"For many paysite owners the balance between upkeep and marketing is a delicate one. Maximizing the profit potential of your paysite goes WAY beyond just selling memberships"

Running a paysite is no easy task. Whether you are buying sets of exclusive content, shooting or creating your own content, importing content through feeds, or using other means to populate your site to create a unique product, operating a paysite is time consuming and expensive. Between bandwidth bills, labor, maintenance and updates, and keeping affiliates happy if your site has an affiliate program, there doesn't leave much time for marketing and exploiting all possible ways of seeing a largest return on investment.

For many paysite owners the balance between upkeep and marketing is a delicate one. With both conversions and retention primary factors for success, often the webmaster focuses too closely on the membership aspect of generating revenue many other possibilities go overlooked. Marketing and selling online is more difficult than in the offline world.

You cannot stop your customers to ask them if they need help finding anything, or in what format would they prefer to purchase content (DVD, MPEG, AVI, etc.) Through website usability and utilizing all revenue options by making them visible throughout the user experience, both in and outside of the member's area, webmasters do have the ability to anticipate and communicate the answers to these types of questions you would like to ask your visitors in order to generate more sales.

How many times have you walked into a store, did not find what you need, only to walk out and learn later they did have the item, just in a location you did not think to look. Online shopping is no different, so in this article we will outline and discuss the top paysite revenue options and provide tips to help them perform.

Memberships

Of course, selling memberships on an adult paysite is a given revenue option. In some of my latest research I learned that charging a full month to join up front, and not offering a trial, does not necessarily affect initial signups. If a visitor has decided to join, which they often do so before clicking that join button, the price of the membership, as long as kept reasonable, should not deter these motivated buyers.

However giving them the option of a trial membership can lower your overall revenue on the initial join. Many impulse buyers will only remain interested in the site for the first few days, cancel when they've gone through the member's area, and enjoy the remainder of the month without worry of getting banged again or forgetting to cancel later. Although trial sales may capture the low cost join and a few days later the full membership price, the number of cancels vs. credits after this second transaction should be carefully analyzed when considering how to profit the most on initial sales.

As the value of conversions and initial sales rise and retention lengths drop, paysite owners need to be flexible in their pricing and membership revenue models as industry trends change over time. Users become smarter and more adept to using their online porn experiences for their own needs rather than the learn-as-you-go generation that was once so extraordinarily profitable.

Adult Stores & Video on Demand

Most adult site owners have taken advantage of promoting sex toys and adult video sales by using tangible product affiliate programs. These programs offer two types of ways to sell products online. The first is through direct link referral, sending traffic from your site to a stores home page, deep linking direct to a product page, or other traffic relay.

This type of program is good because the user realizes they have left your site and are at an official domain of an online store/business. The second types are co branded store programs.

These programs offer you the ability to place your logo at the top of your store for increase branding, provide you a unique URL or subdomain, and provides templates for you to customize to the look and feel of your site. This type of program is advantageous because the user feels that they are still “under the umbrella” of the site they were referred from, however don't be surprised when they email or come to you for support regarding product transactions.

Video on Demand programs are on a strong upswing with the proliferation of high speed access, users desire to collect porn (digitally), and the popularity of portable media devices such as iPods and PSP's.

Video on Demand store programs offer users the ability to stream movies to select and watch online, download videos (full length and clips) and provide access via monthly memberships or pay per view (per movie, or minutes).

Two examples of very different types of video on demand programs would be HotMovies.com and Xondemand.com compared to Videoz.com and LightspeedTV.com. Where the first two only charge per download or per minute (with “buy time” transactions ranging from about $3.50 up to $80.00) with no monthly fees, the latter two charge a premium monthly fee ($30-$40) up front for access to all streaming and downloadable content.

Carefully consider which program type is best for your site when reviewing the affiliate payout rate (percentage versus pay per sale), the customer buying experience – ease of cost, price points, and formats offered, when selecting a VOD program or Online Adult Video store. And don't forget about your Mac users, they often have trouble viewing “DRM'ed” .wmv content.

Some ways to integrate product promotions throughout your site effectively is to make the store link(s) visible on all pages of your site – this includes your TGP pages, tour, and member's area. Create a clean navigation bar consistent on every page of your site that contains primary access points to all your revenue streams and porn purchasing options. By cross referencing links at any relevant text points, such as linking the word “dildo” that appears in a sex story in your site to the dildo section of your toy store, or creating a quick jump menu or “glossary” to help users find what they are looking.

“DP – Double Penetration: Definition. To purchase DP DVD's or sex toys visit our adult product store. To download DP videos to your computer, please search the VOD or Adult Movies Store. To view DP pictures, stories or to stream videos, go to our member's area.”

Always remember – It may be porn but you still have to SELL it. Anticipate. Communicate. Lead and they will follow.

Maximizing Exclusive Content

This section is primarily for amateurs - solo & couples and exclusive content producers such as reality porn sites. There are new generations of revenue streams for those who create their own content that should be discussed. The first is the rise of programs such as Clips4Sale.com. This program provides content owners the ability to create their own downloadable video clips store. A store owner signs up, uploads their video content, and creates a co branded store in which to sell clips by the download. A viable alternative to selling only memberships, these store links can be added to tours and gallery pages to allows people to view the 30 second teaser and then click to download the entire full length clip at an accessible price point.

By putting your full URL in the video clip and promoting further clip sales or site memberships at the beginning and/or end of each clip users will know where to go to get more. If these clips are traded or shared, they can become viral content as well. However, many exclusive content owners do not want their content made available outside of their domain. The decision to use this revenue stream must be made according to business model, experience, and ability to maximize and protect it technology-wise.

Selling Exclusive Content DVD's

Another such option to turn your exclusive content into sales outside of your member's area is to utilize a program like DVDUpsells.com. This unique program allows you to have a DVD of your content created for you, with the fulfillment end, store, and transactions handled by the program as well and you receive the payout.

With no high production costs (if any) and the means to sell your own DVDs, create catalogs of your productions, and simply collect another check, reality porn producers, solo and amateur girls, and exclusive content owners should not be ignoring this important new revenue stream. Rare content including fetish, non-nude, solo/amateur girls (these fans collect EVERYTHING they can get their hands on) can potentially do very well selling DVD's of their own productions.

Other Paysites & Sponsors

Lastly we get to exit traffic and the promotion of other sponsor programs' paysites. If your paysite has an affiliate program, using exit traffic and other traffic leaks outside of your members are is not really an option. But inside your members area many paysites offer a friends page to promote other sites for additional revenue. If you can use exit traffic doing so never hurt to try, however with popup blockers so popular you may be best using JavaScript or Flash to pop a message saying something to effect of “Thank you for visiting our site. For our top recommendations on where to surf to next, please click GO.” This takes them to a “friends” type page or descriptive links page including links to all your revenue streams above.

Maximizing the profit potential of your paysite goes WAY beyond just selling memberships. And this goes for free sites promoting sponsor programs too. Nothing is stopping any adult site from utilizing most of the above revenue streams effectively. Just remember that your user is depending on you to let them know where things are, for you to tell them what is good in, on, and around your site, and to keep them interested…never let them figure out where to go next, tell them, and then follow them all the way to the bank. Until next time, Happy Promotions!