Subject matter experts have been making money by recommending products and services on their blogs for some time now – usually via affiliate programs. The problem is that for most, affiliate programs are not hugely profitable, frequently limit the products they can promote and do nothing to help build the expert’s brand.
The OpenSky Project takes the principle of expert recommendations and rejigs the mechanics a little to create an expert-led ecommerce site which offers everyone a little more.
Founded by John Caplan (the former CEO of Ford Models and President of About.com) OpenSky partners with experts in a variety of subject areas and encourages them to become ‘shopkeepers’ on the site.
As shopkeepers, they choose interesting and unique products (ideally ones that they use themselves) and create content (images, text, video) to show these products off to their respective audiences.
OpenSky for their part, source the products, handle payments and fulfillment and provide a slick platform for experts to run their ‘shops’ on. They also market individual experts throughout the OpenSky site and in other marketing communications. Revenues are then shared between OpenSky and the expert shopkeepers.
Of course, the experts could do an awful lot of this themselves but OpenSky are betting that by taking a lot of the heavy lifting out of the equation – and exposing experts to a wider audience – they can build a powerful community of people who know what they’re talking about and whose opinion readers – and more importantly buyers – trust.
An interesting and inventive business idea from OpenSky, AND a good opportunity for subjects matter experts to earn an online crust from their expertise.
Site: www.theopenskyproject.com
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