In the early days of the adult internet industry, there was a half-joke among some of the sector’s first entrepreneurs, a one-liner which proposed that the internet porn business was like a twist on the money line from A Field of Dreams: “Build it and they will cum.”

Back then, the question of how to make your content stand out from the crowd was less about the quality and character of the content than it was getting your site in front of enough consumers’ eyeballs. Some of the most successful sites of the day produced no content of their own; instead, they licensed content which fit the niches and themes of the sites they promoted, while focusing much of their attention (and budget) on building a traffic base.

“Content is King” may have been a popular rallying cry, but we all understood the implied caveat – without traffic, your king is liable to get quite lonely, sitting on a throne with no subjects over which to rule.

The current market for online adult entertainment is a very different place than that of the late 90s. The market has both grown and consolidated, with more self-produced content available than ever, but fewer major studios churning out new titles and signing contract stars. Adult websites are still numerous, but a relative handful of them receive more traffic than the rest combined.

Ultimately, the challenge remains getting and holding the attention of consumers – and if you’re banking on getting them to pay for access to your content, you’d better bring something quite compelling to the table.

What is the key to creating enthralling, engaging content? There is no single answer of course, no magic formula which will assure that what you shoot will mirror what your customers want to see. This doesn’t mean there’s no common ground between successful producers, or points of commonality in the content they produce.

To gain insight on how the creators of the most interesting and alluring adult content go about their work, YNOT recently sat down with a small handful of directors, script developers, editors and clip creators to talk about their processes, the source of their vision and the thinking which informs their work.

Whether you create content or not, it’s important – and valuable – to understand the various factors and facets which comprise ‘good’ content. Such insight helps you market and advertise more effectively, because if you endeavor to understand what’s behind the content, along the way you’ll gain a greater understanding of what motivates consumers to purchase it.

While the adult entertainment market has changed immensely over the years, there is much that hasn’t changed over the same period. The best content is still made by those who are passionate about what they do and who have an intuitive understanding of what like-minded consumers are looking for in the genres and categories they enjoy. Humor still has a big role to play in adult entertainment – not just in promoting and marketing porn, but within the content itself, as well.

YNOT’s series of feature articles on producing compelling content will kick off on May 30 and continue through the end of next week.

Target photo by Cleferson Comarela Barbosa