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If you are looking for leads, as opposed to simple brand awareness, my advice would be to ensure that your product is expensive enough to make it worthwhile. W

If you are looking for leads, as opposed to simple brand awareness, my advice would be to ensure that your product is expensive enough to make it worthwhile. We looked into StackOverflow advertisement for http://ThinkCode.TV http://ThinkCode.TV, but we gave up on it due to our low pricing. For example, our MacRuby screencast costs $8.99, of which $4.05 is actual profit for the company. Buying 100,000 impressions for the macruby tag costs $1000 (their minimum). With a typical click-through rate of 0.20%, we would receive about 200 clicks. We wouldn't break even, even if all 200 clicks converted (which is a ridiculous assumption). For brand awareness or high ticket items, it may be worth it though.

benatkin 16y ago
Wow. I'm into screencasts, but I'd never heard of you! I'm curious about the pre-order screencasts. How much planning did you do beforehand? Are lesson plans subject to change? Are you set up to do bulk refunds if you don't finish a series in a reasonable amount of time? I think it's a good idea, perhaps taken a little too far. I'd probably want to finish half of a series before taking money for a whole series.
- acangiano 16y ago
  > Wow. I'm into screencasts, but I'd never heard of you! We launched a month ago. :) > I'm curious about the pre-order screencasts. How much planning did you do beforehand? There is quite a bit of planning behind it: * Only authors that we're familiar with and trust can do courses (as opposed to authoring a single screencast). * Each author needs to be specific about what material they're going to cover in each lesson. * Half of the royalties from preorders are withheld until the course is completed. This motivates authors to finish what they started, as well as giving us funds to handle emergency situations. * We only release a course after work on the second lesson has been started. This helps us evaluate how long the first lesson took a given author. If it took too long, we won't start a course, but simply convert that lesson into a single screencast. * We aim for a release of at least one lesson per month, give or take. * When it comes to TDD and Python, these courses have been adopted/translated from our Italian catalog, where the fourth and fifth lessons, respectively, are being created at the moment. The Italian version of the Python course should be finished by the end of June, then it will be a matter of translation. > Are you set up to do bulk refunds if you don't finish a series in a reasonable amount of time? Creating a whole course takes a lot of time and work. It's akin to writing a large technical book. For this reason, we may disagree on the definition of "reasonable amount of time". What's sure is that if after a year, a course has yet to be completed, and a customer complains, we'll issue a partial refund or some form of "store credit". Ultimately, we sincerely care about providing really good customer care, and strive to ensure that all of our courses end up being completed.
mattwdelong 16y ago
I'm confused? CTR of 20%? So 20% of 100,000 is 20,000 last I checked. Of 20,000 hits, converting even 2% into purchases (should be realistic) is 400 purchases. If I did my math right, thats $620 profit. Not big bucks, but still profit.
- aditya 16y ago
  CTR is 0.2% not 20%
  - mattwdelong 16y ago
    Suddenly, things make sense. My bad. :)
mmnord 16y ago
I tried to purchase a screencast using PayPal but I still need to enter full name, phone number, email address, and full address at the FastSpring site as well. Is there a way to avoid entering all that personal data over there?
- acangiano 16y ago
  Sure, shoot me an email at support@thinkcode.tv and we can fulfill the order manually.

benatkin 16y ago

Wow. I'm into screencasts, but I'd never heard of you! I'm curious about the pre-order screencasts. How much planning did you do beforehand? Are lesson plans subject to change? Are you set up to do bulk refunds if you don't finish a series in a reasonable amount of time? I think it's a good idea, perhaps taken a little too far. I'd probably want to finish half of a series before taking money for a whole series.

acangiano 16y ago
> Wow. I'm into screencasts, but I'd never heard of you! We launched a month ago. :) > I'm curious about the pre-order screencasts. How much planning did you do beforehand? There is quite a bit of planning behind it: * Only authors that we're familiar with and trust can do courses (as opposed to authoring a single screencast). * Each author needs to be specific about what material they're going to cover in each lesson. * Half of the royalties from preorders are withheld until the course is completed. This motivates authors to finish what they started, as well as giving us funds to handle emergency situations. * We only release a course after work on the second lesson has been started. This helps us evaluate how long the first lesson took a given author. If it took too long, we won't start a course, but simply convert that lesson into a single screencast. * We aim for a release of at least one lesson per month, give or take. * When it comes to TDD and Python, these courses have been adopted/translated from our Italian catalog, where the fourth and fifth lessons, respectively, are being created at the moment. The Italian version of the Python course should be finished by the end of June, then it will be a matter of translation. > Are you set up to do bulk refunds if you don't finish a series in a reasonable amount of time? Creating a whole course takes a lot of time and work. It's akin to writing a large technical book. For this reason, we may disagree on the definition of "reasonable amount of time". What's sure is that if after a year, a course has yet to be completed, and a customer complains, we'll issue a partial refund or some form of "store credit". Ultimately, we sincerely care about providing really good customer care, and strive to ensure that all of our courses end up being completed.

mattwdelong 16y ago

I'm confused? CTR of 20%? So 20% of 100,000 is 20,000 last I checked. Of 20,000 hits, converting even 2% into purchases (should be realistic) is 400 purchases. If I did my math right, thats $620 profit. Not big bucks, but still profit.

aditya 16y ago
CTR is 0.2% not 20%
- mattwdelong 16y ago
  Suddenly, things make sense. My bad. :)

mmnord 16y ago

I tried to purchase a screencast using PayPal but I still need to enter full name, phone number, email address, and full address at the FastSpring site as well. Is there a way to avoid entering all that personal data over there?

acangiano 16y ago
Sure, shoot me an email at support@thinkcode.tv and we can fulfill the order manually.