?There's no money in porn? Just LOL.
 

Every now and then --- actually pretty often ? some nutter comes along and says, ?There's no money anymore in porn?. ?The industry's dead?. ?Time to abandon ship?. Etc. Etc.

The main reason he'll give for this is...there's too much free content (due to tube sites and amateur producers).

It makes me want to face palm.

Let's get this right out of the way now.

Mainstream markets aren't any different! Every other blogger is giving away tons of good content, free ebooks, free videos,etc..

The internet is awash with quality free content.

No matter your market...you're going to have to overcome this.

How?

Salesmanship. Positioning. Marketing.

You have to increase the perceived value to the extent that people are willing to part with their money.

It's the exact same in adult.

A lot of guys say you can't make money producing vanilla porn. It's gotta be Japanese midgets fucking unicorns or something in order to convert. And I say...bullshit.

You just need to stop marketing vanilla porn as...vanilla porn. Find your unique value proposition. Create it out of thin air.

Again, it's all about increasing people's perception of value. The reality is irrelevant.

It amazes me how much doom and gloom there is in the adult industry.

If anything, you guys have two ENORMOUS advantages.

1. There's a guaranteed, everlasting, ever-growing market of horny people.

2. The vast majority of entrepreneurs and small businessmen would never get their hands dirty in porn. Whether they're afraid of what their family might think, or that God might smite them...that's a huge barrier to entry.

You put those two factors together and it spells opportunity for us lucky degenerates.

And as a guy coming from mainstream IM, it astounds me how much money a lot of adult webmasters are leaving on the table.

You all have traffic and email lists that'd make guys in other industries drool over their keyboards.

The opportunity to make boatloads of cash --- is still out there.

So I just wanted to tell you guys, ?Keep your chins up?. And to the naysayers...fuck off.


Peace out,

Julian

These are people who haven't accepted that there's no money in blame.

its not as easy as it used to be...not even close.

There is no business on the planet that doesn't constantly change and evolve. There are only those who don't change and evolve with it.

If I could still produce content for cheaper than the asswipes that steal and re-distribute it...there might be a fighting chance.

Although it really was much easier, I tend to agree with you :)

Evian. Poland Springs. Aquafina. Deer Park. MANY many others.

What are these? WATER. Free, out of your tap, find it everywhere H2O. A BILLION dollar Industry. "But there's free water literally everywhere! Water fountains, sinks, kitchens, bathrooms....just turn a faucet and save yourself that $1.50 you're wasting on plastic bottles!"

Get it? Got it? Good.

Interesting point.

How much would Evian be worth if it was available for free everywhere?

That's always amused me as well and a great analogy. Exclusive and unique has always sold. With water, they don't even go that far, generic product + idea (image/perception) ... Just add a pic of a stream or mountain or glacier to a labor on a bottle of tap water and sell it for 300% markup. Imagine how fast you'd be fired as the head of marketing and sales were slipping and you came back with "yeah, but free water is everywhere" as an excuse.

Im Vladivostok Russian, the huge local coca cola bottling facility they started eventually stopped selling coke products and focused on selling water ... Think about that ... Selling coke without the coke and it was many times more profitable.

I don't doubt it used to be easier. But just to give you a point of comparison...

For the best part of a decade, my gig has been optimizing (mainstream, mainly fitness) online sales funnels. Just bumping up the conversion rate an extra couple percent is as undertaking.

You've got to be a borderline genius at product positioning, copywriting, SEO, paid traffic, etc.

On the flipside, I've been working with a few adult biz clients in the last six months. And just implementing what I thought to be basic IM strategies (especially in email), I've seen conversions go up 12-15%.

Not tooting my own horn. Just saying there's still quite a bit of low hanging fruit in porn.

The "golden years" (whatever those are) may be over. But anybody with marketing savvy can sell sex. It's really the easiest thing in the world to sell.

I agree, but the people who say there is no money in adult never had a chance to begin with.

There's no real money in porn.

The point is that it is the same as saying "theres too much free water out there, there's no market for water and people don't pay for water anymore". People clearly do in spite of the fact that it's available for free everywhere. If Evian thought like that, there'd be no Evian. Thinking like that leaves you with no answers or solutions, only road blocks and excuses.

well, you can say evolve, yes. But this business was so easy a retard could make money (sleazydream etc.). Once it become a bit more complicated, every single of the ignorant idiots who were lucky to be there from the start failed miserably.

porn is not dead: content is the king !

Pretty much.

I have been in the email space almost a decade now (ips, data, affiliate), and I have had these same conversations with people at conferences who have emails and present/past members lists, or newsletters, and the opportunities out there for them. In short, many are leaving money on the table. However, not everyone is a fan of email marketing.

