Most People Do Not Want 2 Join Membership Sites

[Barefootsies]

"Most people do not want to join membership sites"

"It is an established fact that 97% of potential clients leave without making a purchase"

"Our research has convinced us customers are willing to pay $9.95 for 24-48 hours access"

"People make the choice to watch porn on impulse, and have NO interest in returning to the same site to watch the content again"

Thoughts?

Link

[Chris]

dump the 19.95 a month recurring model and charge 48 hour 9.95 access! :D

[L-Pink]

Originally Posted by Chris

dump the 19.95 a month recurring model and charge 48 hour 9.95 access! :D

offer both

[fitzmulti]

Originally Posted by L-Pink

offer both

What he said!

[96ukssob]

Originally Posted by Chris

dump the 19.95 a month recurring model and charge 48 hour 9.95 access! :D

FTW

Thats now the 1, 2, 3 day passes worked well before on a PPS structure. I switched a couple sponsors to enable trials when they were turned off an noticed more sales, but those rarely renewed

[ThatOtherGuy - BANNED FOR LIFE]

$9.95 non- recurring 48 hour pass. I guess it could work for POS ( Piece Of Shit ) sites and such, but then the POS programs are pretty much not offering anything worth buying. Do not expect $25 per member with that kind of plan...

I have long held the philosophy that most programs these days are just simply not offering anything worth buying and returning to. I got some idea's on solving that, it shall come to bare soon.

$9.95 Non Recurring 48 Hr Pass.
Sounds great, good luck with the ROI.
thats less than $4.00 per member after split with webmaster.

Run the costs and you end up with even less.
And to boot not many affiliates would like it as they spend on advertising/promotions for traffic. So ROI is much more difficult.

[d-null]

isn't most of your foot business based on clips for sale?

[Barefootsies]

Originally Posted by ThatOtherGuy

I have long held the philosophy that most programs these days are just simply not offering anything worth buying and returning to. I got some idea's on solving that that will come to bare soon..

Most of the programs now a days are ghost ships.

I am working on a new project and have been going through my affiliate programs for links and promotional material. I would bet that 4 out of 10 are completely gone.

The next 4-5 of the remaining are 1999-2001 type content. Small videos, a lot of images, and websites that look like they have not been changed or updated in 10 years. I doubt many would even bother paying for that.

Then you get to the last 2 of 10. Those are current programs that EVERYONE is pushing. Making it a game of 1000 people chasing the same carrot, with more a less the same traffic sources.

It is no mystery why many people are not selling pushing most of the same BROgrams.

[Barefootsies]

Originally Posted by d-null

isn't most of your foot business based on clips for sale?

Nope. That is just one piece of a bigger puzzle.

I like clip store money, but more importantly, I like the very very targeted buying traffic it brings. You do not need new or unique content. I have been re-running some of the old shit, and people still buy it even years later.

It is very easy to do. It takes 15 minutes of my time a day (Monday - Friday) to cut and paste a description from my spreadsheet and schedule updates and be done. However, it is also good for pushing targeted traffic to my main sites. You also get to collect emails for your mailing list to update clients for new offers, get scripts for the scenes you are shooting, and so on.

There are many ways to work a clip store depending on your end goal. Sales or traffic.

[ThatOtherGuy - BANNED FOR LIFE]

Good topic Mr Barefootsies, I love reading you.
At least there is still a few occasional guys on GFY that spark good discussion or at least something thoughtful.

[Barefootsies]

Originally Posted by ThatOtherGuy

Good topic Mr Barefootsies, I love reading you.

Well, I found this ad while cruising the latest XBIZ I received a few days back.

I figured it would be a good discussion topic for the boards. It seems many do not bother to get the trade mag monthly. But it typically has a few thought provoking articles, or advertisements, in there.

At least there is still a few occasional guys on GFY that spark good discussion or at least something thoughtful.

Thanks bud. Appreciated.

[19teenporn]

Originally Posted by Barefootsies

"Most people do not want to join membership sites"

"It is an established fact that 97% of potential clients leave without making a purchase"

"Our research has convinced us customers are willing to pay $9.95 for 24-48 hours access"

"People make the choice to watch porn on impulse, and have NO interest in returning to the same site to watch the content again"

Thoughts?

