforementioned templates, backgrounds and such. Who said your digital scrapbooking business had to be selling finished scrapbooks? What about designing and selling digital scrapbook supplies?

If you’re going to do that, what better way to show off your skills and your products than with a freebie? Again, put in place a means of gathering visitor details and you’ve got another potentially very profitable business.

Do you like to share your scrapbook knowledge? What about teaching via an online course? A bit more complicated to set up maybe, but very do-able. Your freebie here could be the first lesson. This removes any fear of what people will get for their money.

The clever way to set up your scrapbook tuition is via automated payments (it’s called “continuity” in marketing parlance). This way your “student” has to actively cancel and so is actually more likely to continue. Emphasize the “first lesson free, cancel any time” and watch the money roll in!

Don’t want the work involved in managing a scrapbooking course? OK, write it as an ebook. Once the initial writing is done you can self publish your scrapbooking masterpiece and then it’s virtually a hands-free business. You really will earn money while you sleep! There’s an excellent book available that teaches all the ins and outs of self publishing called “Complete Craft Book Publishing“, I highly recommend it if you’re thinking of looking at that route.

I only have one proviso when you’re creating your digital scrapbook freebie. Make sure it’s high quality. Don’t be tempted to take short cuts because it’s being given away. Remember it’s a reflection on your business and do the very best you can with it.

Your digital scrapbooking business can take on any one, or perhaps a combination of the above disciplines. Write a scrapbooking ebook, follow it up with the advanced tuition. Write an ebook on how to use Adobe Photoshop Elements to create digital scrapbook supplies. The possibilities are almost endless and everyone is hooked by a good freebie!

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A digital scrapbooking business overcomes the one drawback of making a living from traditional scrapbooking, that of geographical reach. What I mean is, however successful your scrapbooking business is there’s a limit to the distance you’ll be prepared to travel to find new customers.

For many people that won’t be a problem. As we’ve already seen, there are ample ways to diversify how you make money from scrapbooking. For some though, the customer-facing aspect is too much of a challenge. For those people, digital scrapbooking is definitely the answer!

Think about the benefits. Even if you have no experience at the moment, you already have a lot of what you need. You have a computer and a connection to the internet so that’s the two most important digital scrapbook “tools” sorted. You might need a little extra software (Adobe Elements is the recommended choice) and you’ll need a blog or website to promote yourself, but both of those require remarkably low investment.

I know what a lot of you will say, “but what about learning the software”?

People can, understandably, have a bit of a phobia about how difficult a new program can be to learn and it is kind of necessary for your digital scrapbooking business! The good news is, not only is the software well known but a number of websites and blogs offer some degree of free tuition like that at Two Peas in a Bucket. If you need more help, for just a few dollars a week there is also full and comprehensive training course available from Step-by-Step Digital Scrapbooking which even includes online videos so you can actually see what you need to do.

But is it really worth the trouble learning digital scrapbooking software?

Well if you want that whole world of opportunities mentioned in the title, yes. A digital scrapbooking business has no geographical boundaries. You can make scrapbooks for people in the next town, the next state, or the other side of the world. There are no travel expenses to hold you back so your creative ability can just as easily be sold in Arkansas, Aberdeen or Australia!

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