I agree with you wholeheartedly there is a lot of missed opportunities in that regard.

:2 cents:

water is free? i wonder why i keep getting these bills every two months for over $100 then. must be a scam.

the thing about mailing is unless you compile your own lists, they are most likely not really opt in. you pay out the ass for stolen data, etc. not sure what happens when your ips get blacklisted either. i used to make great money with email back in the day but it wasn't legit. i would of loved to do it properly but didn't have a clue of how to do about it.

Just not a fan of gfy webmasters spamming e-mail accounts of other gfy webmasters. :2 cents:
Some of the emails we get are absurd. Especially, the f*ck buddies.:1orglaugh

You have to let them go... More money for us anyway.

If you're not compiling your own lists, you're not email marketing -- you're spamming.

This is one of those areas where porn guys are living in the dark ages. (Ironic, considering they pretty well pioneered IM).

But yes, I've had more than a few adult webmasters tell me that because spamming no longer works, email must be dead.

Couldn't be further from the truth!

If you use double-opt in lists and strategize yours campaigns a bit, there's no marketing channel with greater ROI. I'm planning to write an "education series" on this...will try to get it up next week. But email is really an untapped goldmine in the adult sphere. I'm bewildered why it's been so neglected frankly.

lack of knowledge and the difficulty and time it takes to make your own lists. those who have major traffic, sure it might be much easier but those who don't, well where are they supposed to get it from? people always suggest using mailing services to mail newsletters and such, otherwise they won't get inbox but using these services drastically cuts down on profit as well as a few complaints and you're gone. i have no idea if you have to buy your own ips or what you do in regards to that.

You're correct. Lack of knowledge is a big part of it.

As I said, I have been in the space now the better part of a decade, although mainly mainstream, servicing some of the biggest companies in that space. I have written a number of articles on this stuff over at XBIZ in regard to newsletters, mailing, deliverability and alike. There are many ways to go about effective email marketing.

You can build your own lists, you can buy or revshare lists. As for platforms, there are many different one's depending on what you're looking to do and how much volume you send. As for ips, there are brokers for getting clean ips for whatever it is you're doing. You can also use ESP's if you have small lists and a budget.

All of that being said, data is really only one piece of the puzzle. You could have the best list on the planet, but if you do not know anything about how to spam test your creatives, and sort lists for improved deliverabiltiy and alike, then it's a fools errand.

Lastly, email marketing can be done any number of ways. Small scale niche targeting or blasting away at volume trying to get them to buy whatever it is you're peddling. Each has it's ups, downs, and potential revenue. Pick wisely.

Well said :thumbsup

Could you spam me some links :upsidedow

The biggest issue in adult comes from the fact it was to easy through the early 2000's and the industry was full of people making great money for doing little to nothing, doing a gallery, submit to thehun and make $500+ for 10 minutes work.

When times changed and things got harder these people were either to lazy to try or to stupid to do anything about it. Now they are gone and the people who are still making good money are the ones that deserve to make the money they are making.

I am thankful for the days when money came easy and the parties went for days but I am also thankful for today because we are doing much better work and still making a great living.

You don't need that much traffic to start building a list. And even small time adult sites are getting enviable amounts of traffic compared to the mainstream folks.

List size isn't even that important. I've juiced 6-figures out of 500-person email lists over the year. It's getting the campaigns to convert that's tricky. Good copy, list segmenting, endless split testing, etc.

As for 'deliverability', yea, there are headaches with adult. And I think barefootsies knows more about the technical stuff than I...but it's really just a matter of having a good server and treating your list respectfully.

I get your point though. Setting this all up and creating winning campaigns year-in, year-out takes a lot of know-how and time. I'm just pointing out...the ROI is there if people will do it.

Or if you're pressed for time, there's an oddball on this forum who for some queer reason really gets off on this stuff.:winkwink:

You may be right with most of what you said but it does not change the fact that there is not much money there.

Very hard to sell milk at $2 gal when the guy next door is giving away cows that you help feed.

I'm reading this post. It's one that has been repeated before.

What I wonder is how much money the people in this thread are making in the adult industry.

I see people who DIDN'T make good money in the industry before piracy went into full effect (the 1990's to 2007) all saying how "easy" it was and how now that it's "evolved" that it just takes better marketing skills.

Really?

If it was so easy...then why didn't ANY of you make any real money during that time? Why was it only a few of us who did? After all it apparently required no skill or intelligence at all right?

And no Porn Nerd. Porn and bottled water are NOT the same thing.
There is no "bottled" porn that is not able to be gotten for FREE.

