Who's Job Is It To Sell The Surfer?

[Lee]

Im often hearing from people on ICQ who tell me that their sponsors sites are converting well enough for them (ive had two people already today) however, when i go to check out their sites, they almost always seem to be doing things right except for one important factor, they dont pre-sell the surfer before sending them to a sponsors paysite, let me explain some more..

As affiliates, the only thing we cant control is how well any specific tour sells however, we CAN choose which tour or site to send our surfers to, this is, in effect, the first stage in selling a surfer, making sure that WE do our part to choose a tour that not only 'looks' good but, converts well.

Step two in making a sale is all about the pre-sell, and, despite what you may think, we can ALL pre-sell it just takes a little bit of practice. We have ALL been pre-sold at some point in our lives for example..

As a child while we were watching the Saturday morning cartoons a commercial for a new candy comes on TV, you see this commercial every 15 minutes, over and over and over again well, the chances are, most kids are going to to go straight to the candy isle and pick up that candy. Nestle and Hersheys, there are other candy makers thathave similar products to those and, some are just as good but, those two brands are the top two, why? Simple, marketing.

Christmas comes around and you see the commercial featuring a white polar bear drinking his favorite soda, whats the sodas name? How did you know that? Simple, marketing.

Never underestimate the power of pre-selling your surfers, its a fantastic tool and a necessity in the industry today, with so many places surfers can go to get all types of hardcore porn, for free, you need to have an edge with your marketing that no one else has. Pre-selling your surfer can turn your ratios around from 0/3000 to 1:300 - seriously!

So what is pre-selling? Simple, its making sure you interact with the surfer, im not talking about using promo tools such as chat rooms, message boards etc etc, rather making sure the surfer knows that the person who built the site they are currently on is human and, knows what they [the surfer] wants.

A long time ago someone used to tell me this, 'Make them horny, make them laugh, let them know what a deal they are getting, make them realize how badly they want to join your sponsors site.' Compare the price of a membership if you have to, let the surfer know that joining a site for $2.95 is cheaper than buying a Starbucks Latte, that joining a site featuring hundreds of streaming movies is cheaper than buying the latest big studio's release, just make sure you let them know and, you sell them.

Some of the largest sources of traffic in the industry is pure crap, TGPs, Toplists, Banner Exchanges, Brokered Traffic, why? Because there is no pre-sell, no marketing.

Here's another example, you walk in to Walmart, hundreds of choices of chips to choose from, chances are more than not, you'll pick up Lays chips, thats marketing. Other brands may well be just as good but, it doesnt matter.

What about the checkouts? Most of us are never going to need a battery powered hand held fan or a mini travelling first aid kit that fits in our pocket but, they sell, kids see the candy on display at eye level and it sells, why? Marketing.

Getting traffic to our sites is only the start of the game, making sure we sell that traffic is the end. Last and not least, never forget this, even though you like to think of yourself as a 'webmaster' the reality of it is you are a marketer, we're not here to get the surfer off for free, we're here to sell products and sites to them - Thats what marketers do.

Regards,

Lee

[gaystoryman]

Excellent commentary Lee... which brings up a point that irks me. That is the warning page on most sites. I mean yes a warning is something we should have, for simple precautionary needs but it shouldn't be the sole focus of the page. After all this is the doorway to your business, should it be to scare people off or to entice them inside?

Saw a site last night, there wasn't a clue as to what the site was, selling dvds or pics or anything, it was all about how you had to be 21, how you couldn't enter unless you were adult, that explicit content was inside not suitable for minors.. on and on it went.. two full screen scrolls until the enter button.. that was it... and i don't know, even the local XXX video store in town has more than just NO MINORS on its painted out windows...

Sorry for the mini rant.. but you bring up a great point, we are the front line sales people.. it is OUR responsibility to get that customer to part with their bucks, which is another bugaboo of mine. Why do we call people who visit our sites surfers?

These are CUSTOMERS and we need to start thinking on those lines and not that they are some passing by visitor looking for directions. These are Customers, who we need to entice and cajole into buying... pure & simple and easier said than done, but we need to stop calling them 'surfers' and recognize them for what they are, customers.

just my opinion
Ian:coffee:

[dalimili]

If there is a marketing advice that I can give to anybody out there, be it long time webmaster or a newbie it would be only 2 things:

1. build a good site

2. show your possible customers your members area with all honesty (be it a small tour or a simple screenshot of your members area)

this is a thing that will generate quality recurring rebills - unless you're looking for partnership where you get paid 30 bucks for signup...

Showing them your members are, what they actually get, and not the lame, boring tour MAKES such a difference to your sales, you wouldn't believe it.

I tested it for 13 days and my sales have grown - without any bullshit - about 450 % up!

And if you ask me - as a surfer - I can understand why it's so important to show them what they are getting for their money, because 99% of gay or straight pornsites are done the same, with same gimmicks of gazillions of pictures and terrabytes of videos, but you never see a simple screenshot what the inside really offers.

Anyone else tried it?

[Becky]

dalimili - I agree with you on showing the customer what they are buying. Would you buy a shirt without seeing it, or trying it on to see how it fits? Not likely. So why not show the customer what they are getting when they signup?

One other thing that really bothers me is pay sites charging such a high price to pay a high commission to affiliates, rather than pricing the site based on the value of the content, updates, etc. and paying the affiliate accordingly. The biggest mistake any paysite/affiliate program owner can make is too much catering to the wm and not enough to the customer. After all, it's the customer putting money into your pocket directly, not the affiliate.

