You know what's fascinating? Right now, while you're reading this, millions of people are searching for a perfect resume template for their next career move. Even with all free options and AI-powered builders available, the demand for professional, fully customizable, and user-friendly resume templates is still sky-high.
Now, imagine this for a moment—out of all those people searching for their dream resume, what if even just 1% stumbled upon your resume template shop? How incredible would it be to start selling resume templates and offer them precisely what they need?
Here's the thing—I've been right where you are. Contemplating the idea of creating resume templates and offering them as digital products, yet unsure of where to start or how to create, promote, and sell them effectively.
However, over the past five years, I've successfully sold over 8,000 resume templates and assisted job search sites, career coaches, and resume writers in launching their resume template shops.
Through countless trials and errors, I've come to realize that there are five key steps you absolutely can't afford to miss on your journey toward a successful resume template shop, including:
Eager to get started? Let's take a closer look at each of these steps.
Disclaimer: This article includes relevant affiliate links to services, resources, and tools I wholeheartedly recommend. If you buy something through these links, I get a small commission at no extra cost to you. Your purchase helps me share more helpful content. Thanks if you choose to support me this way!
1. Identify Your Target Audience
If you're planning to sell resume templates, it all starts with one thing: the people you're going to help, aka your future customers.
That's why identifying your target audience is the #1 step on your journey. Your target audience is the group of people who are most likely to buy your product. They are the ones who need your templates and are willing to pay for them. Now, wondering how to identify your target audience? (Hint: saying your target audience is job seekers is not good enough.)
Here are two things to consider when identifying your target audience.
Define The Type of Candidate You Want to Target
Before you start selling your resume templates, you need to determine the type of candidate you want to target.
Consider their seniority, career paths, and specific needs:
What level of seniority is your target audience? Do you want your resume templates to support entry-level job seekers, mid-career professionals, or executives?
Do you want to focus on a specific industry? If so, are you targeting job seekers in conservative or creative industries?
Do you want to help job seekers make a career change or reenter the workforce after a long employment gap using specialized templates?
What is the geographic location of your target audience? Are you catering to job seekers in a specific country or region where resume preferences and standards may vary?
Are there any specific language or formatting preferences you need to consider?
Why is this important?
Well, each group has different needs and preferences regarding resume templates. Depending on your target audience, you might need to offer resume templates in other languages or adapt to regional resume norms.
For example:
Entry-level job seekers may need modern, creative resume templates that emphasize their education and skills,
Mid-career professionals may need functional, ATS-friendly resume templates that highlight their achievements and experience,
Executives may need classic or minimalist resume templates that put their content in the spotlight.
By diving deeper into these questions, you can refine your target audience and tailor your resume templates to meet their exact needs. Understanding your audience inside-out will give you a competitive edge and position your resume template shop for success.
Understand Your Target Audience's Pain Points
Once you've identified the type of candidate you want to target, it's essential to understand their pain points.
Ask yourself these questions:
What challenges do they face when it comes to creating a resume?
What frustrates them?
What do they need help with?
What problems will your resume templates help them solve?
For example, entry-level job seekers may struggle to professionally present their limited work experience. On the other hand, mid-career professionals and executives might face the challenge of organizing their extensive experience into a neat, professional, and functional format.
By understanding your target audience's pain points, you can create resume templates that address their specific needs and provide solutions.
Avoid This Common Mistake
Now, being in the digital product space for the last five years, skipping this step is one of the most common mistakes I see business owners make.
And I understand where it comes from. Narrowing down your target audience seems counterintuitive when you're just starting, right? It feels like you're limiting your potential reach.
But think of it this way—if you're searching for a perfect pair of running shoes, you probably won't go to a shop that offers all sorts of footwear. You'd head to a specialized store. And you wouldn't even browse the entire shoe store, right? You'd head straight to the athletic section, focusing on the shoes designed for running. Why? Because you want the best fit and support for your specific needs.
In the same way, identifying and understanding your target audience allows you to tailor your resume templates to meet their specific needs and preferences, resulting in the following:
Enhanced product relevance: Tailoring resume templates to your target audience's specific needs increases product relevance and boosts appeal to potential buyers.
Improved customer satisfaction: Meeting the requirements of your ideal customers results in a better user experience, leading to higher satisfaction and increased customer loyalty.
Efficient marketing efforts: Understanding your target audience enables focused marketing strategies that resonate with potential buyers, yielding better results and ROI.
Increased conversion rates: Offering templates that precisely match what your audience seeks leads to improved conversion rates and higher sales (read as $$$).
Building a strong brand: Consistently serving a specific niche establishes a strong brand identity, attracting like-minded customers who value your specialized products and will think of your shop whenever they need a new resume.
