Have Paysite or Affiliate program questions? Fire away I'll try to answer them ;)

[Shap]

Hi guys. As I mentioned in another thread Twistys turned 9 yesterday. I thought since so many people here helped us get to where we are I'd like to turn things around and help out or answer any questions people may have about Paysites or Affiliate Programs. So fire away. Ask me anything.

Note it's Thanksgiving here so I may not reply right away but I'll reply

[Paper_Amar]

5 things on every program owners To Do list daily?

[Shap]

Btw here are two threads I created in the past that have some valuable information as well.

Secrets to our success
http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.php?t=694846

Twistys Stats Thread
http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.php?t=558484

[Shap]

Originally Posted by Paper_Amar

5 things on every program owners To Do list daily?

Damn That's a great question. Going to have to think about it

[SomeCreep]

Originally Posted by Shap

I thought since so many people here helped us get to where we are

Where is that, exactly?

[fuzebox]

Love your paysite threads. No specific questions, I'm just going to bookmark this one and revisit later.

[Shap]

Originally Posted by SomeCreep

Where is that, exactly?

I guess 'THAT' would be to running a company larger than I ever dreamed of.

[Roald]

Congrats on the 9 years Shap and team, love you guys!!!

Question, what keeps you motivated (besides money)?

[TCLGirls]

Question: other than sourcing content, did you start as a one man operation, or did you already have employees/hired help from the start? If you had employees/hired help, what did they do?

[Shap]

Originally Posted by Roald

Congrats on the 9 years Shap and team, love you guys!!!

Question, what keeps you motivated (besides money)?

Thanks Roald

Motivation can be a challenge at times. The nice thing with Twistys is all the feedback we get. We have a forum, comments, votes, emails you name it. It's nice to know how much our members appreciate the hard work that goes into the site. That makes it all worthwhile

[Shap]

Originally Posted by TCLGirls

Question: other than sourcing content, did you start as a one man operation, or did you already have employees/hired help from the start? If you had employees/hired help, what did they do?

We started just my wife and I. We did everything. Updated the site manually every single day. That was a bitch especially when sales were <10 signups a day. We kept at it because I knew we were playing catch up. If we updated every day we'd eventually have a really huge members area. I felt it was important for new members to see a nice archive of updates. That way they'd know the site was alive and not some cookie cutter never touched site (which was the norm back then). That plus we had 3 tgps that we updated manually every day. I'm not the smartest guy in the biz lol that's for sure. However while everyone else was sleeping I was working. When they were partying I was working. When they were taking a shit I was working. I out hustled, out worked and out wanted my competition

[fuzebox]

Any ideas on how a one man shop with a few niche paysites can reach the next level or scale in 2010?

[slapass]

Do you think you could do the same thing today?

[gleem]

I have some questions feel free to tackle.

1. How do you up the trial to full member conversions? I experimented with full access all the way do to 3 vids, 2 vids, then zero video for trial area, and so far giving them nothing but thumbs & upgrade links is the best for conversions, but it's still not 2007 fantastic.

2. How do you maintain order and not have to mod all day on a members forum in a members area full of members who all joined at very different price points from $5 retention people all the way upto $39. I tried once and everyone just got pissed off cause some guy posted he was in for $5 a month.

3. For a small staff, what is best to allocate time to, please put this in order of priorities you would have:

Affiliate pic galleries
Affiliate WMV/MPG video galleries
Affiliate FLV gals
Affiliate banners

4.For retaining members, which is best

adding new sites to the members area (combined members area)
adding various exclusive content site/niche oriented leased feeds
adding leased DVD feeds
improving the CMS, CMS development

5. Marketing budget, whats the allocation priority to get more revenue.

1. Buying banner spots to directly sell your own sites to surfer
2. Buying gallery spots to directly sell your own sites to surfer
3. Hiring someone to get email marketing lists to send CANSPAM compliant emails to potential members.

4. Buying banner spots to recruit affiliates
5. Buying webmaster email lists & paying for affiliate mailings to recruit affiliates.

[datatank]

Originally Posted by Roald

Congrats on the 9 years Shap and team, love you guys!!!

Question, what keeps you motivated (besides money)?

DING DING DING

When is it time to enjoy what you worked so hard for.

