If you're a fan of late-night television, you may know that it wasn't too long ago that Washington, D.C., was home to a funny man who switzerland customer email list appeared on Conan O'Brien speaking out strongly against the world's infatuation with the social web. Considering that social media seems to have played an integral part in CK's recent successful experiment, one has to wonder if he's changed his tune a bit.
Offer something good, and they will take the bait.
Using Twitter to help spread the word, CK took advantage of the Internet to provide his fans with a special treat, particularly those who were strapped for cash. His initiative proved to be a huge success and an example of digital-based direct marketing at its best. The experiment went a little something like this:
In what appears to have been an effort to simply gauge how his audience would respond to the idea, Louis CK offered fans the chance to purchase the latest in his stand-up comedy routines for the incredibly low price of five dollars. The routine is comprised of two shows at the historic Beacon Theatre in New York, and CK spared no expense in terms of putting the production together and putting on the performances for fans to purchase.
According to the veteran actor, it was a high-profile project that took six cameras and around $170,000 to complete. The performances were made available for download, so of course a website was necessary. CK said that around $32,000 was paid for web hosting and maintaining a reliable website that does the job. In about 12 days, the double special performance had racked up $1 million in sales, leaving him with a net profit of around $220,000 after paying the bills. CK said that he could have made more if he had sold the rights to a larger company, but the interaction with fans obviously added to the uniqueness of the experience. On top of that, $200K is a nice chunk of change no matter how you look at it.