Link

Nothing but pure self promoting bullshit!

[Barefootsies]

Originally Posted by 19teenporn

Nothing but pure self promoting bullshit!

[SmokeyTheBear]

a properly done ppv system could work better.

free to join , 5 free movie credits, enter cc to get more credits.

most current ppv models have pretty crappy content

[The Porn Nerd]

Take this for what it's worth (as it's worth anyone else's subjective wisdom) but owning 26 paysites I know a thing or two about memberships:

1. People are rebilling less and less. The average was (two years ago and longer) 4-6 months. Today? Lucky to get 2-3. People join for the lower price, cancel, rejoin (hopefully) months later to get the new stuff.

2. Therefore I offer a higher one-time only price and get about 5 - 1 sales this way. As I do splits with producers/models the extra money is nice to split, too.

3. I've offered 8 differant price points/time periods and found that, for me, $29.95 is the "sweet spot". With my shit you get 26+ sites, full-length DVDs, HD videos, daily updated theaters, etc etc.

4. The more unique your content the better off you are - and will sell more memberships. I know, duh, but I mean shooting/acquiring your OWN shit, not getting it from sponsers. If you get it from a sponser game over (cause so many others can/will get the same shit, too).

5. Try it. Ya never know, worth a shot, A-B test it. No matter what yer thinkin' Lincoln. LOL

Good luck!! Post your results.

[Jakez]

Originally Posted by Barefootsies

"Most people do not want to join membership sites"

"It is an established fact that 97% of potential clients leave without making a purchase"

"Our research has convinced us customers are willing to pay $9.95 for 24-48 hours access"

"People make the choice to watch porn on impulse, and have NO interest in returning to the same site to watch the content again"

Thoughts?

Yes, most people do not want to join membership sites. MOST, 51% or more, this has always been the case. Probably should have said "hardly anyone". Stupid thing of me to point out I know but it also sounds like a stupid vague statement.

97% sounds pretty fucking good IMO lol.

I totally disagree with people not visiting the same site again. That kind of goes against the whole way of the internet entirely. People find a site with what they like, be it a tube or whatever, and continue to come back because it has what they enjoy.

[Vjo]

Wont work, it is still about finding the one in 1000 (or more) and making money off recurs.

But you are right most people for sure do not want to join. When you think that (up to) 5000 people may click your link because of some interest, see your site, get your pitch and only one maybe buy.

I remember you saying BF (2 years ago in a post) that it was about quality traffic and not quantity. I took note and you were correct. Altho quantity is good of course, by focusing on quality you will prob improve your bottom line.

When you send 20K plus to a site without a sale it shows you how bad the site or interst really is. Imagine walking thorugh a stadium with 20,000 people with flyers and not one guy will buy. And they are in the stadium cause of interest in your topic.

Amazing how bad interest can be.

[Barefootsies]

Originally Posted by Vjo

I remember you saying BF (2 years ago in a post) that it was about quality traffic and not quantity. I took note and you were correct. Altho quantity is good of course, by focusing on quality you will prob improve your bottom line.

I still both practice, and believe it.

Which is why I still spend my time re-running content on clip stores. These guys come to C4S to BUY. So why WOULDN'T I be making use of that traffic source? I mean, you can't get it much easier than that.

Dude's with dick in hand, and ready to PURCHASE.

For well over a decade making money online I have followed this (highly targeted, quality traffic), and it has served me well. Allowing me to make a nice livelihood for many moons. You still want to try and get some volume so you can build that quality traffic and buyers over time. Make sure you work in your newsletters or some other way to keep in contact with your patrons. Get them involved and solicit their feedback to give the impression you care. Cater your content to what they are asking for. They will tell their friends. They will come back and buy.

[Vjo]

Originally Posted by Barefootsies

I still both practice, and believe it.

Which is why I still spend my time re-running content on clip stores. These guys come to C4S to BUY. So why WOULDN'T I be making use of that traffic source? I mean, you can't get it much easier than that.

Dude's with dick in hand, and ready to PURCHASE.