[fuzebox]

Originally Posted by gleem

so far giving them nothing but thumbs & upgrade links is the best for conversions

This made me smile

[gleem]

Originally Posted by fuzebox

This made me smile

the craziest part of it is, you get more complaints if you give em say only 5 of the 400 videos as viewable than having no vids viewable.

They get more upset if they only get a little, and if they get nothing for the trial but a tour of your members area, they are less likely to complain and more likely to upgrade... go figure.

[Mutt]

Originally Posted by Shap

I out hustled, out worked and out wanted my competition

Who were/are your competition?

[Ron2k1]

I have been trying promotion from tubesite for a while, what's your opinion about that?

Do you think submitting clips with watermarks on tube sites is worth the time?
How long should those clips be? Or doesn't the length matter?

I personally have mixed results with it, sites like xvideos.com do offer the option to submit clips with huge watermarks for example, but they are also flooded with illegal content.

I also have a little succes from xhamster.com (they allow small watermark + link back URL for sponsors).

[datatank]

Originally Posted by fuzebox

Any ideas on how a one man shop with a few niche paysites can reach the next level or scale in 2010?

Hire some staff for one

[datatank]

more people should be posting questions in here.
How often do you get a paysite and traffic leader/genious offering advice.

[fuzebox]

Originally Posted by datatank

Hire some staff for one

That's kind of the question. I can afford staff but am not sure what'd they'd do, and if theyd be profitable.

[Paper_Amar]

bump

would love to see some of these answered.

Amar

[DWB]

Congrats Shap.

ConWhat runs your members back end now? A custom CMS or off the shelf. If custom, how long did you have to work it to get it right?

[Loch]

I did not think that you and Beth were still in Canada Shap?
Or just back for the hollidays?

[mmcfadden]

Why do you get so much satisfaction out of a forum where the quotes, if positive, are...

Thankx fur the gret wank off! I really camed hard and you gz rock of!!

Wouldn't be making the money be enough satisfaction?

[[ Nate ]]

What software /accounting/ stats programs do you use to keep track of everything?

[munki]

Originally Posted by fuzebox

Love your paysite threads. No specific questions, I'm just going to bookmark this one and revisit later.

[Shap]

Originally Posted by Paper_Amar

bump

would love to see some of these answered.

Amar

Spent the day at the pumpkin patch with my boy. Sorry got home late. I'll answer them all tomorrow ;)

[datatank]

Originally Posted by fuzebox

That's kind of the question. I can afford staff but am not sure what'd they'd do, and if theyd be profitable.

Really?
You cant think of things for them to do to free up your time?
Think a little more man

blogs, tgps, galleries, tubes
plenty to do

[fuzebox]

Originally Posted by datatank

Really?
You cant think of things for them to do to free up your time?
Think a little more man

blogs, tgps, galleries, tubes
plenty to do

Yeah I don't think you understand what I'm getting at at all. Thanks though.

[MovieMaster]

Always a great resource.

[NickB.]

great respect for the man we call Shap

[V_RocKs]

Tease!.................

[onlytease]

Congrats on the 9 years Shap, we certainly look up at Twistys as being one of the best.

My question, is do you see a role in social media for promoting a multi model site, and if you do any secrets you want to share on how you embrace social media well? (apart from blogs, I am more referring to Twitter / Facebook type social media).

Cheers

Paul

[Shap]

Originally Posted by Paper_Amar

5 things on every program owners To Do list daily?

This is such a great question. I've been thinking about it all day. Here are a few things I recommend.

NOTE this is what I think a paysite owner should do. I just realize you said program owner.

First thing to start the day is to find out if there have been any customer support tickets that were out of the ordinary. It seems as soon as you have 2 tickets of the same sort that are uncommon you have a problem. Speed, errors whatever. If I get more than one speed complaint something is wrong. More than one error report something is wrong. It's important to get on that right away. There is no excuse for customer problems.

Next login to the site. View today's updates. Watch them. Read the comments. Look at the ratings. Would you be happy if you were your member? Are any comments negative? Are they valid or bs? If they are valid definitely address them.

Preview tomorrow's update. How does it look?

Review any received content.

What are you doing this week to make your site better? In most cases you can always do one thing a week to make your site better.

[Shap]

Originally Posted by Paper_Amar

5 things on every program owners To Do list daily?

