It's Time to Remind You ...
Posted On: 2007-07-31
... that you should be spending time over in mainstream.
I know if you've been reading my columns over the years that you will have seen me say that you should really be spending time over in mainstream and it's true ... you should ... and it's time that I reminded you of that once more.
Why should you be spending time over in mainstream if all you're marketing is adult products? Well in the past I've told you that those guys over there in mainstream have a lot to teach us. There's no doubt that we, here in adult, were once the leaders in Internet marketing but not any more and if you want to keep up with the leaders then you need to spend some time where they are.
You need to be over there looking at what they're doing and how they're doing it. You need to look at the approach they're taking with surfers, what they're offering and how they are delivering the message to surfers. Don't get me wrong; not everything they're doing is worth emulating but there is certainly a wealth of knowledge over there that we need to tap into if we want to stay ahead of the game here in adult.
At the same time it's quite possible to discover many things that you weren't expecting to find over there in mainstream. You might find some interesting statistics that apply to what you're doing here in adult. You might find some interesting trends that no one over here in adult has even noticed yet. You might even find that some of the things that have been suggested to you here in adult – things that you didn't quite believe – are actually confirmed over there in mainstream.
I made an interesting little find on Sunday night while I was in Technorati claiming one of my mainstream blogs. It's something that has lots of application here in adult. Steve and I have always worked in the BBW niche so we know how many surfers are attracted to big beautiful women. We also know how many webmasters fail to believe that it's a niche where people can make money.
Quite often I'm told than there just isn't enough traffic in BBW ... surfers aren't interested in big girls ... guys don't like fat babes and yada yada yada. The fact is that big girls really do have a lot of fans out there ... and a whole lot more than most people think. When I was working in the adult industry in the real world big girls were always very popular so there's no reason why they wouldn't be online.
But you don't have to take my word for it; if you wander around in mainstream you just might find that what I say is confirmed from other sources. If you've never seen Technorati then go over to technorati.com and you'll see a tag cloud right on the front page. A tag cloud, for those who don't know, is a list of the most searched for terms and the one on the front page of Technorati shows the current list of the most searched for terms on that mainstream site.
Now just as you would expect, as I write, it's filled with terms such as Harry Potter, iPhone, Ron Paul, Lindsay Lohan and lots more but on Sunday night ... right up there in spot five or six was BBW. So you see, surfers are searching for adult related terms even on a mainstream site like Technorati. Right now there are a couple of other adult related terms appearing there in the cloud as well as a few celebrity terms too.
So that's another reason why you sometimes need to pull your head out of adult and take a trip into the world of mainstream. There are some genuine lessons over there for us and Technorati is just one of the places that have something to teach us.
There are plenty of other places that have valuable lessons for us too. Of course not all of those lessons come in the form of an easily digestible tutorial; sometimes you're going to have to stop and think for yourself but then that's half the fun. You might think it's a drag actually spending time doing what amounts to research. You might think it's a total waste of time but you might be wrong too.
The fact is, the more you teach yourself to stop and think about what you're seeing the more chance you have of getting ahead of all that competition back in adult that just wants to sit there and bitch and make 'would you hit it' posts.
So go on, be daring, head over and spend some time in mainstream today and see what advantage you might gain over your competition.