Guaranteed Designs Free Paysite Tips

Of all my posts this one I imagine will raise the most argument especially with the proliferation of false information in efforts to advance specific agendas. I’m certainly not saying that anyone disagreeing with the numbers below fits into that category because there are always exceptions too, but I can say in all confidence that these averages presented are what you can expect in a vast majority of cases. One nice advantage of doing design for many clients in many genres is that I get to have a good look at a cross section of numbers and a wide variety of scenarios instead of just seeing one narrow view of the industry based on a specific experience. So anyway, without further babble, here it is:

Conversions (Full Price joins): Anything from 1:500 to 1:1000 is acceptable. With smaller amounts of traffic and more targeted sources (i.e. search engines, a site specific blog, etc…) you can see better numbers and if you have mostly low grade traffic (i.e. tgp/mgp, forced exits, etc…) your numbers will be worse. Sometimes there is confusion on this front because people publish numbers based on hits to the second page or join page. You get people with a really specific niche that has only very targeted traffic and their numbers are great at that point and well, you see how it goes. But rest assured once you get a decent mix of traffic and are seeing some volume of it (like more than 5k per day) then the numbers I stated above are a reasonable expectation.

Conversions (Trial Price joins): All the same commentary from above applies but with low price trials you can expect your conversions to be more in the area of 1:300 to 1:600.

If your numbers fall outside these ranges then you should look at reworking you tours, video samples or the quality of the content you are presenting. Of course take a look at your traffic sources too.

Conversion From Trial to Full: This number is largely dependent on four factors:

1. How often you update .
2. How much content is available (also if there are many sites offered when fully joining).
3. The quality of your content.
4. Is the trial membership a limited kind.

If you are doing everything right and offering a limited trial member area you can see your trials convert at 50% or maybe even a bit better. If you are just offering limited time access to the entire members area hen 25% to 30% is a good number. As a start up though it’s not unusual to see numbers for trials as low as 15%.  It takes enough content happening to really make trials work.

Retention: This number can vary so widely because it has a great deal to do with the frequency of your updates, the amount of content and the layout of your members area.  Do you offer multi site access?  o you offer rewards for staying longer?  For a startup with a smaller members are and maybe one a week updates, 20% is a reasonable number.  For a well built network of sites employing good techniques to keep people around (like multiple web cam shows per week for solo girls), then you can hit as high as 55%.  When I speak in percentages I am basically saying that you calculate in this way:

• Look at your total rebills say for March.  Let’s say it’s 200.
• Look at your rebills plus total full monthly sign ups for February.  Let’s say that adds up to 400.
• Your retention would be 50%.

Figuring out the average stay per member is not the most telling fact because it’s often made up of polar opposites (members staying a year at a time and members quitting the day they joined).  Using the percentage method you get a truer tell of your member area value.  One important point is looking at what point your site can’t grow without more traffic.  If, for instance, you have 600 members rebilling and your retention is 50% then you are losing 300 members per month.  If your conversions are 1:1000 on 10,000 visits per day, then you are stuck because you are getting 10 members per day (or 300 new per month).  Your solutions are more traffic, better conversions, better retention or more sites (which is really more traffic).

Using the ranges of numbers I gave above, hopefully you’ll be better able to decide which area is going ot be the easiest to improve upon and which area you are getting close to maxing out on already.

Anyway, I’m sure there will be plenty of people with examples of different numbers but again, these ranges come from a look at a very wide cross section in the industry instead of just specific and narrow examples.  I hope you find the information useful as always.  Many riches to everyone!

This month has been a real positive one with the tradeshow and the growing success with my partners at sterlingcash.com and digitalangeldollars.com (plug plug!) so I haven’t had a ton of time to write. But I did come across something that I think every webmaster should be checking out. This falls strongly under the “knowledge is power” category. The good folks at www.thebestporn.com have a site for the viewers to do reviews on and they conduct these polls that are just about the most telling thing I have seen in a long time.

Have a look at http://www.pornusers.com/browse_polls.html. They have asked great questions here like “What’s the most irritating thing to you inside a site’s member area?” and “How much do you trust a site’s tour pages?” I strongly recommend everyone who is serious about running pay sites have a look at these polls and the results… And the big lesson here is to not let your ego get in the way of interpreting the answers! So many of us have a hard time letting go of our own notion of how things should work or feel the need to educate an ill-informed surfer but ultimately the best sales are going to come from catering to the perceptions (and misperceptions) of the surfers at large. So again, take these polls and glean the knowledge from them. It’s golden nuggets for sure!