Program Owners to do list.

Log in and check stats. See if sales are on track, traffic on track. Any anomalies good or bad? Look into them.

Log in to your sites. Be sure everything is running smooth (paysites to do list above lol). It is far more expensive to get a new member than keeping an existing one. Be sure all your efforts are not spent trying to get new members. Work equally hard on retaining your existing members.

I think a good practice for program owners would be to review a few accounts each day. Have them contacted to see what can be done to make more money. Far too many times I've found that just reaching out can take an account that does $100 a month to $1000 a month.

What one thing are you doing this week to make your sites convert better?

Have a list of where you are leaving money on the table and work to reduce that list to zero.

[Shap]

Originally Posted by fuzebox

Any ideas on how a one man shop with a few niche paysites can reach the next level or scale in 2010?

Absolutely. Find sources of traffic you can convert and buy buy buy. A one man shop shouldn't spend too much time on affiliates. You have to be the master of converting traffic.

[quiet]

great thread.

[Shap]

Originally Posted by slapass

Do you think you could do the same thing today?

That's a great question. To be brutally honest I don't think so. It couldn't be done the way i did it. That is for sure. When we started we were able to get by on just html. So my wife and I did just fine. Nowadays just html won't get you very far. Start up costs would be much higher. The affiliate world has changed getting the affiliates sales we had early on would never happen today we'd have to rely on buying traffic and converting it and turning a profit so higher costs involved there.

The market has changed so much. You can achieve great success but it would come at a higher cost imo. You'd have to be willing to have more money to start it and then re-invest re-invest re-invest.

[Shap]

Originally Posted by quiet

great thread.

It's interesting because your business model is probably the best one for right now. You were ahead of your time ;)

[chymp]

Two part question:

Do you attribute your success, at least in part, to saving money by buying your Callaway golf balls in bulk?

Where do you buy said golf balls?

[Porko]

Hey Shap,
Paul here.

I would like to know what is the best video format for a paysite.
I would like to offer a format that can use used from iphone and pc too.
(using streaming). What do you recommend? Many thanks!
btw, happy birthday Twistys.com

[datatank]

Originally Posted by fuzebox

Yeah I don't think you understand what I'm getting at at all. Thanks though.

I guess I don't
Lets see if Shap has some ideas.

I can tell you one thing. Hiring offshore staff was the single smartest thing I ever did. haha

[datatank]

Originally Posted by Shap

It is far more expensive to get a new member than keeping an existing one.

So So True

[Shap]

Originally Posted by gleem

I have some questions feel free to tackle.

1. How do you up the trial to full member conversions? I experimented with full access all the way do to 3 vids, 2 vids, then zero video for trial area, and so far giving them nothing but thumbs & upgrade links is the best for conversions, but it's still not 2007 fantastic.

We haven't experimented enough with this. Most people I know say the only way is a limited members area with instant upgrade links throughout. I haven't tried it so I can't say.

Originally Posted by gleem

2. How do you maintain order and not have to mod all day on a members forum in a members area full of members who all joined at very different price points from $5 retention people all the way upto $39. I tried once and everyone just got pissed off cause some guy posted he was in for $5 a month.

At first I was very afraid of members complaining about price, or non exclusive sets or competing sites etc. Surprisingly we never had that problem. A few times discount prices have been brought up but nobody's complained. One thing we did to help that is offer our best discount to everyone. That is our yearly membership. It's the lowest price and best deal. So if they complain about a monthly price someone else got the other members always remind them if they want the best price just join yearly. That definitely helps.

Surprisingly we haven't encountered one scenario where we regret being totally open and honest with the members.

Originally Posted by gleem

3. For a small staff, what is best to allocate time to, please put this in order of priorities you would have:

Affiliate pic galleries
Affiliate WMV/MPG video galleries
Affiliate FLV gals
Affiliate banners

Does it have to be these? I really think the best service you can do yourself (and your affiliates) is to really get your tours converting on traffic you are buying. If you are turning a profit on paid spots then they'll probably convert well and make good money with you as well.

It also depends on your site. Twistys has a huge picture archive. Over 1,000,000 images and a number of our members of photography lovers and don't care about video. So pic galleries are important for us. But for most sites I think the video galleries are most important followed by banners and probably pic galleries last.

