Feenz
12-19-2008, 07:03 PM
Guys and Gals
I am so delighted to have found this community.
Since reading the book (about 6 weeks ago), and finding this community, getting as much advice as possible, and most importantly, using the posts in here to make me get off my bum and do something about it, a lot has happened.
I'll try to keep this fairly brief, but happy to expand on anything if anyone is interested.
My First Step
Finding a suitable muse to test.
I spent so many hours and days going backward and forward try to decide which one was best, and why this one is not as good as that one.
Eventually I realised, I was being an idiot, and just decided to spend 5 minutes deciding which one of my fairly lame ideas I was going to go with, and just do it. For the pure reason of experiencing it and getting a feel for the process.
My first bit of advice : Just get on with it. Don't deliberate too much - especially for your first one. Just do it, with the express intention of learning and testing, totally expecting you'll probably fail.. but with style, and with a whole new raft of experience and knowledge under your belt - making the next one far more likely to succeed.. and you never know, this one might actually work out as well!
Second Step
Build the sales page (for an ebook, I've part written about driving techniques for specific brand of car).
I consider myself really poor at the copy side of the sale page, but just did what I could, and bashed somethign together.
Again, I spent too long trying to decide which bit should go where, and how it looked, and why i didn't like it, etc, etc, etc. Then just thought "for goodness sake.. get on with it already.. this is just testing!"
My second bit of advice : Just get on with it. Don't deliberate too much - especially for your first one. Just do it, with the express intention of learning and testing, totally expecting you'll probably fail.. but with style, and with a whole new raft of experience and knowledge under your belt - making the next one far more likely to succeed.. and you never know, this one might actually work out as well!
Third Step
Setting up adwords
I read a couple of great threads in here (thank you), and viewed as much material online as I could get my hands on.. basically filled my brain with this stuff for about 4 days. Then just went for it.
At first it was daunting.. the screens are filled with numbers and terms I didn't understand. But just get on with it, try some stuff.. protect yourself carefully by ensure you set the maximum daily spend to something comfortable, and then go and make some mistakes. It probably the quickest (And cheapest) way to really learn.
Fourth Step
Monitor and wait for the millions to roll in.
hmmm..
ok.. wait a bit more...
After a couple of days, not a lot had happened, I'd had a bit of a tweak with the adwords, but I wasn't getting any bites. Then I went crazy and stopped being so lazy with the adwords campaign, and went nuts with keywords. I added something in the region of 500 new keywords (and this is a tiny number compared to what I've been advised - 15,000 or more isn't unreasonable aparently)...
I went to bed.
Got up in the morning, and had made my first pseudo sale.
I was still about $40 down on theoretical cash though, so it still wasn't looking good.
2 hours later, another sale! things are looking better. I'm about evens now.
3 - 4 hours later.. another one!
JUST into profit...
nothing for 24 hours...
then another sale.
OK.. enough. This one is running at about evens without any further tuning of the landing page.
So I've temporarily stopped the test, and am building 3 different landing pages to test, as I'm getting easily enough visits .. I just need to convert better.
I'm amazed! But I guess I shouldn't be. Its not rocket science.
---
Muse 2.
I decided, while the first muse was testing, to launch another muse.
I purchased JShop, which is a pretty sophisticated online store software package.
I picked a seriously niche, niche... and added about 50 products from that niche.
I had already established that there was little or no competition for highly targetted keywords on adwords, so I added as many of those as I could think of, and set it running.
This all took about 2 days.
Within 24 hours, I had my first sale, immediately into theoretical profit. But then nothing for another 24 hours, and dropping me back into loss.
Still very early days for both of these, but my biggest lesson to myself so far has been "just get on with it, and I am now (2 weeks later) so much closer, with lots more confidence, and much more knowledge and understanding than I was before.
Thanks so much for the motivation, encouragement and inspiration.
