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-   -   Consumer Focus Sells Niche Sites (https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=983541)

AmeliaG 08-23-2010 11:07 AM

Consumer Focus Sells Niche Sites
 
GFY Educational Series: Consumer Focus Sells Niche Sites, Post 1 of 2

Intro

I'm Amelia G and most of you all probably know I run Blue Blood's SpookyCash niche affiliate program for webmasters with goth/alt, rubber/fetish, and science fiction/fantasy traffic. Content packaging is a primary component of what I do and is fundamentally pulling together the right content, in the right format, to communicate a certain editorial viewpoint. My company does content packaging for both in-house branded products and for white label web sites, magazines, books, and similar projects.

As an editor, writer, and photographer, I started off in magazines. My first glossy non-music journalism clip was for Hustler's Chic. I've done writing and/or photography for all the major adult publishing house including Playboy, Penthouse, Flynt, Crescent, Magna, and AVN. If you'd like to see my photography portfolio or know more about my professional history, please check out AmeliaG.com. If you'd like to know when I've started my day with an especially delicious iced soy latte, I tweet at Twitter.com/AmeliaG.

Today, I'm going to talk about how you can make more money with a focus on being an editor and giving value to the end consumer.

Are you engaging the consumer and getting bookmarkers?

The #1 place a lot of affiliate webmasters leave money on the table is depending only on techniques like mass traffic buys and trades or SEO, rather than genuinely engaging the consumer. You want to use all those techniques, and more, to bring the surfer to your site in the first place, but your sponsors and you will benefit most, if the surfer has a reason to come back from time to time, once you get them in the door. If you have targeted your SEO or traffic buys and trades, then make sure your destination is actually what the surfer was seeking.

Most webmasters know a membership site needs to consider what members will want month after month, but niche traffic sites especially can benefit from taking the same tastes and preferences into account. You can generate a certain amount of revenue from a certain number of uniques coming through your sites. You can greatly increase that revenue, by consistently giving those visitors what they are looking for. Then they want to come back to your site the next time they are ready to bust out their credit cards for some entertainment.

What is your site about?

One of the reasons niches are holding more steady in the current marketplace is that niche affiliate webmasters tend to make their sites about something. Free Porn is not a topic any more. General free pictures might have gotten bookmarkers in 1999 and general free videos might have gotten bookmarkers in 2004, but your potential customers just have endless choices for generic freebies today.

By making your site about something, you give them a reason to come back to you. A topic like Brunettes Wearing Fishnets or Tattooed Girls Giving Blowjobs is the kind of specific subject which will get you bookmarkers. You can promote a combination of sites which are mostly or only about your topic, alongside sites which have an occasional update which fits your theme. If someone searches Google for a very specific topic, they are going to bookmark a site which tells them all the places they can find their heart's desire.

Are you going for quality over quantity?

A site which offers the most free content might attract the most visitors. Most people building sites are not going to have the tube with the very most content and sites with too much free content keep the surfers sufficiently entertained that they don't buy much. So just shoveling random free content, even legit free content with the sponsors' blessing, is not efficient for profitability. It is your job to be an editor, to select which clips and images and text represent best what your surfers want to find. If your surfers have to do the editing job, then they feel like they are collectors and not customers. Give your visitors the value of having edited for what they want and they are more likely to pay for that value.

What do you select to post?

Have you ever seen a Sesame Street segment on the subject of Which one of these things is not like the others? Were you able to figure out the common theme and which item was the odd one out? This might seem really rudimentary, but, if so, then you have the basic skills to make a niche site surfers will bookmark and come back to.

The most important aspect of niche marketing is being able to identify the niche. If you can identify the niche and you take the trouble to post only material which is appropriate for your audience for the niche, then you are doing it right. Particularly if you do a good editorial job of picking attractive promo material, which directs your visitors to good sponsors, whose sites give good value to the consumer.

What niche should you pick?

Common wisdom is that you should promote a niche you know something about and have some interest in. I think that is good advice, but you don't necessarily have to be a dedicated aficionado of everything you promote.

