I did have a chance to watch the taped version of this ‘premiere’ use of Skype for Oprah’s Book Club with author Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth: Awaking Your Life’s Purpose
If you haven’t read my last post, it was not a review about the book, but (since this is a marketing related blog) more an examination about the marketing behind the event. I am still fascinated by this campaign, it is a rather impressive idea. And, though I don’t often have clients with the budget of Harpo Products (Oprah’s multimedia production company), I do like to watch how they are doing this and conceptualize how I can create scaled down versions for appropriate clients.
For clarification of #4 on the last post: They do use pre-selected “Skyper” (viewers with a video camera on their computer, who talk via Skype) and do mention Skype a great deal. Though Oprah confesses she had never heard of Skype before, she acknowledges how cool it is to be able to have people (sitting in their homes) talk with her on videocams. She had people from across the U.S. and a woman based in Germany call in on Skype. She also used ‘emails’ and the ‘phone’ to talk with other individuals across the globe.
Now, to be fair, other marketers have already started using Skype for group meetings. Last year, Ed Dale (located in Australia) of StomperNet did a series of Skype calls with members, across the globe, in StomperSimple. And I am sure there were others, before him. But Oprah’s group has done it on a grander scale:
Obviously, this new example is a high profile (meaning: high budget) campaign - more like an interactive live Internet TV-style show - it was stated that 500,000 people watched the live version of this, and, as of the other day, 1.5 million have downloaded the pre-recorded version (either from Oprah.com or iTunes).
Yet, as ready as the Harpo team was for this experiment, there were still complications. Though, to their credit, the group is taking ownership and finding ways to resolve them. It seems, many viewers didn’t get to actually watch it live. So, they are responding by asking people to show up early to the next “class” and emphasizing this is a new media that they are exploring. They wrote, in a reminder email (about access to the next installment): “If you’re willing to partner with us in exploring this new frontier, we’ll see you in class on Monday!”
They also remind people they can download each class, afterwards, if they can’t get on the live call. I like that they are being proactive for the next class. Also, I like the availability of the downloads, I know I am not going to spend my Monday night watching the live version. I’d rather watch it on my own terms, which reiterates my constant reminder to my clients that the need to make their webinars or even newsletters available in a variety of ways. That’s why I love blogs: You can post links (without HTML knowledge) to pre-recorded webinars, archive past newsletters, and more… This way, a month from now someone new can find it and utilize the info. So, you don’t need a budget like Oprah has to achieve a lot of these results (though you may have a smaller audience, you can still make a big impact).
As a marketing tool, I think this combination of Virtual Classroom and Skype accessed students is a great experiment to witness - I am sure many people will follow on what they are creating. I know I am already brainstorming ideas.
And, yes, as a viewer, I am also enjoying it. It is self-help oriented, but is ‘bigger’ than ones-self. And it is not limiting, like The Secret has been accused of being. (The Secret seemed to leave out the step about taking action, and they focused too much on material gain.) Though I have not read Tolle’s book, this workshop, based on the book, isn’t like that, it seems to be more about “awareness” and getting past our individual ‘egos’ - Now, I am sure, as with all things in life, there is not a lot of new content in this book, just a ‘re-visiting’ of it, but maybe it is a re-visiting in a way that more of the main-stream can understand and take action on it! So bravo to Oprah and Eckhart for doing this.
The other thing that I liked, from a viewer’s point, was that they make it clear that Eckhart is not trying to be a guru or a prophet. He is just a guy who took his ideas and wrote them in a way that he hopes can help others. Yes, he is making money off of it, but his intent seems genuine after watching the first installment. Let me know (by posting below), if you disagree.
Though, I have to say, I downloaded the video recording and there is a weird glitch that happens when I watch it on my computer: On occasion, for no apparent reason, the recording will jump back to a section I have already listened to, not to the beginning, but an earlier section. It seems to always take me back to one of 3 sections. I found it quite amusing though, because it was always interesting stuff that I might not have listened to sharply enough the first time (since I listened to it in the background, as I worked). So, I would laugh at myself and re-listen more focused, the second time. And, when it happened a 3rd time, I could also just use the forward option, to go back to ‘the future’ space where I had last heard new content.
Like everything on the web, there were glitches, but overall the campaign (and for me, the content, as well) was worth following along.
Let me know your thoughts on either the marketing campaign, the content, or even my use of this example on this blog, by posting below.
I am always looking for interesting ways to market something, so when I got the email (pictured left) from Skype, I had to check it out.
After all it seemed to be about Oprah and her Book Club using Skype to conduct a chapter by chapter reading of bestselling author Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth: Awaking Your Life’s Purpose.
It seemed, from this email, that Skype was hosting this virtual book tour/club. Every Monday for 10 weeks, starting yesterday (Monday, March 3rd), they explained, Oprah and Eckhart would be reviewing a chapter and answering questions.
I thought the goal was to take questions from readers around the world through a live Skype video call. I figured this meant you got to see Oprah and Eckhart live, and though I didn’t see the first installment, yesterday, I gathered you might also get your own mug up there.