For the last few years this has been one of the most commonly debated topics I hear from experienced webmasters and people just looking to start.  What it comes down to is that people are making money both ways and each can give valid arguments as to why one way or the other works.  So the short answer is that you can succeed with exclusive or non-exclusive content but the long answer is about how you do it with each and why.

Exclusive Content:

• The major argument for having exclusive content sites is the obvious… Your site is the only one with that content to offer (and possibly only one with that model or those models on it).
• The major fallacy here is that this will make much of a difference to  most of your surfers!  This fallacy arises from mistaken beliefs held by many people putting together sites (or affiliates) who think that no one will sign up to a site that is using vids and models who have been seen in other places.  These guys spend so much time online working TGP/MGP posts and whatever else, that they have seen everything and they lose perspective on what the vast majority of the surfers are like.  Let’s face it, if you are doing porn for a living, you are way more into it than 99% of the population!
• But that fallacy aside… PERCEPTION IS STILL KEY!  So, as a person starting your own sites and wondering if you need exclusive content, keep in mind that the big plus here is in how you can market it to AFFILIATES, not so much to surfers.  Your affiliates like to have content that isn’t on a lot of TGP/MGP sites and TGP/MGSs want fresh stuff to list so from the promotions perspective, exclusive content will be an easier sell.
• The downside is it’s a lot more expensive.  Plain and simple.

Non-Exclusive Content:

• Contrary to popular webmaster belief, a lot of money can be made on non-exclusive content sites.  The difference here is that it becomes more about the overall quality of the site and packaging of the content.  Look at the successful path taken by a program like Twisty’s if you question this wisdom.
• To succeed with non-exclusive content you have to have more content and really focus on the extra things that make a site worth the $$ to join.  Lots of cool extras, great organization of content and slick presentation.
• To get affiliates to market it, you have to go out of your way to provide better looking galleries and more intelligently made ad tool designs.
• This content is, of course going to be cheaper so that’s your big plus.  The minus is you have to be more diligent in how you prepare it and more diligent in getting affiliates to see the value of your program.

So that’s it in a nutshell.  Nothing overly complex and honestly, it’s not that complex an argument as people are often making it out to be.  If you’re just looking to start a program, in my view it’s about your budget and your strengths.  If you are great at building sites that people will love and really care about your product, you can do non-exclusive well.  If you more interested in a frontal assault approach and just want to get the content out there and start getting people promoting fast, then exclusive - if you can afford it - is the way to go.  Many programs will end up with some of both and that’s fine too.

It’s the last thing your potential is likely to look at before making the crucial decision and it’s often completely overlooked by many sites. Really conscientious program owners often look to make sure it looks real good instead of just the usual bland page with some price links or those ugly form buttons, but even then I’m still seeing the primary points missed a lot of the time.

When building your join page, you have a couple final objectives:

1. Summarize the high points of the site to drive the point home. Avoid being overly wordy here. This should be sound bytes on a short list.
2. Overcome the primary barriers to entry for many would-be members. They are:
1. Afraid of hidden charges.
2. Afraid billing will continue after trying to quit or quitting will be difficult.
3. Porn site name will show up on credit card statement.
4. Private info will be shared or sold to a list.
5. Transaction is secure (card # getting stolen).
3. Give them that last bonerific push.

So, you put together a good design that matches your tour and now you should really add in a spot for a text list saying something by way of an example like:

• 100% Exclusive HD Videos!
• 2 Updates Per Week!
• Live Cams!
• All Billing is Discreet (Your statement will say “CC Bill”
• Absolutely NO HIDDEN CHARGES!
• We NEVER SHARE YOUR INFO WITH ANYONE!
• Cancel Any Time No Questions Asked!

Pretty simple stuff but very effective and oft overlooked.

Now these are just a couple very widely varied examples. You can see though that trials are less likely to benefit you until you have a large enough program to get those retention and trial conversion numbers real high. It’s a very tricky thing considering you can take that last scenario and bump the trial payout to $25 and then you take a $2 million loss in three years!

Again, there are other things to consider like how much your traffic increases by offering a trial. Diffrent lengths for the trial and price points as well. If you are considering trying one option or the other and want me to run some numbers for you, feel free to contact me and I’ll do that for you.