TUCSON, Ariz. - The Phoenix Forum seminar "Gay Is Not a Niche" featured a discussion scheduled to cover "everything you wanted to know about ‘gay' but [were] afraid to ask" and ways for non-gay businesses to venture into the lucrative gay market.
Moderated by Mary Gillis of FlashCash, the Thursday seminar kicked off with PrideBucks co-owner Harlan Yaffe discussing his recent column in Klixxx magazine. Titled "Misconception," his column covered misconceptions about the gay market.
"Tranny sites belong in straight programs," Yaffe said. "Gay men have already decided no boobies. Not now. Not ever. We have already made the choice. It is who you are marketing to, which is one of the biggest misconceptions. For tranny, you are marketing to the straight guy who is testing his boundaries. That's why they belong in straight programs."
Yaffe's comment drew enthusiastic applause.
NakedSword founder Tim Valenti spoke about crossing over from gay to straight and collaborations between gay and straight companies, drawing on his experience with NakedSword and AEBN.
"It took a whole year for me to put that deal together because when you do something like this, it is a big leap of faith," he said. "I could do it, walk away and feel good about it. However, if I want to continue my vision successfully with time, we agreed ahead of time by painting a scenario of how it would be. We look for the places where we could leverage each other with each of our own strengths.
"What they have for us is a great distribution system and a lot of traffic. What we had was brands, a loyal audience, and we have been successfully able to develop our own strategy for ourselves and for the gay part of the business. We are capable to build our own product. We have our own programming and production team. We do good marketing. However, we are not good at affiliate.
"In the beginning, it was partly my fault because I wanted to build a brand and build consumers. I didn't want anyone to do it for me. With time, I learned how important affiliates are. One of the things that AEBN has done successfully is it has built a monster affiliate machine."
Another important topic discussed was traffic. Rainey of Traffic Dude, a traffic broker, explained that there is a major difference between straight and gay traffic.
"There is a huge difference in what people are looking for," she said. "I spoke recently with someone who owns a gay company and is launching a straight brand."
Rainey said glamour models work well in the straight market but not in the gay market. To gays, she said, porn is not a taboo subject, so they do not need to step lightly into porn or hardcore content.
Panelists said the gay market focuses on acquiring and maintaining quality traffic and retaining their members, while those in the straight market seem to focus on getting as much cheap traffic as possible, no matter where it comes from.
Valenti recommended communicating with members as a way to gain traffic. He said NakedSword logs every conversation with its members in order to learn the reasons for their breakups and how to fix them.
The panelists agreed that tube sites are successful because they allow users to leave comments, allowing companies to learn what their consumers want.
Yaffe added that gays' specific niche demands need to be met.
"I call it the Rooster Theory," he said. "When straight tries to be gay, they think that any cock, or gay, will do. This is not true at all. You have to find out what they want and bring it to them."