Originally Posted by gleem

4.For retaining members, which is best

adding new sites to the members area (combined members area)
adding various exclusive content site/niche oriented leased feeds
adding leased DVD feeds
improving the CMS, CMS development

I'm against leased feeds. I know they've improved quite a bit since I was first exposed to them in 2001. I've never touched them and never will. One main reason is because everybody is sharing that feed. So at best you are adding that feed to keep up with the competition but not to surpass it.

I think it depends on the site and the members. Their feedback is key and whatever they seem to be requesting more of I'd look into.

I'd say having a cms that allows you to adapt and grow is key. We had to completely rewrite our cms this year. Why? Because simple features we should have been able to add we couldn't.

Improving the surfer experience is the most important thing to worry about. Improving the content and site navigation are probably the two best areas to focus on.

Originally Posted by gleem

5. Marketing budget, whats the allocation priority to get more revenue.

1. Buying banner spots to directly sell your own sites to surfer
2. Buying gallery spots to directly sell your own sites to surfer
3. Hiring someone to get email marketing lists to send CANSPAM compliant emails to potential members.

4. Buying banner spots to recruit affiliates
5. Buying webmaster email lists & paying for affiliate mailings to recruit affiliates.

In order of importance.
1. Buying banner spots to directly sell your own sites to surfer
- tube sites provide a greater audience and larger numbers than ever before possible in our industry. The companies that are able to buy these spots at a profit are making a killing.
2. Buying gallery spots to directly sell your own sites to surfer
- still has potential but a decreasing market. Important to do but not make it your main focus.

mid level importance
4. Buying banner spots to recruit affiliates
- i'm not big on buying banner spots to recruit affiliates. I prefer the old go out and contact everybody one by one on my own. Maybe I'm just cheap lol

of very low importance
3. Hiring someone to get email marketing lists to send CANSPAM compliant emails to potential members.
and
5. Buying webmaster email lists & paying for affiliate mailings to recruit affiliates.
- never did this so can't really comment on it

[Shap]

Originally Posted by gleem

the craziest part of it is, you get more complaints if you give em say only 5 of the 400 videos as viewable than having no vids viewable.

They get more upset if they only get a little, and if they get nothing for the trial but a tour of your members area, they are less likely to complain and more likely to upgrade... go figure.

I can totally see that.

[Shap]

Originally Posted by [ Nate ]

What software /accounting/ stats programs do you use to keep track of everything?

We use a big mix. Nats is our affiliate program, we use google analytics for our daily stats, we have an in-house program we use which brings a lot of this together, stats remote for our affiliate accounts, excel for our spreadsheets, and quick books for accounting.

It's a big mix. Wish there was something that was simpler.

[Shap]

Originally Posted by Mutt

Who were/are your competition?

That's always been a tricky question for us. I have a feeling this question is one to try to make me put my foot in my mouth or start shit with another company based on my previous comment LOL.

When we started it was guys like GlamourModelsGoneBabe and SexyBabes.tv. Ie the 3 guys using almost nothing but matrix content to run their site.

From there as we grew and moved into producing our own content those guys remained competitors but we set our sites on the Danni.com MacAndBumble, DigitalDesires of the world.

Then we moved on to the Glamour Brands. Penthouse, Playboy, Hustler.

And now it's down to the basics. PAYSITES LOL. Ftv, Nubiles, McNudes, MetArt, Brazzers. We are all shooting the same girls. It comes down to who is carving out their own little niche and doing what they do as well as they possibly can. You have to be mindful of what your competition is up to but not get caught up or worried about it.

[Shap]

Originally Posted by Ron2k1

I have been trying promotion from tubesite for a while, what's your opinion about that?

Do you think submitting clips with watermarks on tube sites is worth the time?
How long should those clips be? Or doesn't the length matter?

I personally have mixed results with it, sites like xvideos.com do offer the option to submit clips with huge watermarks for example, but they are also flooded with illegal content.

I also have a little succes from xhamster.com (they allow small watermark + link back URL for sponsors).

I haven't found the magic formula for tubes. I know some people have found that formula. I'd keep testing and not limit yourself to one or two tubes. i believe some tubes may not have much of a magic formula no matter how many hits they have.