Marketing Porn

Steve

Sex Story

Many people come into this industry with the idea that making sales is a snap. Just throw up a bazillion free pics and a couple of banners, maybe some sexy little javascript effects and the first million is on its way into the bank.

Oh if it were only that simple to make money in this business!

Of course reality soon sets in and people either leave the industry or settle down to learn the basics so that they can begin to make some money. Of course, some of the basics are so simple that many people don't even see them and one of the basics that many people miss is that making money in this industry is all about marketing.

You don't have to think about marketing porn because what we are selling is immaterial. It is all about marketing and it makes no difference whether we are selling porn, motor vehicles, insurance policies or golf tees. The very basis of our industry is marketing and the easiest way to learn about marketing is simply to look around you.

When you go to the supermarket look at how they market their products. Look at how the products are arranged on the shelves and look at how the manufacturers try to make their products stand out from similar lines.

Spend some time looking at how complimentary lines are often placed together and also notice how completely different lines are also placed near each other. Why is there a rack of batteries placed alongside the savoury snacks? Do you think that the store put them because they had nowhere else for them to go?

Spend time looking at the signs around the store too. Consider why some signs that are in plain view catch your eye and others don't. Think about the placement of the signs too - are they all placed at the front of the store? Are they spread all over the store?

Think too about how sales are made. Obviously in supermarkets there is very little one-on-one selling. Supermarkets use other methods to get you to buy but what about selling big-ticket items such as cars and white goods, computers and cameras?

More effort is put into the expensive items. You actually get to see a salesman face to face and you get to interact with him or her. Think about how those sales people interacted with you.

What did they do to encourage you to buy their product? How did they approach the task of selling their product to you? What was your reaction to them? Is there anything that they did while they were talking to you that encouraged you to buy their product?

Now stop and compare the techniques used to sell big-ticket items and the techniques used to sell grocery items in the supermarket. At a quick glance they appear totally different but are they really that different?

You may well think that I'm talking through my hat. How can anyone sell porn via a website and use the same techniques that a salesman uses when he is dealing face to face with a client? How can we possibly use the same techniques to sell porn as a major manufacturer uses to sell baby powder? It's just a waste of time when all you have to do is throw up a few banners and some images.

If you accept that the principles of marketing are the same no matter what you are selling then just because we are selling porn does not mean that we are somehow exempt from the fundamentals of marketing.

Certainly at one stage in the development of the online porn industry you could have been forgiven for thinking that marketing porn was somehow divorced from marketing fundamentals. At one stage you could make sales with nothing more than a banner or two and the hint of bare skin but those heady days have gone and will never return.

Now we are down to the hard grind of making sales through lots of hard work and we need to learn those fundamental marketing skills very quickly or we will not survive.

So I've given you some questions to think about but am I going to answer them? No.

The most effective lessons that you ever learn are those that you learn for yourself. I've asked you the questions that should start you thinking along the right lines but it's up to you to work through them and come up with the answers.

I will however give you one clue and it comes from the guys who sell their goods face to face. As I said before, think about those guys who sold you some big-ticket item and think about what their approach was when making that sale.

Now go and look at this site again. It's one of the earliest sites I reviewed. Look at how Voltar approached the task of selling his sponsor to the surfer here.

Compare Voltar's approach to some of the successful salesmen you have had dealings with and learn from a master.

To submit a site for review:

Send an email to Steve and put 'site review' in the subject