So, don't shy away from defining your ideal customer. Embrace it, and watch your resume template shop thrive.
2. Create High-Quality Resume Templates
Now that you know your target audience, it's time to create resume templates explicitly designed for them. It's needless to say that creating professional, high-quality resume templates is vital to attracting potential buyers.
Here are some tips for creating a high-quality product:
Research and Analyze Your Competitors
Before creating your resume template, it's essential to research your competitors.
Look closely at the most successful resume template shops and examine what they offer. Analyze how their templates are designed, identify the design elements they include, take note of the software they use, and pay attention to any supporting materials they provide.
This research will provide invaluable insights into your niche, the existing demand, and inspiration for crafting a unique product.
Here are the main points to consider:
Identify Common Themes:
What do bestselling resume templates and the most successful shops have in common? Analyze any recurring themes or design elements that seem to resonate with customers. Understanding these trends will help you align your product with potential buyers' needs.
Identify Missing Elements:
What is currently missing on the market? Take note of any gaps or missing elements in the bestselling templates. Perhaps there's a specific format, layout, or unique feature that customers are yearning for but isn't readily available in existing offerings. Addressing these gaps in your own product can give you a competitive advantage and attract customers looking for those missing elements.
Conduct thorough competitor research and address the unmet needs in the market to position your resume template as a standout choice tailored to meet your target audience's preferences and demands.
This strategic approach will help set your product apart and increase its appeal to potential customers.
Design and Create Unique Products
After you've defined your target audience and gathered inspiration from various shops within and outside of your niche, it's time to design and create your first resume template. Here's a brief overview of the product creation process:
Choose the right software: Select a design tool that suits your skills and allows you to create professional and customizable templates efficiently. Plus, consider your customers' experience and technical skills.
Craft a structured layout: Create a clear and organized layout with sections for personal information, work experience, education, skills, and other relevant details.
Focus on visual appeal: Incorporate visually appealing design elements, such as fonts, icons, and infographics, to enhance the overall look of the template.
Ensure readability: Prioritize readability using legible fonts and appropriate font sizes, ensuring the resume is easy to skim.
Customization options: Include customizable sections that allow users to easily tailor the template to their specific needs, making it a versatile choice for different job seekers.
Test and refine: Thoroughly test your template to check for errors, compatibility issues, or user experience concerns. Gather feedback from potential users to make necessary improvements.
Create a professional preview: Develop an eye-catching and informative preview of your template to showcase its key features and entice potential buyers to your online shop or platform.
Now, the main question is, how long this might take?
For reference, it took me six weeks to create my first resume template. These six weeks included everything from writing copy for the templates to creating supporting resume writing and editing guides, creating the first resume design, figuring out how to pack and sell these templates, and everything in between.
The whole process can also take much longer than that, depending on your skills, time and resources available, the complexity of your products, etc.
But, if you want to speed up the process and skip the hassle of designing the products from scratch, here are two resources for you:
Resume Shop Starter Kit
Looking to start your resume shop in under a week? Good news: You can do it the easy way in only five days without the headache of creating, designing, or testing products from scratch. The only thing you need is Resume Shop Starter Kit.
It's a comprehensive, one-of-a-kind toolkit that includes ready-to-sell resume templates and everything else you need to start selling your resume templates online.
The Resume Shop Starter Kit covers it all:
Ten of my bestselling, top-rated, and fully customizable resume templates.
Supporting materials to ensure your customers have a fantastic experience.
Product descriptions that will convert mere visitors into eager buyers.
Eye-catching product photos that will grab attention.
Customizable social media templates for a compelling launch promo.
A step-by-step launch checklist to keep you on track.
Tutorials on how to create even more products using the ten templates.
(It's precisely what I wish I had when I first started!)
With this toolkit, you can rebrand all purchased materials and sell them as your own. Plus, free to sell these templates on various platforms (excluding Etsy), attract and assist more clients, and enjoy passive income coming your way.
Extended Commercial License for Resume Templates
Another way to speed up the process of selling your resume templates is to purchase an extended commercial license along with the templates you'd like to resell.
This license allows you to use and sell copyrighted materials without worrying about legal issues.
When you get a commercially licensed resume template, you can skip the tedious product creation process and jump straight into promotion and sales.
Both the Resume Shop Starter Kit and the extended commercial license can help you speed up the process of selling your resume templates and start making money faster. Take advantage of these resources to build your product suit with ease.
3. Develop a Sales Strategy to Start Selling Resume Templates
To successfully sell resume templates, you must have a solid sales strategy. For starters, this means developing a clear plan for pricing and identifying potential sales channels.
Define Your Pricing Strategy
Pricing your resume templates can be tricky. You want to make sure you're charging a fair price that reflects the value of your product, but you also don't want to price yourself out of the market.
