The online adult entertainment business has been moving toward a business model shaped around "free" marketing. With sites like MySpace, YouTube, and Craigslist, consumers have come to demand more free content. This trend has hit the adult industry, and we all feel the impact.
In the old days, adult membership sites sold services as high as $49.95 monthly. we saw the downward trend of $39.95 monthly, then to $29.95, then $19.95, and now we see them as low as $9.95 monthly. Fees have been drastically reduced, yet the demand for quality content has increased. For many years, webmasters have provided their content in the form of thousands of galleries, and now they need to consolidate their content into one mega-tube site.
But if webmasters need to give more free promotional content to get surfers to their sites, how can they make money in this slowing economic climate? The suggestions here will help webmasters find a way to stay afloat. Since "free" content doesn't make you money, site owners will need to entice customers using one or all of the following solutions:
1) Keep your content and encoding upgraded to the newest and best technology, since free content is of substantially lower quality.
Paysites cannot afford to have the same streaming qualities as free sites, so upgrading technology is essential. Streaming company WorldWideFeeds.com does this for webmasters if they are unable to do it themselves. WWF provides the highest quality of streaming technologies and the largest content selection available online to date.
Today's surfers expect online technology that offers seamless transmission of media. Problems like long and constant buffering and freezing reduce the value of the content and motivate the surfer to go elsewhere. At WorldWideFeeds.com, we constantly improve our software and technology. It took almost a year to develop Version 3.0 of WorldWideFeeds.com's latest video streaming technology. WWF Version 3.0 upgrades back-end technology every six months, so that our webmaster clients stay in line with emerging developments.
2) Get into a micro-niche.
This may mean attracting less overall traffic, but guarantees more loyal and paying members, and essentially better conversions. You will end up spending less in lookie-loo bandwidth, and that means more money in your pocket.
It is important to keep up with trends and search out areas of niche interest that are under-represented in the marketplace. World Wide Content Inc., our online adult licensing and content company, has been focusing on specialized markets, niches, and micro-niches. At WWC, we provide an entire spectrum of heterosexual, gay, and bisexual coverage. To keep surfers interested, I look for material produced all over the globe. For example, Asian gay twink and authentic Japanese straight content are hot commodities right now. I seek producers both domestically and internationally to update our library. Webmasters appreciate the diversity and surfers feel they've found something they can't get anywhere else.
3) Offer a member's area that is worth the membership fee, in order to compete with free sites.
Provide your members with bonus services such as free mobile technology platforms included with their memberships or bonus streaming feeds such as WorldWideFeeds.com.
At WorldWideFeeds.com, more than having exclusive videos in the member's area, we provide more content, better streaming solutions, higher quality, and harder-to-find, unique niche feeds. Having access to exclusive feeds such as IP-TV Feeds, DVD Title Feeds, Studio Series Feeds, and more give value to members. Most sites already provide all-access options for surfers. But, what are they really getting? Tons of content is great, but the way it is packaged and delivered is a huge part of the user experience.
Maintaining and growing a successful online adult business takes a constant investment of money and manpower. But the demand for more free content and services is not necessarily a bad thing. It fosters competition and drives companies toward excellence.
We all know free promotional content has been around since day one, but the demand from consumers has grown, and they want a central place to get their content, rather than from thousands of galleries. We are all consolidating and looking for more quality than quantity in today's world. Tube sites, for instance, are a good example of defining quantity from quality. Which do you want in your member's area?
This article originally appeared in the January issue of AVN Online. To subscribe, visit AVNMediaNetwork.com/subscribe.
