Even though technology has dramatically changed the way we interact with customers over the past few years, the fundamentals of marketing remain exactly the same as they were when I was in university many, many, many years ago..Even though technology has dramatically changed the way we interact with customers over the past few years, the fundamentals of marketing remain exactly the same as they were when I was in university many, many, many years ago.
My entire education, and my subsequent years in the advertising business, can be summed up in three statements:
1. Identify your customers
2. Find out what they want
3. Give it to them
Sounds pretty easy, doesn’t it? But it’s alarming how many pay site owners have completely neglected an incredibly important segment of their customer base – their affiliates.
As an owner of a very large link list, I deal with hundreds of affiliate programs, but I spend most of my time and effort on the ones that understand what I need to make money. Consequently, they get the lion’s share of the revenue I generate, and the rest of the pay sites just languish there, getting the occasional nibble from the surfer who trips over their site by accident. So, for the benefit of those pay site owners who are sitting around, scratching their heads over why Webmasters aren’t tripping over themselves to promote their sites, here is what I want. Grab a pencil…
1. Fresh, exclusive content with regular updates.
Why not just let me into your site with my affiliate ID so I can pick out the stuff that will sell? I know what my surfers are looking for, and some lame gallery of 20 stale pics that have been on your site for the last three years is not gonna do me any good. I spend 90 percent of my time on a handful of pay sites that give me unrestricted access to download whatever the hell I want, so I can build galleries and free sites that are different from everyone else’s. And guess what? I make a shitload of money for them, and for me!
2. Statistics, and lots of ‘em.
I wanna know what was sold, when it was sold, how much I’m gonna get, what my ratios are, and most important, what the referring page of the sale was, so I can build another 50 or 100 of them just like it. The numbers that payment processors like Epoch and Ibill offer are useless to me. So spend a few bucks to give me some data I can work with.
3. Prompt answers to my questions.
I don’t have time to chase down Webmasters who don’t respond to my inquiries. If I don’t get my questions answered within 24 hours, I’m gone to the next program. Your loss, dude.
4. An affiliate area that is easy to navigate.
I don’t want to have to hunt around for linking codes, or download some mysterious zip file of content if I can’t preview it, or try to decipher some lame-ass stats page that doesn’t provide me with the data I need.
5. Alternate tour pages, with the option of turning off consoles.
I get a lot of feedback from surfers complaining about the number of pop-ups that attack them when they visit a pay site. And that hurts my traffic, because those guys likely won’t trust my link list anymore. So I would prefer to turn off consoles and get paid a smaller amount by the affiliate program.
6. Money!
Don’t be a cheapskate. If you only offer me 25 or 30 percent of the signup fee, you’re only hurting yourself, ‘cause I will be comparing your payout structure and conversion rates with the other opportunities out there. Most successful programs offer their affiliates a choice: a partnership option, where we share a percentage of the signup revenue over the life of the membership, or a flat per-signup fee. You’ll have to do your own math, but if you get extra revenue from upsells, exit consoles, email addresses, or other things, you can afford to give me a pretty hefty percentage of your membership revenue.
7. Be honest.
This is still a very small industry, and if you get caught shaving or doing other naughty things you will be exposed on message boards very quickly. Word travels fast these days.
Although there are other things I’d like, those are the most important ones, and I can tell you from experience that the pay site owners that offer most or all of these features are doing very, very well – not just from me, but from all the other adult Webmasters out there. Think of us as an army of independent salespeople. ‘Cause like any other business, if you support your sales force with the tools they need to succeed, they will. And so will you.
SexCollective.com contains over 10,000 hand-picked links to the best adult porn on the Web and is updated daily with over 800 categories to help surfers find what they’re looking for – fast! To contact Johnny Poker, email jpoker@ronincommunications.com.
