Create and Sell Your Own Custom Graphic Design Templates

Graphic design templates like logos, flyers, social media posts, business cards, and presentation themes meet immense demand from entrepreneurs, small businesses, nonprofits, bloggers, and creatives seeking high-quality design without high agency costs.

By leveraging your graphic design expertise to create templates tailored to specific use cases, you can earn substantial passive income selling downloads on digital marketplaces while helping others amplify their brands.

Here is a complete guide to making and marketing popular graphic design templates as digital products:

Evaluating in-Demand Design Assets

Analyze needs to identify profitable templates to offer:

Logo Templates

Scalable logo files with customizable elements and changeable colors, fonts, icons, and graphics. Remove backgrounds for easy placement.

Business Card Templates

Professionally designed business card layouts where users can easily insert custom details like names, phone numbers, logos, colors etc.

Brochure & Flyer Templates

Layouts for sales flyers, restaurant menus, real estate brochures, conference promotions, etc. sized for print use with image placeholders.

Social Media Templates

Square and vertical designs sized for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube etc. with image/text placeholders promoting brands online.

Presentation Themes

Full sets of coordinating slide backgrounds, icons, fonts, colors, and graphic elements for consistent visual presentations in PowerPoint or Keynote.

Resume Templates

Professionally formatted resume designs where users simply fill in their own details. Offer matching cover letters.

Email Newsletter Templates

Responsive HTML email templates with branded headers, footers, placeholders and basic designs marketers can customize for email campaigns.

Best Practices Designing Templates

Optimize templates for usability and customization:

Modern Clean Design

Use minimalist layouts, ample white space, sleek fonts that maintain professionalism across industries vs niche stylings.

Visual Hierarchy

Make key text and image placeholders prominent through size, position, contrast so users know where to fill custom details.

Offer Color Schemes

Include ready-made color palette presets allowing easy styling changes without design experience.

Multiple Sizes

Size templates for usage needs like social posts, flyers, brochures, presentations, banner ads. Don’t force one-size-fits-all.

Clear Usage Rights

State allowed template uses and any attribution required transparently in listings and documentation. Common license choices include:

• Personal & Commercial Use
• Editable Source Files
• Unlimited Projects

Layered Source Files

Provide fully layered, editable source files for advanced customization options beyond templates alone like PSD, XD, or AI sources.

IncludeHELPFUL Documentation

Provide clear instructional documentation on installing fonts, using brand colors, changing imagery, editing text and customizing templates successfully.

Comparing Leading Marketplaces to Sell

Weigh popular third-party template marketplace options:

Creative Market

Top marketplace for creative digital assets. Very design focused. Medium 2.5M buyers. 50% commission.

TemplateMonster

Massive collection of web templates, graphics and plugins. Over 5M customers. 40% commission.

GraphicRiver

Popular Envato marketplace. Huge existing buyer base. 20+M community members. Author rates start at $1 per sale.

Creative Fabrica

Curated graphic templates and assets. Rising popularity. 45% commission.

Etsy

Allows selling both digital and physical products. Large existing buyer traffic but very broad. 5% transaction fee.

Gumroad

Simple digital sales platform. Video marketing features. Direct access to customers. 8.5% + 30 cents per transaction. Lower audience reach.

Weigh marketplace reach against commission splits. Use multiple platforms for expanded distribution. Own site maximizes profit.

Promoting Your Template Shop

Drive traffic to your store listings through:

SEO Keyword Research

Determine keywords buyers use finding templates like “social media post templates”, “real estate flyer templates”, “travel brochure template” etc. Optimize titles and descriptions accordingly.

Social media

Share your best templates on Instagram and Pinterest. Use niche hashtags. Promote new additions. Give design advice and tips.

Run Paid Ads

Test cost-effective Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest ads featuring your most eye-catching templates targeting relevant local demographics and interests.

Guest Blog Posts

Publish articles on design, business, and marketing blogs focused around using your templates in context. Embed links.

YouTube Channel

Showcase templates through product reviews, tutorials for using, and design inspiration videos. Drive views through search and suggested videos.

Email Outreach

Contact YouTubers, influencers, bloggers in your niche. Offer exclusive discounts in exchange for reviews and mentions.

Maximizing Passive Income Potential

Design your shop for residual sales:

Recurring Updates

Release updated versions of popular templates yearly. Notify existing buyers to capture recurring sales.

Expand Collections

Add more templates serving additional related needs over time like complementary social post layouts. Upsell existing customers.

Offer Bundles

Sell discounted template bundles around industries, interests or software like a full real estate marketing bundle. Higher average order values.

Create Dynamic Templates

Provide more advanced templates leveraging capabilities of programs like Adobe XD, InDesign and Photoshop to enable user customization. Subscription potential.

Go Beyond Passive

Offer optional custom design services for one-off projects at premium rates to earn more actively. But focus majority of time on template assets.

Curate Your Portfolio

Remove older outdated templates over time. Showcase your best work upfront as you refine your design skills.

Building a library of professionally designed and effortlessly editable templates provides multiple passive income streams. Template buyers become collaborators expanding your audience reach while benefiting from your designs through an equitable value exchange. The opportunities are infinite for creators who consistently adapt to audience needs.