Jackie Danicki

Seth Godin asks marketers: How much would you pay to be on Oprah’s TV show?

The persistent reporter who spoke to me the other day wouldn’t stop asking the same question, “What percentage of your annual sales are directly attributable to your blog?” Perhaps you’ve heard the same question from your boss. Proof is what they seek! Management doesn’t want to invest in new media without understanding what the short-term payoff is. Authors don’t want to “give away” content without proof that it’ll pay off.

But they’d all pay to be on Oprah.

…A quick gut check will probably confirm what many of us truly believe: the number of channels of communication is going to continue to increase. And either you’ll have a channel or you won’t. Either you’ll have access to the attention of the people you need to talk with, (notice I didn’t say talk “at”) or you won’t.

So, the real question to ask isn’t, “how much will I get paid to talk with these people?” The real question is, “how much will I PAY to talk with these people?”

One thing that Seth no doubt knows, but doesn’t touch on here, is the question of speaking to the right people. Do you want to be in the top 1 per cent of the power curve, or do you want to connect very well with the small number of people whose opinions you actually care about? As Six Apart president and co-founder Mena Trott said at Supernova 2004:

I’ve gone from wanting a readership of tens of thousands to wanting a readership of 10. The trick is reaching the right 10.

And yes, NerdTV is real; you can watch it here.

Filed under: Life