After all, one of the things I use Skype for is to be like The Jetson’s and talk with my clients or my mom over the computer using our built-in cameras to see one another. In my mind, I began to try to figure out how they would do that with 500,000 people.
As I mentioned, I missed the premiere of this happening, last night, so I went to Oprah’s site to find out more.
Of course, Oprah’s site tells you that you must join the site and the book club, which I promptly did, to investigate.
So, why am I mentioning it here? It’s not because I am a fan of Tolle, I have never read his stuff (so I have no opinion either way about that, sorry) and didn’t previously have interest in Oprah’s book club (though I appreciate how she encourages her audience to read!). The reason I wanted to write this post was because I was intrigued by their process and what I found out - and I thought you might be, as well:
This seemed to be an expanded method of doing a book tour using the Internet (though book tours have been done through webinars and maybe even using video, I have not heard of people using Skype to market in this way. So, I had to check it out - I’m still confused where Skype comes in, more on that below.
I was surprised to see that Penguin (the publisher) is not mentioned on either Skype or Oprah’s site - and depending on where you look, it seems to be more about Oprah then Tolle (though I gather neither publisher or author are complaining). And according to The Huffington Post “About 3.5 million copies of Eckhart Tolle’s spiritual self-help guide have been shipped since Winfrey, host of “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” announced her selection four weeks ago.”
I was curious about the joint venture between Harpo and Skype and how it is being handled. My first impression was that Skype dropped the promotional ball by not announcing this sooner, but then again, I don’t read every promotional email that comes in - so maybe they wrote about it earlier. Or, maybe Harpo’s agreement was to not mention it to the Skypers until they knew the Oprah crowd had time to register? I didn’t know why they would do that, but it got me wondering what the terms were and how Oprah’s site was handling the promotion
Oprah.com doesn’t mention Skype at all, or at least I couldn’t find them mentioned (if you find it, let me know). One thought is they are just sponsoring and not actually providing access to the event. In fact, after you sign up you are told you have to download something from a company called Move Network.
What is Move Networks about and why is their image so blurry? OK to be fair, it was only the first 1 min and 43 seconds that the image on their own site was extremely blurry, oh and the reason I kept watching it was because during part of that time my mouse froze. (I have a year old MacBook Pro, so it can’t be that my system is that outdated already, can it?) After that the picture was AMAZINGLY clear and I did continue to watch the rest of their 3 min and 26 sec video of beautiful areal views of snow covered mountain tops - it really was crystal clear.
What does Limelight Networks have to do with this promotion and should I already know more about them?
And, of course, Oprah’s people are making the podcasts (taped versions of the ’show’) available on their own site and on iTunes.
So, no, this is not a post about Eckhart’s book and what I think about it. So, please understand that fact. It is an evaluation of a new way of getting information out there and how Harpo Production is doing that (and with whom they are coordinating the efforts.)
For the time being, I can’t say whether this is a valid new method of marketing, because I am still evaluating it, but I thought it was an interesting exercise on how the pieces came together and how everyone was benefiting from this campaign.
Saw this post about eye tracking on Seth Godin’s blog and thought it was an interesting read. In case you hadn’t seen it, I wanted to share it with you.
Seth Godin always has an eye on things, so if you aren’t familiar with him, this is a great introduction. It’s actually a summary. He is referencing a study on another site - but I’m bringing you to his blog, because he summarizes it well.
Then, you can use the link he provides to the more in depth version, if you want it.
The biggest surprise, which my friends at Goozmo and I were recently talking about was this:
Text ads were viewed mostly intently of all types tested. Like we said earlier, the average Internet user generally doesn’t waste much time looking at things that immediately appear to be ads. That’s why text ads perform so much better. They aren’t distracting and blend in with the rest of the content on the page, making them less visually irritating to the reader and ultimately more successful.
The ones my clients are probably used to hearing me say were included (which I take as a good sign):
Clean, clear faces in images attract more eye fixation. (eye fixation=good)
Shorter paragraphs perform better than long ones.
White space is good.
Lists hold reader attention longer. (see, you are reading a list right now)
Hope you check out what else Seth has to say, while you are on his site.
He has some great books, too. His new one just came out: Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing out of Sync? And here is one of his critically acclaimed audiobooks:
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However, if you made it here by mistake, while looking for the blog I set up to help independent artists/writers/musicians gain an online presence, please head over to MarketingAndWriting.com
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Wordpress.com might not work for everyone, but it is a nice option to get a site going on a small (or invisible) budget.
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I did have a chance to watch the taped version of this ‘premiere’ use of Skype for Oprah’s Book Club with author Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth: Awaking Your Life’s Purpose
Obviously, this new example is a high profile (meaning: high budget) campaign - more like an interactive live Internet TV-style show - it was stated that 500,000 people watched the live version of this, and, as of the other day, 1.5 million have downloaded the pre-recorded version (either from Oprah.com or iTunes).
After all, one of the things I use Skype for is to be like The Jetson’s and talk with my clients or my mom over the computer using our built-in cameras to see one another. In my mind, I began to try to figure out how they would do that with 500,000 people.