If someone started giving away bottled water to anybody who wanted it for FREE...you would quickly see the people who sell bottled water go out of business.

Some of you are ridiculous with your theories on how things work. OP, let me know when you actually DO something in this industry to have any knowledge. Until then...good luck with your theories.

Go ahead, create something yourself. Put your big boy pants on and take the financial and legal risks to actually shoot some porn.

Then watch as it gets stolen and given away for free to millions of people who will now never buy your product.
Then when you have a real track record in this industry. Come back and tell me all about it.

Saying that you sold stuff in mainstream so it will work the same in porn is fucking ridiculous.

A good furniture salesman might suck at being a car salesman and vice-versa. To think that you figured out how to make a dollar in one area and you're suddenly an expert in another is a nice idea.

Good luck with it.

I, for one, would greatly benefit from whatever insights you are willing to share. I am also making a point of reading Barefootsies' XBIZ articles on email marketing (thanks BF!!).

This week I opened an account with Mail Chimp to try sending mailings to my 25k+ ex-Members list. With Mail Chimp it appears that they will send out many emails to that 25K list. This is for $200 monthly. But if I can send out 2-3-4 emails a month for that cost I think I can make it profitable.

Now WHAT to write in those emails, HOW to market my newest sites, etc - that's the trick. I am willing to learn because I have not exploited that list in any way so it's really 'virgin territory' and I know revenue is lurking there within that list.....:)

Porn Nerd, I have done mailers to my members list before.

They do work. BUT...only when you offer them a deep discount (half off, etc.)

The problem being that once you do that, the info gets put on a surfer forum with the link to the discount join.

So now you get a few extra joins too. Great! Right?

Yes and no. Because now your current members get pissed because they feel screwed because they paid full price.

It's kind of a delicate balancing act.

I've made some good money with email campaigns. But you can't do them all the time. They only really work a couple of times a year. After that you just start becoming an annoyance to your members and you get a reputation for "spamming" even though you really aren't.

You know the kind of companies that send you a freakin' email everyday until you finally end up blocking them because it's so annoying (talking mainstream companies).

You don't want to end up like that.

So move on..:2 cents: :pimp

yes you are right. No any earning ever a single $?????

I agree 100%! What you said is a major reason why I have not really done 'email marketing'. I too am afraid of turning off Members (or ex-Members).

When it comes to discounts this may be my #1 issue: I do not offer them. Never have, never will. I saw firsthand in the Music Industry what happens when a company devalues its' product via discounts or by slashing prices out of desperation. Plus, when it comes to adult and paysites (as you well know Robbie) the $29.95 join price is NOT what trickles down to the Program Owner. Take out processing fees, affiliates and the running of the business and it takes a LOT of volume to be successful. Plus I have business partners who supply content so the pie is even smaller.

My thinking: I want whoever I contact to think what I am selling is worth $29.95 (or more). I want them to feel like they're getting a lot of value for their money. If I offered them $14.95 via mailings not only what you said would happen would happen but the overall 'perception' would not be good for business.

I am probably wrong about all that. LOL

Well, like I said it does work (the email discount).

But it will only work a couple of times a year and then it's a crap shoot on pissing your current members off.

As far as just writing your ex-members to entice them to come back...that doesn't work as well as offering the special discount.
But it does work to some degree.

But you have to be careful about how you approach it.

What I try to do is make sure I actually have something to write them about. For instance when I recently re-mastered all of our older SD scenes to HD.
I was able to send out a mass email talking about that. It wasn't a "hard sell" or anything like that.

It was simply me informing everyone that all the SD scenes from the past were now available in HD.
And that email campaign was a decent one that got some ex-members to re-join.

But even then you have to be careful about how much you email them to avoid pissing them off at you.

No offense, but some of you are looking at email marketing all wrong.

How often are you emailed by the different companies you have done past business with, or have a membership for? I get emailed from Disney a couple of times a week. The same for Netflix, Amazon, Big & Tall, among many other companies who literally hit me every day if not multiple times a week. Are these companies 'spamming' me?

To cut to the chase here, who do you think knows more about effective email marketing and tracking the members and engagement? Mainstream companies emailing you at least once a day/couple of times a week, or a bunch of pornographers?

That is not a slam on anyone, but that is just a general observation to give you food for thought. Do you think Starbucks and Amazon are worried about 'pissing their members off' or some of the other concerns mentioned? I am sure they are to a degree, but not enough to stop them.

Most newsletters I get whether from a well known brand or Shoemoney come almost daily or on some sort of frequency whether I bought something there one time, signed up for a newsletter or am a member. I do not consider all of it 'spamming' if I have done business with them, despite I do not care for how often I am mailed at times.

