"You don't want to smother your happy paysite members with ad banners. Vertical marketing should be seamless."

Who hoo! The inside of a member's area. What a place to be! Isn't it nice when you finally get those surfers through the fucking door? Whew. What a relief.

The point of a paysite is to get people to pay for access. The hope is one secures enough new or recurring members to cover costs and make a nice profit. For many paysite owners this is enough. As long as they have X amount of memberships paid per month they are happy. They spend all their money on the tease of the tour and traffic and the marketing. Money should be spent on those things. They can't buy if you can't get them on the site.

What happens after your surfer becomes your member?

Will they get lost in mountains of content and never want to leave? Will they get pissed off and demand a refund because your member's area is messy, rambling and never updated? Are you really giving them what you promised in the tour? What happens at the end of that first month? Will your member eagerly wait for the next new batch of goodies or will they chunk the membership and shop for a better paysite? This person who pays has proven that they are willing to drop a dime on you. Isn't it possible they might buy even more from you?

In economics they have a term known as 'vertical integration'. Vertical integration is where you create a need with your current business and then fulfill that need with another business you either own or have partnered with.

As an example, around here we have a convenience store chain that's pretty big. They sell everything from magazines to motor oil at highly inflated prices. One line of products they don't mark up is their dairy items. Nobody can beat the value prices of eggs, milk and butter from these stores. The chain sells a hella bunch of dairy stuff. The reason they have such great prices is because they own the dairies from which these products come. They are their own suppliers.

If you are simply posting content on the inside of your paysite and you're happy with the money you're generating, then good for you. If you think it's time that maybe you brought a little more to the bank account consider looking to your existing members. They've already given you their credit card numbers. You have their trust. Who is better to promote to than proven customers are? You don't have to beat them over the head with ads to sell to them either. You can do what that convenience chain did, create a need and then make sure you are the one who fulfills/profits from the need.

For instance, why not create an adult toy store within your member's area? You can get novelty items from a fulfillment provider and resell them to your members for a profit. Or you could try to partner up with an adult sponsor who already has a toy store program. You could sell all sorts of merchandise -much of it personalized with your logo/name- to your regular customers. You could sell DVDs, penis pills, phone sex numbers or even software to a ready audience. Partner with another adult companies or resell stock items. Either way you win because you make money from products that are presented as member benefits.

Naturally you can't just go attaching affiliate codes to stuff inside a paysite member's area. You want to make sure you and the sponsor are in total agreement. If you buy product and resell it you'll need to look into the laws covering the sale of such stock to the public. There are states and regions that disallow distribution of certain adult items. If you're fortunate enough to partner with another adult provider you might get a bigger cut of the profits or a better deal on the content. However you do it, do it right and follow the rules.

It's also important that such selling is done softly. You don't want to smother your happy paysite members with ad banners. Vertical marketing should be seamless. It should appear as a favor you're granting to your patrons.

Microsoft may be guilty of horizontal integration but they're geniuses at vertical integration. Their software works better on their operation system. Their Internet service works better with their browser and their instant messenger software.

I wouldn't advise getting as power mad as the folks from Redmond but it wouldn't hurt to tear a page from Bill's book. It's like the exit link on your warning page. You don't wants to waste that exit on some lame search engine. You send them to some non-adult site you have a financial interest in.

Whether you've only got one paysite or you've got twenty, you probably still want more money. Instead of taking the extra time (and bandwidth) to build a completely new site for a new market, why not preach to the choir? Market to your standing members. Think of what they need, promote that need and then sell that need to them. Think vertically. Your member's area doesn't have to be the end. It could be just the beginning.