I will update as things move on, but hope that this early stage update can help to motivate other first timers like me to get started. :)
I am so delighted to have found this community.
Since reading the book (about 6 weeks ago), and finding this community, getting as much advice as possible, and most importantly, using the posts in here to make me get off my bum and do something about it, a lot has happened.
I'll try to keep this fairly brief, but happy to expand on anything if anyone is interested.
My First Step
Finding a suitable muse to test.
I spent so many hours and days going backward and forward try to decide which one was best, and why this one is not as good as that one.
Eventually I realised, I was being an idiot, and just decided to spend 5 minutes deciding which one of my fairly lame ideas I was going to go with, and just do it. For the pure reason of experiencing it and getting a feel for the process.
My first bit of advice : Just get on with it. Don't deliberate too much - especially for your first one. Just do it, with the express intention of learning and testing, totally expecting you'll probably fail.. but with style, and with a whole new raft of experience and knowledge under your belt - making the next one far more likely to succeed.. and you never know, this one might actually work out as well!
Second Step
Build the sales page (for an ebook, I've part written about driving techniques for specific brand of car).
I consider myself really poor at the copy side of the sale page, but just did what I could, and bashed somethign together.
Again, I spent too long trying to decide which bit should go where, and how it looked, and why i didn't like it, etc, etc, etc. Then just thought "for goodness sake.. get on with it already.. this is just testing!"
My second bit of advice : Just get on with it. Don't deliberate too much - especially for your first one. Just do it, with the express intention of learning and testing, totally expecting you'll probably fail.. but with style, and with a whole new raft of experience and knowledge under your belt - making the next one far more likely to succeed.. and you never know, this one might actually work out as well!
Third Step
Setting up adwords
I read a couple of great threads in here (thank you), and viewed as much material online as I could get my hands on.. basically filled my brain with this stuff for about 4 days. Then just went for it.
At first it was daunting.. the screens are filled with numbers and terms I didn't understand. But just get on with it, try some stuff.. protect yourself carefully by ensure you set the maximum daily spend to something comfortable, and then go and make some mistakes. It probably the quickest (And cheapest) way to really learn.
Fourth Step
Monitor and wait for the millions to roll in.
hmmm..
ok.. wait a bit more...
After a couple of days, not a lot had happened, I'd had a bit of a tweak with the adwords, but I wasn't getting any bites. Then I went crazy and stopped being so lazy with the adwords campaign, and went nuts with keywords. I added something in the region of 500 new keywords (and this is a tiny number compared to what I've been advised - 15,000 or more isn't unreasonable aparently)...
I went to bed.
Got up in the morning, and had made my first pseudo sale.
I was still about $40 down on theoretical cash though, so it still wasn't looking good.
2 hours later, another sale! things are looking better. I'm about evens now.
3 - 4 hours later.. another one!
JUST into profit...
nothing for 24 hours...
then another sale.
OK.. enough. This one is running at about evens without any further tuning of the landing page.
So I've temporarily stopped the test, and am building 3 different landing pages to test, as I'm getting easily enough visits .. I just need to convert better.
I'm amazed! But I guess I shouldn't be. Its not rocket science.
---
Muse 2.
I decided, while the first muse was testing, to launch another muse.
I purchased JShop, which is a pretty sophisticated online store software package.
I picked a seriously niche, niche... and added about 50 products from that niche.
I had already established that there was little or no competition for highly targetted keywords on adwords, so I added as many of those as I could think of, and set it running.
This all took about 2 days.
Within 24 hours, I had my first sale, immediately into theoretical profit. But then nothing for another 24 hours, and dropping me back into loss.
Still very early days for both of these, but my biggest lesson to myself so far has been "just get on with it, and I am now (2 weeks later) so much closer, with lots more confidence, and much more knowledge and understanding than I was before.
Thanks so much for the motivation, encouragement and inspiration.
I will update as things move on, but hope that this early stage update can help to motivate other first timers like me to get started. :)