Do You Think Sponsors Make The Most Of Their Content?

[Lee]

Specifically the ones that have exclusive content sites?

I have to say, despite there being bucket-loads of sponsors with paysites featuring exclusive content, im constantly amazed at how few of them are maximizing the potentials of their content costs.

It is almost like a lot of programs beleive the only way they can use content to generate income is by using it on websites, very few of them have their own DVD lines, very few of them add this content to pay per view or VOD providers, very few of these sponsors relicense their content to other webmasters or content providers.

Do you think the reason for this is that they dont understand there is a world of 'porn' away from the regular paysite usage?

Just curious to see what you folks, especially some of the content producers we have on GWW thought about this as a topic in general, do you think people ordering exclusive or custom shoots from you even realize they can do more with their purchases than use it on the web?

Also, on the flip side, do you folks think that DVD producers are making the most of their titles? I see very few of the large DVD studios using their content to fuel their own websites or VOD services.

Regards,

Lee

[Paco]

nope!

We pissed away so much potential by leasing our content - BIG MISTAKE! Sure, we made some money with that little venture, however sales to our sites slipped because the content became more common (less 'exclusive').

That is a move I argued strongly against, but what the hell does an employee know aside from knowing how to roll THE perfect 'J'!

[Lee]

Paco,

I have to admit, when i see sponsors offering their content for lease almost immediately after putting on their sites it does make me question whether they actually know what they are doing LOL

Once we start going the exclusive route, offering the content in feeds is in the 'masterplan' but not for almosy 12-24 months after we have milked it for its full worth everywhere else first.

Regards,

Lee

[Paco]

can I work you?
..uh, for - I meant fore.

I understand it is their money and they can do what they want, but there is stupid and then there is ..WTF - they don't even smoke crack or meth and they did THAT..!

[Xstr8guy]

I'm always amazed that exclusive content sites don't at least rebrand their content when offering leased feeds to content brokers. A lot of surfers belong to sites with XYZ feed and they just assume that the XYZ website has only the content that is on that particular feed. They don't realize that XYZ website has 100 times the content and higher quality video than XYZ feed.

[Lee]

Agreed Jim.

Plus, the benefit to the sponsor of rebranding the content feed is that they now have an additional source of income from the surfer, especially if they own the domain for the rebranded name, just throw up an index page and a join page and if a member of another site that is using that content actually likes the feed, but didnt like the site they were a member of, they could join the 'feed' directly which would make the content owner another $10-$30 per month plus rebills.. On top of what other paysites are paying them to use the feeds!

IMHO thats the best type of branding/traffic any site could get, being shown/branded to qualified credit card wielding, paysite membership purchasing surfers

Regards,

Lee

[gaybucks_chip]

We've tried a number of different things. We're starting to do different edits of our scenes, one of which is used on the website, one on the DVD, and eventually, a separate one for VOD.

We're fairly careful to make sure there is web content that isn't on VOD or PPV, and DVD content that isn't for the basic website membership, but is available as PPV.

We've been approached for various content licensing deals, but we've never wanted to do that because we don't want to degrade the exclusivity of our content on our sites and DVDs.

And I've heard a lot of people talk about recycling the content after 24 months... but I've always figured that the people joining 2 years after a scene is put up are still looking at a scene that's new to them unless they've been a member before... and until our retention gets to 24 months, I figure it's still more valuable to signups and retentions than it is in making a few bucks licensing it somewhere else.

I will say that for webmasters not currently in DVDs, the physical product market, particularly in twink and college boy/jock is getting VERY competitive and some say is nearing saturation. I know of no distributors who are taking on new studios at present, and I've talked to a lot of distributors who are indicating that many smaller and/or newer studios are really struggling with a sharp decline in sales due to the increased competition. Of course, if you have a ton of retail buyer traffic and can sell direct, it's less of a problem, but even then, there is a lot of competition for the online retail buyer's dollar.

For my money, focusing on a quality site with quality exclusive content and limited, careful repurposing of content will probably yield the greatest return on the value of the content.