We are smut peddlers; that is what we do.
But just because our business is the business of fucking, why did we have to develop and cling to such a fucked up business model where the companies that put up the money to produce our product are the very last one to enjoy and profit from it?
More than ever, it is time for programs to get back to basics and make sure they have their bases covered.
Even those who cash the checks have to wonder how a company can off a three-digit payout on a $40 membership and survive to do it again the next month. We all know that answer too: many of them could not and have disappeared, others have been bought up and the rest are hanging on a tenuous thread. More than ever, it is time for programs to get back to basics and make sure they have their bases covered.
Don’t bite off more than you can chew: If you are a program owner, take a good look at your sign ups, payouts and make sure there are enough rebills each and every month to offset the webmaster payouts and content costs. Offering a $100 payout may get you a few affiliate signups but that does you no good if you are not around for them to promote you. If you are a new company, do not offer PPS payouts until you have built up a cushion and can afford to do so.
Spreading yourself too thin: The universe of free porn has largely turned the Internet in the ultimate mega-site featuring umpteen millions of websites covering everything from BBW midget Latinas into water sports, to classic porn from the VHS days to new productions incorporating as many fetishes as possible. If a surfer arrives to your site only to find the focus just as broad and lacking in organization, there reason to buy will evaporate and they will click the back button rather than join now; why should they pay for that? Be focused, research and well represent your niche and point of view, but do not whittle it down so far that rather than enhancing your appeal, you are becoming too narrow.
Keeping your focus too tight: On the opposite spectrum of trying to appeal to everyone is limiting your focus to the point where profibility will be in question – and yes, this is admittedly a double-edged sword. On one hand, the more difficult a specific kind of content is to find, the higher the price or the longer the members may stay because of the lack of other way to scratch that itch. The question becomes, which “itches” are hard enough to find but are shared by enough people to make the production and the ongoing costs of perpetuating of the site itself profitable?
Going along with the crowd rather than following your heart: “Keeping up with the Jones,” is not just for Main Street, or Main Stream. So-and-so offers X dollars for a payout so we have to as well (unless So-and-So is footing the bill, you need to payout what you can afford). So-and-so’s free clips are X minutes long, so we’ll make ours longer (and yes, this is part of the reason why there is so much free porn out there — sure people upload it to the tubes but where most of it came from in the first place is … us). Follow what is in your heart, your head and your balance sheet as opposed to So-and-So.
Will this recession also claim PPS as a casualty? That remains to be seen but personally, I feel many of us are waiting for a big, respected company to blink and eliminate the PPS option which can often interfere with healthy cash flow and day to day profitability in favor of only offering revshare, and the rest of us will follow. You see, when it’s a business decision that actually makes sense, which is one time when it is OK to copy the others!