As I see several examples of muses that I think can be successful, I am noticing a pattern. The best ideas seem to derive from someone who has a very keen understanding of a topic or field, and has found a way to make it better. Or in some cases, people have taken a hobby or skill of theirs and created a way to teach it to other people via an informational product (podcast, videocast, book, etc). As we brainstorm, are there any hobbies or skills that we possess that we can deconstruct, streamline, and then share with the world… Or is there a way we can take a hobby of someones, and streamline it and sell it to them as a product?
Example: for business people that like to read but don’t have the time, could we create audio podcast summaries/reviews for all of the most popular business books. Basically, we apply Pareto’s Principle to the business book and extract the 20% of content that packs 80% of the lessons to be conveyed by the book and put it in audio form.
Below here is a quick recap of the process of creating a muse:
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The Muse model, simplified as much as possible, is this:
- Decide on a product you want to sell to a very small niche (ideally one that costs the customer between $50 — $100). Mid-range pricing means you have less customers to manage, and can sell fewer units. Test the product and experiment with different landing pages, prices and so on.
- Advertise the product with PPC ads.
- If you’re selling tangible products, send orders to manufacturers rather than buying stock and holding it yourself.
- Start to outsource and automate.
While it might still sound too good to be true, I found the model was backed up with a lot of sensibility. There’s a detailed method to test the profitability of a product before you launch it for under $500. It essentially involves setting up the product site and running a PPC campaign as you would if the product had been launched, but greeting customers who fill out the purchase form with a notification that the product they’re trying to buy is unavailable at this time. This allows you to work out conversion rates and return on investment (ROI) per $500 worth of advertising expenditure before you even purchase stock and lay out other expenses.
If your net profit minus PPC costs is above $0, your business is profitable.
It might work like this:
For each sale of a $100 product, I make $50. One sale costs $10 worth of advertising on average. The net profit per sale is $40.
Your monthly business expenses might also be very light:
- Shared hosting account ($10/month).
- Domain name ($1/month).
- Online shopping cart ($40/month).
If you were to sell two products a month at a net profit of $40, you’d make $29 a month. That kind of amount probably isn’t worth the trouble, but it does show how difficult it is for a well-tested Muse to run at a loss. If you get a hundred click-throughs a day at a conversion rate of 2%, your daily profit is $80. Two-hundred click-throughs yields $160, three-hundred click-throughs yields $240, and so on. Once you’ve worked out a consistent advertising cost-per-sale, your efforts are really only capped by the amount of search traffic looking for the terms you’re targeting.
While the above is a nice scenario, there are a few steps involved in getting there:
- Decide on the niche you want to target and the product you want to sell.
- Build a functioning sales site for that product.
- Test it using a genuine AdWords campaign (or if the business doesn’t require much outlay you might fore-go testing).
- If tests are positive, launch the product and begin your AdWords campaign, out of the testing phase.
I’m at step number two, but I don’t want to talk about the product before I have a website to show you. When it’s launched I’ll describe my own process in more detail and talk about some of the resources I’m using. While I’m learning as I go, I’d like to help you learn from the process I go through.
As you can see from the above numbered list, the Muse model isn’t much good without an idea. Here are some different types of products you can sell:
- Create an information product (eBook, CD audio recordings, interview transcripts, instructional video, subscription-based newsletter).
- A manufactured product (order product from manufacturers at wholesale price when an order is made).
- An invented product (hire others to prototype and manufacture the product.)
- Resell an existing product (buy the rights to do so).
- License a product.
The product you sell will also depend strongly on the niche you target. It should be small, so there’s less competition for your keywords and PPC campaigns.
For example:
- Athletes — no. Sprinters — yes.
- Students — no. Spanish language students — yes.
- Travelers — no. Low-budget travelers — yes.
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Sources:
http://www.anywired.com/finding-your-muse-business/50/
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