For well over a decade making money online I have followed this (highly targeted, quality traffic), and it has served me well. Allowing me to make a nice livelihood for many moons. You still want to try and get some volume so you can build that quality traffic and buyers over time. Make sure you work in your newsletters or some other way to keep in contact with your patrons. Get them involved and solicit their feedback to give the impression you care. Cater your content to what they are asking for. They will tell their friends. They will come back and buy.

Which also shows you (as you and me know) that regardless of how many guys say PPS is best, even more so today what is best is that guy who is happy and recurring. And yes he is a very good candidate to buy even more.

My recurs have saved my buns this year. Seriously, I would be long gone if not for recurs as an affil.

But yeah, you can get killed buying traffic if you dont have some experience as there are alot of lookie loos now days. But there have always been. Even when it was 1 in 500, that is still a very high number even when porn was new.

People dont crack the wallet easy now days. They have to have a good reason (good perceived value helps.. I dont know if a boner will do it if the price is $39.95 anymore )

Lots of crap traffic out there now days for sure.

[Vjo]

New affils listen up:

In honor of BF who is one smart cookie, I couldn't begin to tell you how many progs I have ONE last rebill with who keep recurring and rebilling and every couple of months I get a check as it breaks the minimum. About 6 progs like that.

Good recurring progs you got to have or someday you will be hurting.

I wish I could name names. I dont mind but prob should not. Then another 3-4 progs progs keep trucking along with 2-3 members recurring. That helps a lot.

THIS is how this biz works. There are still some good recurring progs who ARE the REAL winners!

Of course the PPS progs who pay you then keep the long recurs are winners! too.

BUT we want YOU to be winning! So dont forget those long straggler rebillers and get some rebill progs.

Why do I say this?

To THANK the real progs in this biz who ARE updating and ARE holding onto their members. Like I say good PPS companies do too as they are actually good recur progs in reality just that they keep the recurs.

So thanks to them both.

101 stuff for most but oh well I'm hitting "post"

[Vjo]

In all honesty, after reviewing my (old school ) post, the one fly in the ointment is this.

It takes a long time, years, alot of traffic to eventually come down with really loyal longterm members.

Today I realize it may not be as feasable to do from a biz standpoint. Takes time to build members. But once you do they are the BEST thing in this biz for sure.

[C H R I S]

Hotmovies has been using that for years.

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by Barefootsies

"Most people do not want to join membership sites"

"It is an established fact that 97% of potential clients leave without making a purchase"

"Our research has convinced us customers are willing to pay $9.95 for 24-48 hours access"

"People make the choice to watch porn on impulse, and have NO interest in returning to the same site to watch the content again"

Thoughts?

Thoughts?

Any site converting 1-33 (97%) is in a very very micro niche and gets 100 surfers a week. Even in the glory days sites couldn't convert at 99%. More like 1-300 on the best sites (99.3%)

Yes the day of forcing customers to buy what we want him to buy are over. Whether you have the greatest site ever or a POS site. The customer sets the pace today.

We offer 3 day trials recurring at $2.95 and 3 day memberships at $5 and the normal monthly recurring and non recurring. The short term non recurring is the most popular. The same members come back time after time. So they seem to like what we have and they like to come back when it suits them.

A point to remember. If the "experts" in online porn had a clue. The online business wouldn't be in a slide down. It would be climbing.

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by Vjo

New affils listen up:

In honor of BF who is one smart cookie, I couldn't begin to tell you how many progs I have ONE last rebill with who keep recurring and rebilling and every couple of months I get a check as it breaks the minimum. About 6 progs like that.

Good recurring progs you got to have or someday you will be hurting.

I wish I could name names. I dont mind but prob should not. Then another 3-4 progs progs keep trucking along with 2-3 members recurring. That helps a lot.

THIS is how this biz works. There are still some good recurring progs who ARE the REAL winners!

Of course the PPS progs who pay you then keep the long recurs are winners! too.

BUT we want YOU to be winning! So dont forget those long straggler rebillers and get some rebill progs.

Why do I say this?

To THANK the real progs in this biz who ARE updating and ARE holding onto their members. Like I say good PPS companies do too as they are actually good recur progs in reality just that they keep the recurs.

So thanks to them both.

