So Seth Godin is pitching a new way to take a peak inside his mind: he’s offering up 8 hours of Seth – a speech, an interview, and an extended Q&A session. Four DVDs for $800USD.
I’ll probably buy one.
What’s more interesting is this part of Seth’s post:
If you're interested in buying a set for your company, click here and drop me an email. I won't bill you or even make you promise you'll actually cough up the money. But I will add you to a list and alert you when it's ready, and I'll use your note to guesstimate the interest. I'll keep the email lines open for two weeks and then let everyone who responded know what's up.
If you read Seth much, where do you think he’s going with this? Here’s my initial take:
Through principally his blog along with other initiatives, Seth has built a permission asset. He’s earned the right to talk to us. We not only listen, we look forward to the next post. And we buy his books – instantly putting them on the bestseller lists.
Now he’s asking us, if we’re interested in the DVD set, to drop him a note and let him know. Sounds reasonable. (I emailed and said sure) But Seth doesn’t just see this as potential customers letting him know we’re interested, he sees this as us giving him an increased level of permission. By emailing him, we’re moving to another rung on Seth’s permission ladder.
It’s exactly what he wants us to do. What do we get in return?
My bet is that we get more than an “alert when it’s ready”. Here are some options, we could get one or any number of combinations of the following:
- A pre-release only to those who raised their hand. Say, maybe 2 weeks to a month before everyone else.
- Free shipping. (It really should be built into the $800USD purchase price, but he didn’t say it was)
- An early-bird discount – say 10% off or something.
- A special, interesting, particularly creative case. (Although I have my doubts on this – too Purple Cow-ish)
- An extra mini-DVD of bonus content.
- A bonus podcast. (Just send a special URL with a pass code)
- An advanced copy of his upcoming book Meatball Sundae.
- A special offer for bulk orders of his new book.
- An invitation to a special 1-day seminar open only to those who said yes. (We’d still have to pay a bit and get ourselves to NYC. This might have to be a capacity-limited, first come / first served thing.)
Of these, I like the seminar best.
The bulk order book offer makes a lot of sense to me too. The DVDs are likely to appeal to a corporate audience that will show them to groups (your 10-person marketing dept, for example) or, at least, pass them around. Bulk order pricing might make you more likely to buy copies of his new book (that comes out around the same time as the DVD) for everyone.
Why not do both.
Time will tell, I’m looking forward to the rest of the story.
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