To define your pricing strategy, research what your competitors are charging. This will give you a good idea of what the market is willing to pay.
Then, consider the time and effort you put into creating your templates and set a price that reflects that. Don't forget to factor in overhead costs, such as website hosting fees or advertising expenses.
FYI: On average, resume templates can range from $5 to $30, depending on their complexity, design quality, and additional features.
Identify Potential Sales Channels
When it comes to selling resume templates, you can explore several potential sales channels.
The most obvious is setting up your own online store, which we'll discuss in the next section.
However, you may also want to consider selling your templates on third-party platforms and marketplaces like:
— Etsy,
— Design Bundles,
— Creative Market,
— Sellfy,
— Payhip,
— Gumroad,
— SendOwl.
These platforms have a built-in audience of potential customers and can help you reach a wider audience than you might on your own.
4. Launch Your Resume Template Shop
Launching your resume template shop may sound like a huge bite. But with all tools and resources available nowadays, it's much simpler than it seems. (Trust me, I managed to do it all by myself, asking Google and YouTube for help every now and then.) Here are two main options to launch your shop:
Create a Website to Sell Your Templates
Having a dedicated website to sell your resume templates is crucial if you want to establish your brand and reach a wider audience.
Your website should be visually appealing, user-friendly, and optimized for search engines. Include all the necessary information about your templates, such as their features, pricing, and potentially a demo version.
You can use website builders like Wix, Squarespace, or WordPress to create your website without coding skills. Also, you can use e-commerce platforms like Shopify or WooCommerce to handle payment processing and order management.
Preview of my resume template shop hosted on Wix.
Set Up Your Online Store
Setting up your own online store is easier than ever, thanks to platforms like Etsy, Gumroad, Shopify, or WooCommerce.
These platforms allow you to quickly and easily set up a professional-looking online store without any coding or technical skills.
When setting up your store, choose a theme and design that reflects your brand and appeals to your target audience. Don't forget to optimize your website for SEO to ensure potential customers can find you online without you actively driving every single visitor to your resume shop.
5. Market Your Product
So, you have created some amazing resume templates, and can't wait to sell them. But how do you get started?
These are some effective ways to market your product, drive traffic and start making sales:
Leverage Social Media Platforms
Social media is a powerful tool for promoting resume templates and engaging with potential customers.
You can use platforms like Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Pinterest to showcase your templates, share customer reviews, and announce special deals or discounts.
When choosing the best platform, consider these questions:
What platform does your target audience use?
What social media platform do you personally enjoy the most?
What content do you enjoy creating, e.g., video, graphics, short-form captions, or long-form content?
Make sure to create a consistent brand voice and visual style across all your social media accounts.
Use hashtags, mentions, and relevant keywords to increase your visibility and reach. Also, consider running social media ads to target your ideal audience and drive traffic to your shop.
Work with Influencers and Bloggers
Influencer marketing can be an effective way to reach a wider audience and build trust with your potential customers.
Look for influencers or bloggers in the career, job search, or HR niche who have a significant following and engage with their audience.
You can partner with them to create sponsored posts, reviews, or giveaways to promote your resume templates. Make sure to choose influencers who align with your brand values and target audience.
Disclaimer: This article includes affiliate links. If you shop through these links, I might earn a commission, making this site fully reader-supported. Big thanks for your support!
Key Takeaways
If you want to sell resume templates, the fastest way to start is by following these five key steps:
First, research your target audience and determine their needs.
Then, create high-quality templates that meet those needs and showcase your unique design skills.
After that, develop your sales strategy. Decide where you will make your products available and how you will drive traffic to your shop.
Next, set up a website or online store to sell your templates, and use SEO techniques to increase your visibility and attract potential customers.
Finally, promote your templates through social media, email marketing, and other channels to reach a wider audience.
With these strategies in place, you can start selling your resume templates, add a passive income stream and build a profitable online business.
What's Next?
Learn more about the Resume Shop Starter Kit, a one-of-a-kind toolkit that helps launch your resume shop in 5 days.
Curious about my journey? Read how I started selling resume templates in 2018.
Know someone in the online space who wants to start an online business? (Bonus points if they're in HR, career coaching, or resume writing field.) Share this article with them.
Want to launch your first digital product, map out an actionable plan for your business, or start driving passive sales? Get the know-how you need in a power-packed 60-minute strategy call. Book now!
Ana Colak-Fustin
Hi—I'm Ana! A recruiter, HR consultant, and founder of ByRecruiters.com. My career advice and job search tools have been featured in Yahoo News, The Muse, Jobscan, A Better HR Business, and other global media. Over 8,000 professionals have used my resume templates to land new jobs and power up their careers. Ready to join them? Your success story starts here.