One-Two Punch: Pacific Marketing/Network Telephone Services

In an adult entertainment industry besieged by spam advertising and regular barbs from the mainstream media, the question arises: How do I transform my revolutionary idea into a cash trough?

One answer: for the past seven years, Pacific Marketing (www.pacmar.net) has been a gateway to prime print ad placement on the pages of the industry's most famous monthlies. Touting itself as "the nation's largest purchaser of adult print advertising," Pacific has landed its clients on the pages of well-known magazines like Club, Gallery, Hustler, Men, Penthouse, and Swank. The company estimated its client billing exceeded $10 million last year.

Similarly, Network Telephone Services, the parent company of Pacific, is one of the world's largest pay-per-call sex service bureaus. The companies are closely linked as Pacific creates and implements market placement strategies for a variety of adult companies, including Websites and phone sex operators.

NTS receives about 300,000 calls per day and processes about 35 million calls annually.

David Wood, Pacific's vice president of sales and marketing, qualifies the daily average when he says, "Mind you, not all of those calls get converted into billable transactions."

Wood, a University of Arizona marketing grad, said his agency has served nearly 200 clients, including Creations, Investor's Media Group, Vector, and many others. "Because of our substantial market share, Pacific is able to pass on a lower ad rate to our clients," Wood said.

Until three years ago, the information providers of NTS (more commonly known as phone actors and actresses) operated from a phone bank at the company's Woodland Hills, Calif. headquarters. By letting the phone talent work offsite, the company expanded its 1,000-person labor pool and cut operating costs further by staffing a mixture of independent contractors and NTS employees.

Within the U.S. phone sex industry, which is based primarily in Los Angeles, Florida, and New York, Wood feels that most of the promotion angles for adult entertainment services have either already been either explored or exploited. Since the adult publishing industry doesn't have a bureau to audit its circulation statistics like mainstream media does, companies like Pacific can offer a hassle-free gateway to higher product or service visibility. Besides placing two-dimensional ads between the covers of high-circulation magazines, Pacific constructs and oversees targeted direct mail campaigns for its clients, aided by its in-house division of copywriters and graphic design professionals.

"Since we're trying to help the smaller adult Webbie get their phone sex line or other sex services noticed and dialed, we have an in-house department here to help our clients build and create ads for maximum impact," Wood said.

This is exactly where a targeted direct mail campaign can do wonders for his clients and is what Wood believes sets his firm apart from its rivals. "For example, our custom direct mail campaigns may incorporate a phone sex client's existing database, in this case, one that may contain between 5,000 and 10,000 contacts," he said. In this case, a base estimate for the adequate dispersal of a client's message would fall somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000.

"If you're an information provider with a 1-800 adult sex line and looking to generate more traffic, depending on what your product caters to, Pacific will be able to suggest the appropriate niche market for your ad placement, whether it's in Hustler's Barely Legal or Playgirl, or Club International," Wood said.

In the future, Pacific, with Wood as its handsome ringmaster, looks to heavily promote the benefits adult Webmasters can realize from print ad investments. With so many traditional avenues saturated, Wood finds few substitutes for a good old-fashioned four-color ad well placed in a national newsstand title.

"After all," Wood said, "we don't get paid until you get off!"