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Another Sales Pitch, Please!
Editor’s note: This editor (Claire) began her day by bringing this post to the attention of her fellow editors, who live in the top-north corner of her computer screen. “This is great, we should promote it,” she wrote. Then she cast her eye further up her screen, only to see a message from Troy. “This is great and should be used,” he’d written. “Except,” he added, “we should, of course, add Law Talk to the list.” Lesson 1: The editors here share a brain. Knowing this will give you power. Lesson 2: If you miss Law Talk, Troy will be sad.
Rob Long, I listen to the Ricochet podcast every week. I’ve done so since Episode One. However, I’m tired of listening to your plea to the non-members about joining. It’s either not working or working so slowly that the spiel needs to change. I propose you read this on air at the next opportunity:
“I’ve been listening to the Ricochet podcast from day one and like all who have listened from that day, have suffered through Rob’s sales pitch about joining. That’s 271 times. I joined not because of the benefits so ably described by Rob, but because I didn’t want the podcasts to end. I paid to support the business itself, and thereby, the cause. In and of themselves, the podcasts are worth the money. I not only listen to the “flagship” with Rob, Peter. and James, but I also listen to the GLoP, Powerline, Milt Rosenberg and Delingpole podcasts. [Have you tried Law Talk, Darrell? We think you’ll like it just as much.]
I love them and so do you, it seems, so if you want to keep listening, pay. I rarely go to the website; I have enough to read. [But the website’s not just about reading — it’s about writing. It’s about joining our conversation, which is the most cordial, spirited, funny, and friendly conservative conversation on the Internet. While other sites are shutting down their comments section because they can’t handle the trolls, ours is growing daily and becoming even more convivial and civil. So come on over and have your say!]
But the podcasts are something I can listen to in the car or while I ride my bike to and from work. Pay, because it is the moral thing to do! Pay, because Ricochet is something great and honorable and worth preserving.”
–Darrell Hooper, “DownUnder”
Editors’ note: Thank you, Darrell! Knowing that you’re enjoying Ricochet made the editors’ day start right — in several time zones around the world.
Haven’t joined yet? Come on in, the water’s fine! We’d be delighted to have you join our conversation. First month for new members is on the house.
Personal testimonies are a good idea. My own reflects yours.
After the 2012 elections, I was feeling pretty grim, but right around that time I ran across the Ricochet podcast via NRO. I binged on the podcasts, looking for some clue as to how Obama could have been re-elected. I spent a few weeks working my way back through the archives, and for days I had James Lileks voice giving my internal monologue. I’ve recovered, both from the election, and from the Lileksian voice in my head.
My general position is that we are all doomed (DOOMED, I tell you!), but that doesn’t matter. I found Ricochet, and the subscription is worth it. Also, I feel strongly that if you’re getting value, you should support it. I particularly enjoy the podcasts, and I regularly listen to at least half of them, and I pony up my pennies to keep them coming.
But also, the community here is worth supporting. You hear the camaraderie in the podcasts, and respect of the guests, and the member feed is remarkably civil, for the most part.
I’ll keep supporting this place, and I’ll keep listening. Even at the risk of hearing Lileks even when there’s no podcast going on.
I’m just here to sell Amway.
Rob may feel it’s needed, but it gets on very, very annoying.
Maybe Rob has been influenced by PBS a tad more than he realizes. I don’t care and the sales pitch doesn’t bother me. I would prefer a sales pitch to something more visceral, like joining Ricochet is a tangible action against all that is wrong with the world, all the evil, etc. It is standing up to shout “stop it!!!” It is a stand for freedom and justice and goodness. It not just a transaction for mundane material things. It is noble and courageous, lifting mankind to a better world where we can breathe the life-giving sweet air of liberty and love our country and one another without fear. Stop freeloading and whining and pay up. Join us, we chosen few who fight this day for all that is good and pure.
Hey DownUnder, come hang out more often with us on the site. You may have enough to read but here you can read and WRITE. I am not very good at that last part but they haven’t kicked me out yet! Will be looking for you on the member feed.
cv
Indeed. They might really do well to read this on the air.
Great post – I too listen to every podcast that comes over the feed.
I’m not sure when I started listening but I had been a non-member for a while before signing up.
Rob’s pitch made sense to me, but it always had slipped away after the podcast ended and life intruded.
One day, however, Rob was not on and instead of that professional Rob Long pitch there was the halting, embarrassed pitch of Peter Robinson. It was so earnest that I realized for the first time that this was not “a done deal” that would always be here if we didn’t support it but a struggling little business. Who was I not to spend the equivalent of a grand latte at the flagship Starbucks in Seattle when I had already derived so much pleasure for FREE? So I chipped in, and have gladly done so ever since.
Don’t you just use the “skip ahead 45 seconds” button?
I just turn it to Rush for a minute or so.
I think Rob uses the pitch to keep himself humble. After a week of swanning around The Land of Hollys and Woods, begging for some scratch puts a man on the same level as the masses.
In a way, it’s like when Hillary adds a southern drawl to her speeches, because of its authenticfulness. That way, just before being escorted to the black SUVs by a cadre of highly-trained security dudes, she can feel, for a fleeting moment, the lumps of the proletariat, in her misbegotten soul.
But Rob’s soul is sparkly. Just want to make that delineation clear.
Actually, I’ll go this one better: I really enjoy listening to Rob have to sing for his supper.
Interesting. What’s an Amway?
About 6 lbs.
I (re)joined for basically the same reasons — Ricochet is a worthy endeavour & ought to be supported. But I don’t knock Rob Long for the sales pitch — its got to be done & he does as well with it as anybody could.
I don’t mind Rob’s pitches so much. But I do think that the business model is flawed when you give away the most valuable product in the stable-the podcasts. Limit the times they are offered free so that people can sample or be reminded what they are missing but keep most on the member side of the pay wall.
The Ricochet subscription is less than a beer a month. Forget undertaking any worthy political activity yourself (campaigning, writing your senator, volunteering, etc) if you won’t even buy the people already in the fight a beer- congratulations on voting present. And I don’t think you quite understand our fight with the freeloading left.
2nd cousin to an Anvil.
Acme Manufacturing sells anvils to Amway Distributors which delivers via air drop directly on to your head. Umbrella not included.
Hard to imagine why anyone wouldn’t want to join Ricochet discussions.
As for a merely economic argument for membership, who listening/reading/commenting hasn’t payed much more for much less.
What can I say but, “Thanks for the ad copy.” I’ll read it next week. And I’ll read pretty much anything else any member thinks will get us to the magic 10,000 — within reason, of course — because, well, yeah: I’m aware that my pitch may be sagging in the pizazz department. My goal is simple: to grow this business, to make the payroll, to win the country back, to save civilization from more progressive “progress.”
You in?
We get asked this question all the time, so I’ll address it: we have experimented with putting the podcasts behind the wall in the past and it didn’t work. We cut our distribution by 70% without seeing much of a rise in memberships. It also killed our podcast advertising business, which is a big part of our revenue stream.
We’ve learned that the more effective strategy is to try and convert a small percentage of the hundreds of thousands of listeners we reach each week to paying members while increasing our listener base and advertising revenue. Needless to say, it’s hard.
Would it be possible to split the podcast? Say, put the last 15 minutes behind the wall? Break mid-interview.
Or perhaps have a “Bonus” 15 minutes that members have access to.
“Well, that’ll do it for the free portion. Join us for the bonus portion by joining today.”
@casey The amount of labor and technology needed to support that idea would make it cost prohibitive. iTunes (by far the largest podcast distribution channel) doesn’t really support paywalled podcasts, which really makes it a non-starter.