Why Buy The Cow When The Milk Is FREE?
My husband Stephen is a big fan of saying "If you can't 'whack off' to it, then what's the point of visiting a porn site?" While he is really talking about the need for having quality, arousing content inside a premium site's members area, many people try to build free sites, and TGP or MGP galleries that are so damn explicit that you can easily 'whack off' to them without paying a single penny. I guess the site builder's figure that if the preview is so hot that it'll make the surfer cum, then he will really want to pay to see all of "the good stuff" inside.
This practice ignores the stark reality that porn is usually an impulse purchase, and if the potential customer has already enjoyed "the benefits of membership" then he or she has little or no motivation to spend their money for more.
As my friend Lensman said, "Make no mistake; if there was no free porn, they'd all have to pay for it." He is of course correct. So the question then becomes "Do you need to offer highly explicit, 'free samples' as a means of trying to sell more porn?" From the looks of most "free sites," the answer is "yes" – but "most" is not "all."
Legal And Other Worries
Offering copious amounts of pornographic "free samples" not only poses marketing and economic challenges, but it exposes this material to minors, and through the miracle of the World Wide Web and its global reach, brings it into jurisdictions where it is unwelcome.
In the US as we brace for a renewed assault on our industry, taking a much more moderate approach might mean the difference between freedom and imprisonment.
Even if you are very careful about protecting your content from children, and staying within the law, you can still encounter other problems – such as when my mother-in-law recently received a printout of my personal Website. Thankfully she didn't see the explicit members area, although the relatively "tame" preview was shocking enough. So shocking, in fact, that I'm going to tone things down even more (at least on the outside) – a process which led to me writing this article.
A Softcore Solution
As I'm fond of saying, "It's all about the tease, baby!" So rather than focusing on showing just how "down and dirty" porn can be, I'm going to work on a much more softcore site. Don't get me wrong – I'll be more than happy to send traffic to the nastiest hardcore sites out there; but what they're willing to do to make a buck, and what I'm willing to do, are two separate things...
I'm not going to show the raunchiest stuff imaginable (like many TGPs and free sites do), but show just enough to make the surfer beg to see more – a "more" that is available to adults, for a price! How I'll do this and what kind of success I'll have will no doubt be documented here at XBiz, so if you're looking for specifics, you'll have to stay tuned.
Don't imitate – innovate! You don't need to follow the crowd, working on a business model that saw its best days a few years ago. Try something new! Rather than 'trash' think 'class' – and while the comparison is less shocking and distinctive than it once was, think of the difference between "Playboy" and "Hustler" – be "Playboy" on the outside, and "Hustler" on the inside...
