[Franklin]

They don't have to say anything. Kevin O'Leary is advertising for them:

More than 40,000 businesses apply to be on Shark Tank and the show gets nearly 7 million viewers per episode. Look up Kevin O'Leary and you find IOU Central's name right there...

This will generate thousands of leads a week.

ABC receiving 40,000 businesses is a little different from Kevin himself receiving that, as he's not involved in casting. It will take a little more work from IOU then simply posting his face on the site.

Just going by the numbers, it takes 7 million eyeballs to generate 40,000 leads, which converts to about half of one percent, which is close to normal direct marketing conversion when advertising to a wide, generic base (1/3 of 1 percent is typical). And the show has multiple episodes, plus re-runs, syndication, and youtube, so it's a lot of exposure, not just one look, that's generating 40k in apps.

My question is, what is the traffic volume Kevin receives to his website? A keyword search for shark" tank" yield's about 220,000+ in monthly searches, but over 95% of that is related to watching the show, less than 3% of that is related to being cast on the show. Google Kevin O'Leary and it's under 7000 mthly searches, again, most regarding his status on the show, not working with him.

Now having Kevin's face on the site will improve the stickiness and lower the bounce rate on their site, which helps greatly as people want to affiliate with other known celebrities and successful people. Also, many of those 40K apps are start ups and people watching shark tank in their bedroom, and then deciding to put down their bowl a cereal, pull up their underwear, and give the show a call to get a million dollars to fund their refrigerator sleeping bags that redistribute heat while you sleep, so you can camp on the bathroom floor and it feels like you're in the woods.


IOU needs to implement a smart strategy to leverage the face recognition Kevin provides or they won't maximize the asset they have, the way Total Merchant didn't.

[Sean Cash]

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