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Paid Content

What would you pay to listen to an episode of Six Pixels of Separation – The Twist Image Podcast?

Don’t panic, I have no plans to start charging for my weekly marketing podcast. On Twitter, I was having some back and forth between Gary Vaynerchuk (Crush It and The Thank You Economy) and Avinash Kaushik (Web Analytics – An Hour A Day and Web Analytics 2.0) and we decided that we will soon record a three-way audio Podcast to discuss branding, Social Media and analytics. @benjaminbach tweeted: "I’d buy that," to which, Gary responded with: "hmmmmm buy huh? How much? For an hour? I’m serious, curious about future of content."

Would you pay for that type of content?

I started thinking about paid content, Social Media and how people perceive the act of paying for content (it’s a topic I’ve covered before: Free Content Is Killing Media (And Advertising), Blogging And Podcasting As A Business Model, Content Pays and When We Switch From Free To Paid). The first thought that came to mind was: what if I made that one, special, episode a premium episode and attached a fee to it? It wasn’t about making money, but much more about attempting to answer Gary’s question about the perceived value of the information being presented. Being the Media Hacker that I am, I started thinking: what if I charged $0.99 per episode via iTunes? Surely an hour listening to Seth Godin or Chris Brogan or Steve Wozniak and I chat must be worth $0.99? Obviously, by charging for the Podcast, I would then diminish the size of the listening audience, but does that really matter? The content is not advertising supported, so there’s no additional value to having a whole bunch of free ears listening in on my weekly marketing conversations. Then, a final thought struck me: what if I charged $0.99 per episode but also left all of the episodes available for free as they are now?

At this point, you’re probably thinking: "has Mitch lost his mind?"

Hear me out: This isn’t about exclusion. It’s about inclusion. If you want the content but don’t feel that it’s worth any money, that’s fine. It’s there for the taking. If you want the content and learn from the content, is it worth under one dollar? People who are willing to pay for their content (and you can replace the word "content" with "education," "personal development" or "learning") are a different breed. They not only assign a different value to the content, they have different expectations and interactions with it. For over fifteen years, I was in the music industry and was given every CD and concert ticket for free, trust me when I say that your perception of the content changes when it’s free from when it’s paid for. In the end, I’m not going to be charging for my content on the Blog and/or the Podcast. I’m doing my best to get my ideas to spread, so free is the perfect price for me, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking about new models and ideas for a world that will ultimately have to pay for content – in some way, shape or form.

What do you think?

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.