You do need to know some things that your audience does not know yet. The most important information to impart is where your surfers can find what they might want to buy. It might sound simplistic, but you make money if they buy something and they don't necessarily know what you know about where to find membership sites or cams or books or whatever for what attracts them. To the extent that you know what sponsors are out there, you can somewhat depend on the sponsors to do some of the editorial sort for you. It is better if you can pick out which of the galleries you've been sent are best or have certain special features, but, the more niched out the sponsor, the more you can somewhat lean on the sponsor's edit.

Who is your audience?

Niche audiences segment and some hardcore fans of a particular niche will have very specific tastes. For example, I know not to post PVC content to SpookyCash's RubberDollies.com membership site, because a lot of the audience consists of serious fans who would not accept PVC gear in place of rubber clothing. A traffic site dedicated to the shiny niche, however, could promote both rubber content and PVC content, because the two often can sell to the same people. The shiny niche is varied enough to give you a variety of sponsors, but still enough of a specific niche that users will bookmark a good traffic site about shiny fetish content.

Members of BlueBlood.com or GothicSluts.com will often have very strong opinions about the difference between goth and emo and deathrock. But realistically, if you don't have a strong opinion about that, it probably does not matter, so long as you consider your audience. In my experience, someone into these areas as a lifestyle, may prefer one sort of person to another, but most people into these styles as a fetish are likely to appreciate the spectrum. A lot of people who like hot pale chicks with a lot of black eyeliner really don't care about the finer cultural distinctions there. If you can tell a hot pale chick with a lot of black eyeliner from a homely one, then you can probably serve your surfers well by telling them where to find hot ones, without having to be an expert on which bands are emo and which are deathrock or anything like that. If you are expert in that area and want to cater to a more hardcore dedicated audience, then you will probably want to mix in some less commercial and more cultural subject matter. You'll have to really care about the niche to do this part and it is really optional.

AmeliaG 08-23-2010 11:08 AM

GFY Educational Series: Consumer Focus Sells Niche Sites, Post 2 of 2

Do you have enough sponsors?

You always want to be sure you have enough sponsors to promote on a niche site. Mixing up types of products, such as pay sites and cams and so forth, gives you more options to choose from. Because there are not a ton of science fiction themed membership sites, many affiliates who promote EroticFandom.com also promote upsells like costumes and similar related products. Ideally, however, you will pick a niche which has a few strong programs which can be sold well next to one another.

If a TGP is only galleries from one site or a blog is only posts about one site, then that isn't very interesting to the surfer and, thus, is not very profitable for you, except on that first visit. If you use all material from one multi-niche sponsor, with no common editorial thread, then that is going to just feel like wading through free porn to the end user.

It is good to be creative in figuring out what can be promoted on a consumer-focused traffic site in terms of how program A and program B can fit together because x and y characteristics are in common. The common thread does not have to be a standard adult niche like Teens or Amateur. One easy thing to do, if you run a program, which of course a lot of the folks still in the industry do, is to promote other sites your contributors work with. For example, I have a blog where I tell my audience about lots of other places they can find my work and talent's work and so forth. So, if I shoot someone, and she also shoots with Kink.com or BurningAngel or NaughtyAmerica or cams for Streamate, then that is an easy upsell for me. If you take an exclusionary, competitive stance, you are not only being unpleasant, you are losing money. I don't make anything for promoting magazine or in-person appearances, but do I think it is nice for the talent if I mention those too, and, most importantly, it gives the end consumers more value.

Are you giving the end consumer value?

Always ask yourself, if you were in the surfer's shoes, would your site seem like it provided value. Update regularly. If you have a TGP or tube, make sure the galleries or clips fit what the theme or niche of your site is intended to be and try to pick quality content to showcase. If you have a blog, make sure you offer information and not just all upsells for one site or product. Not every single thing you post has to have a commercial end.

Summary

Think of your site as a publication and not just a sales tool. Think of yourself as an editor and not just a marketer. Know who your audience is and what your niche is about as best as you can. Promote more than one site, but choose sponsors which have synergy with one another. Care about the consumer enough to provide value to your readers.