101 stuff for most but oh well I'm hitting "post"

Good posts and some good comments.

I posted on another board asking the question if most of online only porn can actually afford to have good recurring sites. My belief is the majority can't, the profit simply isn't there for most.

Forget about the few sites who today profess to have lots of money. And think about theses figures. They are used as an example, so don't shoot the actual figures before you think about it.

A good solo girl scene shot by a good shooter, with some innovation, imagination and porn quality will cost quality will cost $1,000 per scene. Unless the site owner shoots it and only a few site owners can shoot good porn. Updating 1 set or video a day will cost $50 per update.

50 scenes = $50,000
30 updates = $15,000 a month.

So the first months content costs $65,000 and then $15,000 recurring.

At a monthly membership of $30 and allocating $5 to the content only got the site that means. 1,000 members recurring to pay for the initial content and 100 a day for the updates has to go to the content budget.

Very few start up sites can achieve that without massive promotion and that costs money. By the time the site is up and launched fully functioning what are ALL the costs after the first month?

Someone with more skill at this than me need to chip in here.

I've spoken to enough big time sponsors who would of liked to buy exclusive content from us, but simply couldn't afford it. They could and did afford to buy from people who were shooting a lot cheaper.

This effected conversions and retention. But it was cheaper to throw tons of traffic at a site rather than build a site that would really work.

Look at the few solo girl sites that do work well, Alsscans, Abbey Winters, Met Art and a few others.

Mostly we expected customers to keep recurring when we didn't give them good enough reasons to. The long time recurring member is a rare breed and not the norm. Long term = over 1 year.

[Vjo]

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

Thoughts?

Any site converting 1-33 (97%) is in a very very micro niche and gets 100 surfers a week. Even in the glory days sites couldn't convert at 99%. More like 1-300 on the best sites (99.3%)

Yes the day of forcing customers to buy what we want him to buy are over. Whether you have the greatest site ever or a POS site. The customer sets the pace today.

We offer 3 day trials recurring at $2.95 and 3 day memberships at $5 and the normal monthly recurring and non recurring. The short term non recurring is the most popular. The same members come back time after time. So they seem to like what we have and they like to come back when it suits them.

A point to remember. If the "experts" in online porn had a clue. The online business wouldn't be in a slide down. It would be climbing.

As a sometime buyer of porn I really like to see the no recurring 30 day option which you are seeing a little more often now. Lots of guys dont want to recur or hassle with cancelling. If I ran paysites, which I dont but, I would think it would be a good option all round.

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

Good posts and some good comments.

I posted on another board asking the question if most of online only porn can actually afford to have good recurring sites. My belief is the majority can't, the profit simply isn't there for most.

Forget about the few sites who today profess to have lots of money. And think about theses figures. They are used as an example, so don't shoot the actual figures before you think about it.

A good solo girl scene shot by a good shooter, with some innovation, imagination and porn quality will cost quality will cost $1,000 per scene. Unless the site owner shoots it and only a few site owners can shoot good porn. Updating 1 set or video a day will cost $50 per update.

50 scenes = $50,000
30 updates = $15,000 a month.

So the first months content costs $65,000 and then $15,000 recurring.

At a monthly membership of $30 and allocating $5 to the content only got the site that means. 1,000 members recurring to pay for the initial content and 100 a day for the updates has to go to the content budget.

Very few start up sites can achieve that without massive promotion and that costs money. By the time the site is up and launched fully functioning what are ALL the costs after the first month?

Someone with more skill at this than me need to chip in here.

I've spoken to enough big time sponsors who would of liked to buy exclusive content from us, but simply couldn't afford it. They could and did afford to buy from people who were shooting a lot cheaper.

This effected conversions and retention. But it was cheaper to throw tons of traffic at a site rather than build a site that would really work.

Look at the few solo girl sites that do work well, Alsscans, Abbey Winters, Met Art and a few others.

Mostly we expected customers to keep recurring when we didn't give them good enough reasons to. The long time recurring member is a rare breed and not the norm. Long term = over 1 year.

Very intersting post and real good info. Thanks Paul.

