Walking a Fine Line
Posted On: 2007-04-16
One of the biggest mistakes any webmaster can make in this industry is to think that mainstream marketing has nothing to teach us. There certainly was a time when adult online marketing was a some way in front of mainstream but those days have long gone.
These days mainstream is well out in front of us in so many areas and to go on thinking that we're still leading the race is to ignore some of the things that mainstream can now teach us. But, while mainstream definitely has a lot to teach us about marketing, you do have to exercise some caution when you're trying to make what's working in mainstream work over here in adult.
For example, last Friday I was reading of an online mainstream merchant who managed to increase sales in the first quarter of this year by 18% compared to the same quarter last year. Two of the factors that this merchant felt had contributed to that increase were better product photography and better copy to go along with those photographs.
Now I've got no quibble about better copy. If you want to really make serious money in this business you do have to extend your marketing beyond the point where you throw in a few banners and hope for the best. You do have to craft sales text to appear on your pages and galleries and the better the sales text the more sales you will make.
I guess that in many ways that's not rocket science and it is something that we have known for quite some time. However, it's nice to have what we know confirmed by mainstream and to see a serious online merchant clearly state that better text results in better sales.
But what about better product photography? Would that apply just as much to us in adult as it certainly does to mainstream?
I can remember a time when the owner of one very well-known newbie board used to tell newbies to ensure that the thumbs were a little dull, even a little blurred perhaps and very definitely not surrounded by some brightly colored border that would make them stand out from the web page. His view was that you tried to make your thumbnails sink back into the background of the page so that your advertising message stood out more clearly.
How does that advice stack up against the mainstream merchant who attributed better sales to better product photography? Should we instantly start using crystal-clear thumbs and better quality images for the big pictures just because that's what's working for merchants in mainstream?
The more you think about it the more you begin to see that there really is no clear-cut answer to those questions. These days there are plenty of adult webmasters out there who are prepared to give surfers big clear thumbs and even bigger and clearer big pictures whether those images work for them or not. So will your site with dull thumbs and big pictures that are kept to the minimum allowable size compete with those other sites?
Will a surfer who hits your site stick around long enough to see your advertising if you're not giving him better product photography? If he sees dull thumbs will he leave in search of the free sites and galleries that give him a better experience?
On the other hand, if you're looking for a bed for example a clear thumb or a big picture may give you a much clearer idea of what the product offers but it's not going to satisfy your need for a bed. So a merchant who sells a bed can certainly give surfers the big clear pictures knowing that those images will help to sell his bed but the surfer won't be satisfied until he has actually paid for the bed and had it delivered.
For us here in adult it's different. We want to build up the desire, the hunger, the need for something more in our surfers. We don't want to satisfy them; all we want to do is get them aroused and interested enough to click through to our sponsor and buy a membership and using better product photography could have the exact opposite effect to the one we want.
But of course we also have to compete with those who want to give the surfer everything in the hope that a satisfied surfer who no longer has a need to see hardcore porn will then turn into a membership-paying entry on our stats page.
How do you compete with people like that? Well if you're into free sites you have two pages to use for advertising before the surfer even gets to your thumbs. If you're working with a gallery you really don't have much room to play with at all.
However, you can give the surfer nice clear thumbs and even some great big pictures without giving him everything. You don't have to show him the money shot, you don't have to pick out the most lurid images in the set that you want to use. You can still tease and tantalize him and send him on his way to the sponsor to get the relief he wants.
I guess it really is like walking a fine line between too much and not enough but once you learn the art of giving the surfer just enough you should see your sales increase.