[desslock]

One other thing that really bothers me is pay sites charging such a high price to pay a high commission to affiliates, rather than pricing the site based on the value of the content, updates, etc. and paying the affiliate accordingly. The biggest mistake any paysite/affiliate program owner can make is too much catering to the wm and not enough to the customer. After all, it's the customer putting money into your pocket directly, not the affiliate.

Becky

I would disagree with that. Affiliates are payed to market. Hence the phrase affiliate marketing. In the adult business, companies cannot go the route CircuitCity.com or Target.com does to market its products. Adult companies cannot purchase ads on television, buy ads in newspapers, sell through an ebay store or in many cases advertise via google adwords. Therefore, the value of affiliate marketers to sell adult products is higher.

Consider it is a marketing expense.

Steve

[Paco]

I believe the 'task' is that of marketeers, promotion specialists or person/s that wish to make money from a sale - both, the web master and the sponsor are responsible. The sponsor should be trying to sell the site to the web masters and the general public, and web masters sell to the general public.

A true sales person is suppose to be able to sell anything.

[Lee]

Becky

I would disagree with that. Affiliates are payed to market. Hence the phrase affiliate marketing. In the adult business, companies cannot go the route CircuitCity.com or Target.com does to market its products. Adult companies cannot purchase ads on television, buy ads in newspapers, sell through an ebay store or in many cases advertise via google adwords. Therefore, the value of affiliate marketers to sell adult products is higher.

Consider it is a marketing expense.

Steve

Steve,

You seem to be mising the premise of Beckys post, her point was, by charging a surfer $40 to enter a site with $10 worth of content, is counter-productive.

The only reason the surfer HAS to pay $40 to enter the site is because webmasters demand more money from the program owners.

By catering to the webmaster, the program owner is actually screwing themselves in the long term, its simply not possible to pay $35-$40 for a $2.95 trial, each and every time, thats why PPS programs (and some revshare programs) have console chains, upsells, cross-sells, you name it, they have to recoup the money they paid the webmaster... Somehow.

To use an analogy you may be able to relate to...

If a movie cost $40 but only had 10 minutes of footage, would you buy it knowing that? More importantly, would you buy another movie of the same title for the same $40?

Regards,

Lee

[Becky]

Thanks for clearing it up Lee. I knew you would know what I was getting at

Paysite owners need to cater to their customers first. If they did, then they might be able to generate high enough member values to be comptitive with their per signup payout. But, the major programs are on the paradigm of paying top dollar for affiliate traffic and then doing what they can with that traffic to recoup those costs. I think a shift needs to occur where they pay more attention to the member's and pay for the traffic accordingly.

[jIgG]

your sales pitch is only as good as the site you're sending the surfers to. if that site doesn't deliver then your sweating was wasted.

that and properly matching your site to the sponsor site. I keep seeing people doing sites about spanking ass then selling cute smooth twinks all over it. Not good

[desslock]

Well I guess so. I do not participate in any affiliate programs that send you a flat one-time bounty. I always select the revenue sharing option. So I'm not really sure how paying a webmaster half the cost of a $4.95 trial is bad. Maybe you shouldn't offer one-time bountys. Is that what you mean when you say "paying for the traffic accordingly"?

Furthermore, when I send a customer who makes a single-non recurring purchase, they will likely receive continuing advertisements in the future, and as we know someone who buys from you once is highly likely to return in the future and spend more money with you.

And affiliates also give your product branding by running your banners. People are seeing your name. There is a value to that, which I always consider when choosing how to promote affiliate programs.

People aren't purchasing home mortgages everyday, but thanks to constant marketing, we all surely have at the tips of our tongues Lost another loan to Ditech! There is a value.

Steve

[Xstr8guy]

Another excellent way to presell your surfers is to promote appropriate sponsors with your galleries. I know that sounds obvious especially if you are using sponsor content on a TGP gallery.

But many AVS webmasters use the same damned sponsors whether their gallery is twink or bear. One webmaster in particular cranks out numerous AVS galleries everyday and he is still promoting BaitBus for god's sake. I mean, why bother?

You also see this same thing with SE spam sites. You will see a url with genericpornsite/hairy-gay-bears.html and when you click it, it goes to a website with cum guzzling women on it. Huh? If I had first page SE ranking for 'gay bears' I might want to send that traffic to a... um... bear site. DUH!

[basschick]

obviously if you send your traffic to a crappy tour, you won't make sales, however...

there is a string of sites on one program i sold at around !:200 for ages off my gallery traffic. even on really bad days, these sites never went over 1:400 for me. my friend - who is also a gallery maker, and one who makes sales, never did better on those sites than 1:1200. yet he has experience with the niches and with building successful galleries.

obviously the only problem can be that his marketing for those particular sites is not as effective as mine. our linking is the same - same tour, same exit situation. and we've run into the reverse for other sites.

so a good site can be badly marketed. it is the webmaster's responsibility to market it effectively, and the paysite owner's job to make a tour that converts.

[Xstr8guy]

You bring up good points Patti. Some people have great luck marketing tours from the big players (i.e. Topbucks). But I've never been able to figure how that was possible. I can sell the tighted-niched CCbill revshares all day but make me sell a megasite and I would starve to death.

[jIgG]

i think it's less about luck, and more about set up. Especially your traffic, where it comes from and what's it looking for.