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And now here's where we make the obligatory joke about selling boldly where no continuity program has sold before…

The William Shatner Sci-Fi DVD of the Month Club recently celebrated its first anniversary. Joshua Silberstein, CEO of Brooklyn, NY-based FullTurn Entertainment, says the club came about when the company's founder decided it would be a good idea to create a curated collection that was managed by an “authority in the space who would serve as a brand name.”

But don't think that the man who was Captain Kirk is a mere figurehead. “He gets very involved in the movie selection process, reviews all the movies, tells us which ones he doesn't like, which ones he definitely wants included,” Silberstein says. “And he also gets involved in promotional activities, like a contest where the winner got him to record their answering machine message.”

The audience for the club, which has slightly more than 4,500 members, cuts across what one would think of as the “typical” science fiction fan, according to Silberstein. “Bill's appeal is so broad that when we run our demographics, it's shocking. It's almost 50-50 men and women, and the age range is evenly distributed from 18 to 80. It's a fairly broad spectrum of income groups as well.”

Paid search is one of the club's major marketing vehicles, he says, adding that people who go to Google and type in something like “Shatner DVD” are very highly qualified. “Then we have a descending spectrum of words — science fiction is marginally useful, science fiction DVD tends to be very good, ‘Star Trek,’ etc.”

The club also works with a network of affiliates on a cost-per-acquisition basis to get referrals. Contests are advertised on partner sites, and these can result in 8,000 to 20,000 e-mail addresses for use in future promotions in any given month.

Visitors to www.shatnerdvdclub.com can sign up for a weekly newsletter featuring reviews, sometimes written by Shatner himself. Banner ads are also used. While these are less effective than search, they're easy to scale, Silberstein notes.

FullTurn tested a print ad in USA Today but Silberstein says the results were abysmal. Even though (thanks to a partnership arrangement) the company only shelled out 15% of the rate card, the $6,000 ad was nowhere near profitable, resulting in a grand total of one order. Magazine ads can be successful, but the fact that publications targeted to the genre have such small circulations doesn't add much value.

Direct mail isn't on the agenda either. The core offer is a free DVD trial offer, and FullTurn's goal is to get someone to sign up for $25 or less.

The club also operates the National Lampoon DVD of the Month Club. While Silberstein says the “marketing playbook” is similar, there are differences. “There's more [Web] sites, but they don't necessarily map to someone who wants to join a DVD club. The challenge isn't scale but how to harness the broader channels to reach the customer.”

Don't get your hopes up for Denny Crane's picks, though. Despite Shatner's current popularity on “Boston Legal,” Silberstein nixed the idea of a law-themed movie club. “Bill's name is far more synonymous with sci-fi.”