This shows you, as I suspected, and as I see over time that it is mostly the BIG solid recurring progs (and successful PPS progs) who have the financial ability to really make a recur prog fly now days and who you have the best chance as an affil to make some longterm money with.

I never realized it was that expensive but yes fresh videos are not cheap. The days of "two broke buddies" offering 50% and making it are getting harder as time goes on.

And time shows that a ton of so-so mom and pop, "two broke buddy" recur progs have lost ground (they just stopped recurring) while the very biggest ones tend to be doing best, prob cause they are spending where smaller guys cant or wont.

There is a lot of competition for progs and I always suspected the big guys would distance themselves from the smaller guys. Your figures confirm that maybe that is what is happening just based on cost of content alone.

It is not amateur night anymore running a good affil prog that will recur.

And "recur" has to happen PPS or Recur Prog or nothing flies.

[baddog]

[Vjo]

Some recur progs do what it takes to sell and that is who i send my traffic to..

Remember PornMegaBucks and Bill (great guy) the owner..

They used to recur forever but diff time and eventually they fizzeled mainly cause they didnt update content.. point tho.. they had a system that allowed the affil to set the order of the processors in the cascade. NOONE has ever done this since. You could set Epoch First, CCBill second, and so on. He literally had 6-8 processors in the cascade.

He did have a brilliant young programnmer I forget his name. Sorry.

This is called going after the sale. And in his time he was one of if not the best prog in the game.

But he did not update content or tours, their decision of course, and time passed them by.

But he went after the sale and this is what I like to see. The sponsor must endlessly tweak and build their tours till they sell. He understood his traffic and knew how to sell. Plus he gave the affil their choice of processor order for their traffic.

This is called grabbing the biz by the balls. Where are the Bills today?

Does ANYONE offer variable cascades to the affil like he did? Noone. 6-8 processors. He had them all for you.

For me he holds the record.. almost 8 years of rebills thru CCBill with my one last straggler. Had 2 more that went 6 year years. So he had enuf content I guess for some people.

Would of went way further but lost 90% of my rebills when IBill collapsed.

[Vjo]

So you got paid by multiple processors AND he would send a private check around once a year for the checking signups and Telephone billing which added up in a year. Gave me 65% too and I was just a lil shit. Plus a free membership for life on my BDay. And I was a lil shit.

He was a go getter and we need more of that type of guy bad in this industry now.

Even bulit me tours and I mean, I said it. I was a very lil shit. And even I made good money

He knew how to sell. How to get surfer A through door B.

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by Vjo

Very intersting post and real good info. Thanks Paul.

This shows you, as I suspected, and as I see over time that it is mostly the big solid recurring progs who have the financial ability to really make a recur prog fly now days and who you have the best chance as an affil to make some longterm money with.

I never realized it was that expensive but yes fresh videos are not cheap. The days of "two broke buddies" offering 50% and making it are getting harder as time goes on.

And time shows that a ton of so-so mom and pop, "two broke buddy" recur progs have lost ground while the very biggest ones tend to be doing best, prob cause they are spending where smaller guys cant.

There is a lot of competition for progs and I always suspected the big guys would distance themselves from the smaller guys. Your figures confirm that maybe that is what is happening just based on cost of content alone.

It is not amateur night anymore running a good affil prog that will "recur".

And "recur" has to happen PPS or Recur Prog or nothing flies.

I missed a 0 when I made the last post. Content cost needs 10,000 members to sign up. And the 3,000 every month after that.

Add a number for the rest of the site start up at $35,000. The total's now $100,000.00 to start a small solo girl site and keep it updating at 1 piece of content a day. Not worth staying long and best to come back in 3-6 months later and see all the updates.

This is to do it right and not the "it can be done cheaper" method.

Very few programs could afford this when they started. So the start up model was very much 2 buddies shooting some naked chicks and seeing how it goes. They started that way, grew or disappeared and those who grew thought it was the way to go and carried on with the same model.

Even today investing this kind of money in starting up a site seems to be beyond most. I've made the "distance themselves from the smaller guys" comment a lot of times. Even discussed it with some of the biggest out there. The reply is always the same. No proof it would make any difference.

