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... or Struggle to Survive

A couple of months ago I was watching a nature program on the television. It was about the flamingos in Africa and they way they continue to survive despite being the target of numerous predators.

At the end the program suggested that there was a lesson there for humans. If a flamingo wanted to survive it stayed with the flock, it flew when the flock flew, it drank when most of the flock drank and it was really only the birds that displayed some individualism that failed to survive. So perhaps that was they best way for individual humans to survive too.

That program came back to me yesterday as I read a report Steve had prepared for one of our clients. They were concerned that sales from some new sites had not been up to expectation even though the sites offered a huge amount of content and a great deal for members.

One of the points Steve raised was that the client should be thinking about who their competitors were. He had actually asked them that question even before he wrote the report and they had nominated about five sponsors that they saw as their competition but were they the only competitors our client had?

In the report Steve challenged them to think of their competition as every other site in the same niche that their surfers had ever seen. And when you come to think like a surfer that comparison with every other similar site is probably very close to the mark.

So what do you have to do if you really want to make money in this industry these days? Well of course you can be like the flamingos that have the best survival instincts and stay with the flock. You can just be another one of the crowd who does the same old same old and look no different to everyone else. Or you can dare to be different.

You can live out on the fringe where life can be a little challenging but the rewards are far greater. You can offer surfers a new experience, something that they've never had before. Or you can make yourself look different and appeal to the surfers in a way that's different to what everyone else is doing.

Whatever you choose to do you need to make it clear in the surfer's mind that you're different to all those other sites out there. And you need to go on doing that because the surfers have seen it all before. Hardcore sites have been done to death, niche sites are a dime a dozen and fetish has been done so many times that in lots of ways they're no more kinky these days than a plain hardcore site.

But when you offer something different ... or look as though you're different then you are going to arouse the curiosity of the surfers. They're going to want to stop and take a closer look and while they're taking a closer look their becoming engaged and they'll want to see more ... and that's when you start to get real signups happening.

Of course, if you're starting a paysite it's going to cost you more to be different. There should be economies of scale if you're buying the same images and movies as everyone else is buying but economies of scale don't always lead to more sales. In an over-saturated marketplace, as we have here in adult, you're not going to make big sales unless you spend big money so that you can offer the surfers something different.

For example let's look at something as critical to the success of a paysite these days as movies. We do a lot of work with movies for a number of big sponsors so we have a good idea of what's available out there and we can tell you that the best movies, the ones that are coming out of Eastern Europe, are the ones you should be thinking about. They're raw, almost brutal and they're different to what the American producers are turning out.

Of course those paysite owners who want to play safe aren't using those. Instead they're still using the gonzo movies from US producers because everyone else is using them too. But surfers have seen enough of them and even if the movies are exclusive there are just so many ways to do gonzo before people have had enough of them.

So if you want to be do a movie site, if you want to be different and you want to make real money then offer the surfers something that they haven't seen so much of before. Be daring and live out on the fringe.

There are other ways for paysites to stand out from the crowd too and if you're a paysite owner then use your imagination and hopefully inspiration will soon follow.

Even if you're only a lowly affiliate marketer you still need to be thinking about living out on the fringe of the flock. How can you make your free sites and galleries stand out from the crowd. How can you make them different and how can you offer your surfers a new experience so that you can engage them?

And think about those sponsors you're promoting too. Just how engaging are those paysites you're sending your traffic to? Do they look different and engaging to your surfers who have seen it all before or are those sites just more of the same old same old?

Do you play safe and stick with the flock or do you dare to be different?

When I was watching the program about the flamingos it did occur to me that life in the middle of the flock must be rather shitty ... in more ways than one.