Sarah_Jayne 08-23-2010 11:19 AM

I heart Amelia G and anything she has to say.

CDSmith 08-23-2010 11:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sarah_MaxCash (Post 17435691)
I heart Amelia G and anything she has to say.

X 10. :thumbsup

baddog 08-23-2010 11:30 AM

nice read

LeRoy 08-23-2010 11:31 AM

Nice read Amelia G :)

webair 08-23-2010 11:32 AM

Very nice read Amelia good work!!!

myjah 08-23-2010 11:43 AM

Can I say HOMERUN? Fantastic example of a strong industry woman who knows her stuff!! Thank you so much for participating in the GFY Educational Series. This is one of our best.

CDSmith 08-23-2010 11:44 AM

Sometimes the niche is so damn nichey that there ARE only a few sponsors. For some, actual sponsors with affiliate programs are hard to find. I've had to approach paysite owners in the past and just work out a deal directly with them for joins because they have no aff program.

If it's worth promoting you sometimes have to do what you have to do.

Vendzilla 08-23-2010 12:08 PM

AmeliaG always coming thru with divine sense and sensibility on this industry and most other things she talks about.
Truly one of the people I look forward to reading her posts. I hope as my business grows, I can work with her in the near future.

AmeliaG 08-23-2010 12:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sarah_MaxCash (Post 17435691)
I heart Amelia G and anything she has to say.


Aw thanks :) I heart Sarah.

shermo 08-23-2010 12:51 PM

Great read! Amelia is definitely a woman on top of her game!

AmeliaG 08-23-2010 01:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CDSmith (Post 17435698)
X 10. :thumbsup

Thanks :):):):):):):):):):)

AmeliaG 08-23-2010 01:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by baddog (Post 17435726)
nice read

Thanks :)

AmeliaG 08-23-2010 01:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeRoy (Post 17435730)
Nice read Amelia G :)


Thanks :)

Hope to see you Friday!

AmeliaG 08-23-2010 01:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by webair (Post 17435733)
Very nice read Amelia good work!!!

Thanks much! A writing compliment always extra nice coming from someone with a Twitter as excellent to read as yours :)

AmeliaG 08-23-2010 02:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by myjah (Post 17435769)
Can I say HOMERUN? Fantastic example of a strong industry woman who knows her stuff!! Thank you so much for participating in the GFY Educational Series. This is one of our best.


Yay! I'm so so glad you liked it. I love that GFY is doing the Educational Series and I'm really happy you gave me the opportunity to be a part of it.

AmeliaG 08-23-2010 02:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CDSmith (Post 17435772)
Sometimes the niche is so damn nichey that there ARE only a few sponsors. For some, actual sponsors with affiliate programs are hard to find. I've had to approach paysite owners in the past and just work out a deal directly with them for joins because they have no aff program.

If it's worth promoting you sometimes have to do what you have to do.


I hear you on this one. I've definitely done some hand-holding for sites I wanted to promote, where they didn't know how to set up an affiliate program, despite being on a biller which makes it pretty plug and play.

How do you work it when you are dealing with someone who has appropriate content on their site but uses a really off-brand biller and isn't about to actually make a full affiliate program?

harvey 08-23-2010 04:12 PM

Now this is a GREAT POST!!! :thumbsup

corvette 08-23-2010 04:13 PM

great info :)

Caligari 08-23-2010 04:34 PM

great stuff and a fine edition to the series!

i would also add that many times its a good idea to offer the VOD equivalent of the niche you are selling. many people like the idea of selecting certain videos without having to pay a monthly membership, so it can be a good option.

Bruno 08-23-2010 05:05 PM

Thanks for the read =)
XOXOXO
Bruno

SleazyDream 08-23-2010 10:06 PM

wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AmeliaG 08-24-2010 02:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vendzilla (Post 17435842)
AmeliaG always coming thru with divine sense and sensibility on this industry and most other things she talks about.
Truly one of the people I look forward to reading her posts. I hope as my business grows, I can work with her in the near future.

Aw thanks :) Hit me up any time you've got a business idea. Would love to do something together.