The astounding thing is that some sites could of afforded this 10 years ago. By selling the content to other levels of the porn industry. A decent magazine set was certainly worth $1,000 in sales. In fact $3,000 is a better guess. A good BG video worth $5,000 maybe even $10,000, without stepping into the top fields. Where a BG video was worth more.

This would of slashed or even made the cost of the sites content $0.00.

This side of the industry preferred to convince itself the surfers wanted poor porn and that other levels of the porn industry had it all wrong. And based that on stats that proved less than 0.5% of surfers agreed with them. Yes it took probably took 200 surfers soaking up free porn to get 1 sale. And that number got progressively worse.

Originally Posted by Vjo

So you got paid by multiple processors AND he would send a private check around once a year for the checking signups and Telephone billing which added up in a year. Gave me 65% too and I was just a lil shit. Plus a free membership for life on my BDay. And I was a lil shit.

And now you know why few could afford to have decent sites.

[Vjo]

Originally Posted by baddog

Them mobile Apps are going crazy now. Everyone (incl Howard Stern.. all he talks about) is buying apps for their mobiles.

Maybe some money to be made there.

[Vjo]

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

I missed a 0 when I made the last post. Content cost needs 10,000 members to sign up. And the 3,000 every month after that.

Add a number for the rest of the site start up at $35,000. The total's now $100,000.00 to start a small solo girl site and keep it updating at 1 piece of content a day. Not worth staying long and best to come back in 3-6 months later and see all the updates.

This is to do it right and not the "it can be done cheaper" method.

Very few programs could afford this when they started. So the start up model was very much 2 buddies shooting some naked chicks and seeing how it goes. They started that way, grew or disappeared and those who grew thought it was the way to go and carried on with the same model.

Even today investing this kind of money in starting up a site seems to be beyond most. I've made the "distance themselves from the smaller guys" comment a lot of times. Even discussed it with some of the biggest out there. The reply is always the same. No proof it would make any difference.

The astounding thing is that some sites could of afforded this 10 years ago. By selling the content to other levels of the porn industry. A decent magazine set was certainly worth $1,000 in sales. In fact $3,000 is a better guess. A good BG video worth $5,000 maybe even $10,000, without stepping into the top fields. Where a BG video was worth more.

This would of slashed or even made the cost of the sites content $0.00.

This side of the industry preferred to convince itself the surfers wanted poor porn and that other levels of the porn industry had it all wrong. And based that on stats that proved less than 0.5% of surfers agreed with them. Yes it took probably took 200 surfers soaking up free porn to get 1 sale. And that number got progressively worse.



And now you know why few could afford to have decent sites.

Very interesting. Very expensive now days. Everyone can steal all the content they want EXCEPT the payop.

Once again really good to get some info on this. Shows you a lot of progs are all about "let the affil send traffic and see what sticks" Rather than updating.

Ya know seems to me most members who stay a long time are not that fussy where they need lots of updates. But they want continual updates to at least show the site is alive.

I am no expert at all on content but it is good to learn about that end.

From my end I just see who performs and then that is where my traffic goes. I suspect they are updating with the best of them or they would not be paying me.

As an affil I like to see a new tour every year or so as ND and others do. This shows me they are investing, so I invest in them. Or have a first class tour like Scorecash. There I gave ya two good progs. Go and sin no more. hehe

There are many other variables of course for the payop but all the affil sees is the tour and the stats. Maybe EVERY prog should give the affil a site pass before we sign up.

We dont really need one now but years ago it would have helped. Then again maybe we do need one now.

[Vjo]

And I agree with you Paul that giving away content caused ratios to go sky high which caused the value of traffic to drop causing the value of domains to drop.

And really crippling the small affil. And thus hurting the entire industry.

You cant stop technology I guess and as soon as the first scripts arrived guys bought them.

Script writers really hurt the biz. Not blaming them as technology marches forward but no scripts, no tubes, or at least less effective tubes. And maybe traffic would be worth something again.



Eh it was inevitable some jackball would go, "hey why not just build a huge video site with everything free" Duh! And with them first few sites we were all in trouble.

Quick story you'll like. In 1998 I had a site with 10 pics on. I honestly forget where I got em. But I got a C&D from that well known content producer in Florida, Damn I cant remember her name but she was a pit bull about her pics.

