By Andrew Krepow, PR intern

Comedian Louis C.K. has quietly, but also rightfully, earned an incredibly lengthy list of accolades. He has his own Emmy-nominated TV show; his recent Grammy-winning comedy album was the first stand-up comedy film shown at the Sundance Film Festival; and most recently he conducted a marketing experiment that made more than one million dollars.

In November 2011, he recorded a new stand-up special and wanted his fans to view it as painlessly as possible. Instead of a production company, commercial distribution channels and a marketing team, his company spent close to $200,000 to self-produce and self-distribute Live at the Beacon Theater.

A month later the special was made available for download on a new website, LouisCK.net. For $5 fans could download the act, DRM-free, meaning they could do whatever they pleased with it-burn it to a DVD, even pirate it. Within one week, the site had earned Louis C.K. one million dollars.

Without a production company backing him, and with online piracy still a serious issue, logic would dictate his experiment would have failed. Instead, Louis C.K.’s alternative do-it-yourself model demonstrates valuable skills that can be translated to traditional marketing tactics.

1. Think Like The Consumer. In order to provide his fans with the best experience possible, Louis C.K. put himself in the shoes of a consumer. If he wouldn’t want to buy the show, why would anyone else want to? Therefore, the video was professionally shot and edited and the website was designed to avoid technical difficulties. There was no DRM, so fans could watch the special however they wanted. The price was reasonable at $5. By producing a high quality show, consumers were able to, affordably, buy a high quality show.

2. Leverage Your Brand on Social Media. There is no official Louis CK Facebook page and Louis C.K. doesn’t like Twitter. It’s evident by the amount of people he follows: 0. But he realizes that his fans are using social media, and effectively leverages Twitter to connect with his 1,029,732 followers. He used the platform to announce the details of his show and direct his followers to his new website. He then took part in a Q&A session on Reddit with fans, also free of charge. He positioned himself as a person that genuinely cares about the people who care about him.

3. Be Socially Mindful. So what do you do when you make $1,000,000 in a week? Louis C.K. said he felt uncomfortable having all of that money at once, so he split the earnings into four parts: one quarter replenished the company’s money, one quarter went to bonuses for his staff, $280,000 went to different charities and the remainder was his. Furthermore, on a recent Friday night he took to Twitter to announce that he would be performing a benefit show for the New England Children’s Center (NECC) the following Monday. Between the Twitter announcement and emails from the Wilbur Theatre, the show immediately sold out, bringing in $42,000 to the NECC.

4. Be Open. Be Honest. Be Genuine. Despite regularly changing his act, it’s always filled with the hilarious (and sometimes absurd) triumphs and tribulations he faces in his life. On or off stage, his persona never changes. His transparency was evident in a tweet to curb the possibility of torrents: "Please don't torrent this video. I paid for the whole thing with my own stupid money." He was warned about the possibility of piracy, but he had faith in his audience and in the end his faith was rewarded.

Despite the high level of success the experiment had, it’s difficult to isolate the factors that ultimately made it a success. Recently, another comedian, Jim Gaffigan, announced that he too would digitally release his next stand-up special for $5. Drawing inspiration from Louis C.K., he plans to donate $1 from each purchase to charity. It’ll be interesting to see if this is just a trending experiment, or if the Do-It-Yourself model becomes the norm.