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How many of you folks actually take your sponsors tours and check out their members areas prior to sending them traffic?
I mentioned this on the panel in Phoenix and everyone in the audience just kind of looked bewildered as if to say 'we can do that' and i really didnt get it.
Im wondering why webmasters dont do this and just wondered if anyone on GWW didnt and why not?
Regards,
Lee
You have NO idea how I wanted to jump up and down and cheer when you said that.
If I had a dollar for every affiliate who promoted us as "twinks" or "gay 4 pay" or "Hardcore Action" or "Twinks in Hardcore gay 4 pay action."
Just stupid.
I'm often amazed with how people don't bother to even ask me which models convert the best from galleries or what words and phrases catch our member's eyes the best.
I guess the main reason is getting a password.
I promote dozens of sites and I'm simply not going to sign up to them all to see what's inside. I do ask sponsors for passwords a lot of times, but I do reviews, so perhaps they're more willing to do that. Still, I can't see why a sponsor wouldn't give a webmaster a 3-day password to check things out.
And Jasun brings up a good point. I just spent the afternoon with Sureflix Mary who gave me a ton a hints and suggestions. She knows her product better than I do, so why not let her tell me what works and what doesn't? And why not pick her brain and have her tell me what's wrong with my site? If it makes me more money, I'm all for it.
Finally, I can't tell you how many times I've tried contacting sponsors and I just never hear back. I guess that's an indication to move on, but sometimes those sites sell well, too.
Michael
I have thought often about signing up and promoting some of these sites- a lot of times. But wondered what I was getting myself into and always wondered if I could take a peek to see if it was what I wanted to do.
But then, while I love to get things for free, I always had a problem asking someone can I see what I might be promoting? Plus I never did see any links that offered this as well.
While they rely on affiliates, etc to promote their product it seems they they might forget that the affiliates are their biggest promoter
Sounds like you made an astute point, Lee.
Although I see behavior like this across the board with adult products, people trying to market their products as simple commidities.
I guess mainstream Hollywood realized that they could sell more movie tickets if they added one scene with tits in it (as in every John Landis movie).
Now if you have an entire movie with all tits, all-ass and/or all-cock, how do you market that?
I receive movies constantly in which it's clear the distributor never even bothered to watch what was on the disc beyond a brief three minutes to see what sales category to stick it in. There are models' names misspelled or completely wrong.
In the movie Ed Wood, at one point, Johnny Depp visits the office of Republic Pictures (I believe) and the fast-talking producer behind a cluttered desk says "I have a movie title and a poster.... you just need to make me something in four days." [this was for I Changed My Sex! aka Glen or Glenda]
Steve
yeah, its amazing - Cam and I frequently get e-mail from models, etc.... who go on about how much they like what we've done or how much they want to work for us or promote us.... and then -
we get the big "OH MY GOD" - I DON'T BAREBACK! I DON'T ENDORSE BAREBACKING! - "You guys bareback?"
do people really think that the barebackMasters Tony&Cam ride horses with no saddles?
We try to promote those companies that show up at events, and give us one-on-one time. I check landing pages and have no trouble contacting my Reps when I need anything.
:offtopic:
I'm always really shocked when someone posts a cutomer service issue with a sponcer, or drops a piece of "I heard THIS happened" before trying all other avenues for contact, or information/gossip.
:yeah:
I agree that sometimes it's sloppiness on the part of the sponsor, but it can also be lack of knowledge.
I can think of several times where people were marketing Boyfunk as "college jocks" which is pretty amusing because some of our guys have probably never lifted anything more than a bottle of hair gel. :) But on contacting them, they just didn't really understand the difference between twinks and jocks... and when we explained it, and they corrected their marketing, conversions went up substantially.
I make it a point to find sponsors with transparent paysite tours, i.e. tours that show the type of content on the site. IF the tours are good, I don't see any marketing advantage in giving the affiliates access to the member section, other than perhaps to whip up some enthusiasm or to prove that the member section lives up to the advertising hype of the tour.
If you have a legitimate traffic site and can show us that you are responsible, we are more than happy to give passwords to our sites. What better way for you to be able to promote our product, than to see it for yourself?
If a program won't issue passwords, they are just defeating their own good.
I'll give out passwords to just about anyone.. I sometimes watch them and make sure they're using them for good and not just jerking off..
But I'll give them out to people who want to promote Fratmen.:bullcrap:
Okay so something that hasnt been touched on in this thread yet that was at the seminar was it isnt just about asking your sponsors for a username/password, sometimes it helps to actually join the site yourself, as if you were a surfer.
Do you notice if the site has cross-sells on the join page, what processor is being used, is the email address you signed up with suddenly getting spammed, is there actual content in the members area, etc.
Sometimes asking for a user/pass is only part of the greater picture.
Regards,
Lee
I give out passwords all the time - funny thing is that i see some of our competitors signing up and paying to be members when all they had to is ask for a comp pass - go figure -
As an affiliate, I have joined quite a few sites with my own CC. The sites I've joined are for pleasure as well as for business.
Since we opened UKNM, I've received numerous requests from affiliates for free passes. Now I'm not so shy about asking for a comp... even if I'm just curious about someone's site and have no intention of promoting it. I know that sounds terrible. But I'm not going inside and burning up a ton of bandwidth or using feeds. I'm just browsing around out of curiosity.
Btw, if any webmaster here on GWW would like to browse around UKNM, just send me a PM. :D
Let me add something...
When I do issue a comp pass for a webmaster, I always make sure to tell them not to share with another webmaster. Sometimes with an affiliate with more than one employee, the password gets shared and then they end up getting banned by Strongbox for using multiple IPs. And then I have to issue another password or un-ban then.
And quit losing your passwords! Lol.