I took um off. Somewhere along the line that "pitbull protect your content at all costs" mindset changed.

Thanks Paul. I am still a grunt so better get off to the fields a while.

[Fenris Wolf]

Originally Posted by Barefootsies

"Our research has convinced us customers are willing to pay $9.95 for 24-48 hours access"

I think for a good percentage of customers 30 day memberships are not a viable option for them. There are just to many options available to justify spending $30 to $40 on a monthly subscription to a site that updates only a handful of times a month.

[Vjo]

that little jackball he's a millionaire






(Dire Straits - Money For Nothing reference.. I have to explain this stuff else guys get upset )

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by Vjo

And I agree with you Paul that giving away content caused ratios to go sky high which caused the value of traffic to drop causing the value of domains to drop.

And really crippling the small affil. And thus hurting the entire industry.

You cant stop technology I guess and as soon as the first scripts arrived guys bought them.

Script writers really hurt the biz. Not blaming them as technology marches forward but no scripts, no tubes, or at least less effective tubes. And maybe traffic would be worth something again.



Eh it was inevitable some jackball would go, "hey why not just build a huge video site with everything free" Duh! And with them first few sites we were all in trouble.

Quick story you'll like. In 1998 I had a site with 10 pics on. I honestly forget where I got em. But I got a C&D from that well known content producer in Florida, Damn I cant remember her name but she was a pit bull about her pics.

I took um off. Somewhere along the line that "pitbull protect your content at all costs" mindset changed.

Thanks Paul. I am still a grunt so better get off to the fields a while.

You're talking about today, I'm also thinking about yesterday.

The idea of giving away content didn't start with Tubes. It started with TGPs and no one bothered to sit back and think about the damage it was doing.

So let's look at the coin from the other side. What can a medium site afford to spend on content and be a bit better than the norm?

I was trained at doing budgets so this is a guess work stab at the numbers, but the way a businessman looks at it.

24,000 memberships a year. (Not big and not small) = $720,000

Less 10% processing = $648,000

Less content costs of $230,000 = $415,000

Hosting 10% (early days) = $343,000

Set up costs $35,000 = $308,000

Assuming it's not a Ma & Pa operation, let's add an office and 1 staff. Cost $24,000 for the office and $35,000 for staff. Also we have equipment like computers, lawyer and accountant. $600 a moth. Total $71,000 per year. $237,000

Profit of 10% of the principal. The total left is $165,000.

22,9% of the revenue.

Obviously without access to the true figures the amounts are guess work, but if anyone wants to flame me they're welcome to. So long as they give true figures.

But it's clear you can't build a good solo girl site from scratch and pay out 50-65% to affiliates. Even if only half the sign ups are non affiliates the average spent on "traffic" could well be 30% of the revenue. Big affiliates want more for a sign up. Plus think about support and promotion to affiliates.

And the owner of the site has a business turning over 3/4 of a million dollars and takes home $72,000 before tax.

The best and only place to save money was content. Cut that by 2/3rds and it starts to look better. The problem is the free legal content being given away and piling up on free sites everywhere.

The business model was flawed from very early on. And it got more flawed as time went on.

When I see a person giving away tons of free content to earn money as an affiliate, complaining about free content I really wonder. What is he thinking he did for the las 5-10 years if not give away free content?

[Grapesoda]

Originally Posted by ThatOtherGuy

$9.95 non- recurring 48 hour pass. I guess it could work for POS ( Piece Of Shit ) sites and such, but then the POS programs are pretty much not offering anything worth buying. Do not expect $25 per member with that kind of plan...

I have long held the philosophy that most programs these days are just simply not offering anything worth buying and returning to. I got some idea's on solving that, it shall come to bare soon.

$9.95 Non Recurring 48 Hr Pass.
Sounds great, good luck with the ROI.
thats less than $4.00 per member after split with webmaster.

Run the costs and you end up with even less.
And to boot not many affiliates would like it as they spend on advertising/promotions for traffic. So ROI is much more difficult.

I imagine that the vast majority of programs/sites use the shark method survival. keep moving, grab a join and move on with retention being a very minor part of the business model. cross sales and shaves seems to be the current trend