WebairGerard 08-24-2010 07:13 AM

Great contribution to the educational series Amelia

CaptainHowdy 08-24-2010 10:26 AM

Keepin' this one on top...

AmeliaG 08-24-2010 10:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sherm (Post 17435950)
Great read! Amelia is definitely a woman on top of her game!

Thanks!

Also, got the thing from you today, so double thanks :)

miss_bellabellini 08-24-2010 11:45 PM

Great info! Bookmarked for future reference:)

tiger 08-25-2010 01:55 AM

Good read.

AmeliaG 08-25-2010 10:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by harvey (Post 17436463)
Now this is a GREAT POST!!! :thumbsup

Thank you!

AmeliaG 08-25-2010 11:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by corvette (Post 17436465)
great info :)

Thanks :) Glad to be of service.

harvey 08-25-2010 12:54 PM

so why wasn't this post pinned? It certainly stands out over most of the GFYES posts :(

AmeliaG 08-25-2010 02:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Caligari (Post 17436499)
great stuff and a fine edition to the series!

i would also add that many times its a good idea to offer the VOD equivalent of the niche you are selling. many people like the idea of selecting certain videos without having to pay a monthly membership, so it can be a good option.


This is a good tip and I definitely agree. The more diverse product set, based on the same tightly defined niche, which can be sold, the better.

AmeliaG 08-25-2010 02:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by harvey (Post 17441301)
so why wasn't this post pinned? It certainly stands out over most of the GFYES posts :(

Excellent point :thumbsup Just ICQed myjah.

bns666 08-25-2010 03:15 PM

excellent thinking :thumbsup :thumbsup

AmeliaG 08-25-2010 07:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by harvey (Post 17441301)
so why wasn't this post pinned? It certainly stands out over most of the GFYES posts :(

Apparently, these get stickied for the weekend, but they post on Mondays. So it will be stickied starting Friday.

AmeliaG 08-25-2010 09:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bruno (Post 17436549)
Thanks for the read =)
XOXOXO
Bruno

Glad to be of service :)

Mr. Porn 08-26-2010 02:49 AM

niceeee.... :thumbsup

AmeliaG 08-26-2010 07:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SleazyDream (Post 17437026)
wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I heart all the exclamation points. Thanks :winkwink:

AmeliaG 08-26-2010 09:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WebairGerard (Post 17437672)
Great contribution to the educational series Amelia

Thanks :)

AmeliaG 08-26-2010 11:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CaptainHowdy (Post 17438190)
Keepin' this one on top...

Thanks :thumbsup

AmeliaG 08-26-2010 02:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by miss_bellabellini (Post 17439826)
Great info! Bookmarked for future reference:)


Thanks. I was just checking out your site and the nice design Harvey and co. did for you. :thumbsup

AmeliaG 08-26-2010 03:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tiger (Post 17439932)
Good read.

Thanks :)

miss_bellabellini 08-26-2010 04:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AmeliaG (Post 17444323)
Thanks. I was just checking out your site and the nice design Harvey and co. did for you. :thumbsup

Thanks! Actually I did most of that design myself. I bought the developers license for thesis & I'm working on improving my design & wordpress skills so that hopefully I can have as many sites as you one day:)

There is definitely a steep learning curve though, which is why I'm so grateful that I get to learn from more experienced people like you:)

AmeliaG 08-26-2010 10:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bns666 (Post 17441762)
excellent thinking :thumbsup :thumbsup


Thanks. You definitely get it with your sites :thumbsup

AmeliaG 08-27-2010 01:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. Porn (Post 17442672)
niceeee.... :thumbsup


Thanks. Love your avatar, by the way.

AmeliaG 08-27-2010 03:35 PM

Hmm, I think this gets pinned some time soon today. Not sure what time.

I think I'm going to the L.A. Happy Hour this evening, if anyone else from GFY is planning on being there.

garce 08-27-2010 08:23 PM

Its a sticky now :thumbsup Excellent post!

BettingHandle 08-28-2010 02:54 AM

great article. thnx!

Relentless 08-28-2010 07:48 AM

Excellent post. Thanks.


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