Jolene Dames is an artist who documents her world travel via art, writing and moving images. She specializes in large-scale paintings based on the concept of navigation. Jolene also works behind the scenes for movies, television and theater. She offers various ways to support others through her creative consulting and coaching services. Her first digital product was a house sitting video and guide – House Sitting in Ireland with The Globe Squatters.
Background
Jolene had launched her website in 2020 with an e-commerce store to sell her paintings and prints. She writes content on her blog and emails posts out to her list. Jolene also shares regularly on social media to build her audience.
Jolene had been wanting to create a digital product for some time. One of her main goals with her digital product was letting her audience know that she was more than just a painter.
“Everybody knows me as a painter, which is great, because that’s mainly what I’ve done all my life. But I do a bunch of other artistic things. I asked myself, how can I marry these ideas and put it out there and still stay true to my artistic self?”
Strategy
Jolene knew she wanted to create a house sitting guide and already had the video recorded. She made some minimal tweaks to it and uploaded it to a secure location online. She created the house sitting guide as a PDF and went through several revisions, getting feedback from myself and a few friends.
Jolene works best with specific tasks and a deadline, so I helped her plan all of the project steps, gave her access to a Google Sheet where she could update her progress and did regular check-ins to answer her questions and provide guidance.
She was already using WooCommerce to sell physical products on her website, so adding a digital product there made sense. I helped Jolene test her product from start to finish to make sure it was ready for launch.
I invited Jolene on the podcast to talk about her product and her experience. In this segment, she shares how scary it was to put herself out there in a new way.
Results
At the end, Jolene’s product was a 20-page PDF that included:
- All the essentials of house sitting
- Personal, relatable stories
- Access to the video of her in Ireland
- Links to her paintings and prints
Check out her house sitting guide.
Jolene plans to continue marketing her product and create additional products (like courses) in the future.
I was surprised at how easy it was to finish this product because I had a clear plan. It was challenging to not be a perfectionist and just say it was good enough to move on. My favorite parts were seeing the percentages go up on the Google Sheet when I completed something and Rene’s enthusiasm when I completed my product. It felt accomplished being recognized.
– Jolene Dames, jolenedames.com