:2 cents:

Money In Pornography: One Of The Most Misunderstood Industries - TheRichest
http://static4.therichestimages.com/...ra-patrick.jpg

Oh I agree the discount emails work. :) I just have a different philosophical bent on discounts in general.

But I love the 'soft sell' of just informing Members about the HD upgrade. That's info they can use and it's not surprising you got re-joins from that effort. Nice work! That's the kind of emails I am more interested in sending out. :)

What I know about email marketing you could fit in a midget's condom. Which is why I want to learn from your experiences (and your articles) on the subject. The only thing I've read (so far) on email marketing said you need to send out 2-3-4 emails and build credibility. This was an old article tho.

But BF: all those emails you get (Disney, etc). Don't you just unsubscribe after a couple or a few? That's what Robbie is saying about mainstream sites. I unsubscribe like instantly, even if it's from stores I've bought from.

Also, while I agree companies like Starbucks et al know what they are doing way more than a bunch of pornographers, they don't have to care about pissing off Members because their business model is not subscription-based. Plus, they have the volume to absorb whatever percentage of people unsubscribe. It won't affect their retail business (people will still go to Starbucks for their coffee). So I do not think it's a direct analogy. Size does matter, doesn't it? :)

I get an email every day from the mainstream companies I have bought stuff from: everything from Home Depot to Petsmart.

BUT...they are always offering something. A 40% discount sale today, a 2 for 1 sale tomorrow. etc., etc.

Porn sites? I get the emails from the "big" companies with all their staff and their supposed knowledge.
And it's nothing to compare to mainstream emailing. Because they don't have anything EXCEPT porn to sell me. And the big selling point is usually their newest model. Whoopty doo.

That's why porn emails get shit canned in people's junk folder and blocked. When porn sites start sending out emails every day with nothing really to say in them...it becomes annoying real fast.
Especially when the person getting the email doesn't WANT pornography offers coming to his email address and/or already knows that he can see the site being offered for free on a thousand pirate sites. :(

As an owner of a site with loyal members...I can't have people getting annoyed at me or complaining to the internet powers that be about my emails.
That is one of the reason's that every major affiliate program in adult made emailing a big "no-no" which will result in your termination for using it.

They want to be in control of their own emails so as not to spam people and piss them off.

Honestly...I've found that emailing is a nice tool if used sparingly.
But I can make a lot more money with social media when used properly. No spamming required.

Now if someone wants to hand me THEIR members list...then hell yes I will hit it hard with emails every damn day. But my own members? Hell no. That's a one-way ticket to going down hard.

You boys have any tips for getting legit opt-in subscriber and member email beyond the spam filters? We use SMTP, clean the lists of bounces, avoid as many adult words as possible, and the deliverability still sucks compared to a few years ago. :helpme

We're selling a product that needs a 20 minute fix 3-4 times a week, in private and the key to making money is how much the consumer has to pay for it. Not what he will pay for it. And today billions who once paid, aren't.

Plus free is so much better than paying for it.

Look at what you offer, what the competition offers and ask yourself. Why should anyone bother to buy from me?

Then figure out if you can afford to offer it. If it doesn't leap off the page and grab the viewer by the balls, he's moved onto the next site.

As Robbie says, offer a better deal. Price or product. So those who will buy, buy from you.

This is a good response.

A more accurate way to say what the OP stated in his title is that there is "Less" money in porn these days ... but it's a lot less.

It's also not a coincidence that big players are pushing dating/cams now. Why would they be able to convert them and not porn? If they have the ability to convert one, then surely they could convert the other; but they don't.

The bottled water analogy isn't accurate either. Like many said, if bottled water was free at the store next door then people would choose that store. If BangBus was free at a tube site or paid at the membership site then people would choose the tube.

I see lots of talk on gfy about dating/cams and not much anymore on porn.

Let's not kid ourselves and start posting videos of Alex Baldwin's Glengarry Glen Ross movie speech and pretend that it's just laziness on everyone's part.

When you look at most porn, it's obvious the field is cluttered with non-artisan, talentless hacks who bring no passion to their work. The good stuff stands out among the vanilla dime a dozen crap. So as in any business, having a good product will create loyal (paying) following.

Welcome ...

working harder = no money

got it

OP is a 2015 reg date full of shit troll.

Discounting your product continually is a losing gambit...and it's terrible positioning.

Are you limited to just pushing your site's membership?

Aren't there an endless variety of affiliate products (both digital and physical) that you could pitch to your list?

Something to think about...:2 cents: