profile

The Making of Raven Riley

Jay Man of JayManCash confidently proclaims: "We have a two-year plan for Raven Riley. Year one: amateur Internet model. Year two: transitional phase from amateur to glam. Right now we're at the very beginning of phase two."

Twenty-one-year-old Riley may not be a household name, but the naturalbodied amateur niche model has been splashed all over the Internet like an all-consuming tidal wave.

"In 10 months we have managed to get affiliates to build 1.3 million web pages with her name on [them]," Jay Man says. "We also grossed $1 million in our first eight months. That's kind of a big deal off one girl in eight months."

Sean Trotter, CTO and director of online sales for AdamEve.com, is impressed by Riley's rapid rise to web stardom.

"She has captured the niche of the girl next door that you might run into at the local grocery store and take home," Trotter tells XBiz. "This is a large part of her appeal, but the most impressive attribute is that she came from nowhere to hit every message board and TGP in cyberspace at the same time and with different content everywhere."

Riley, says adult entertainment consultant Kevin Blatt, fits a specific niche market.

"She's young, Latina, cute and natural," Blatt says. "And you can probably add about 10 other adjectives, which just goes to show you how marketable she is."

Currently based in Cincinnati, Jay Man discovered Riley in early 2004 while casting for bikini models for still shoots. Riley, who had never modeled before and was working a 9-to-5 job, accompanied a friend to a shoot and immediately expressed an interest in posing for the camera. When Jay Man – who was a content producer and affiliate manager for AFDollars.com at the time – scheduled Riley for her first session, he was promptly impressed by her business acumen.

For $50 More...
"We were doing an outdoor shoot under a bridge and she began taking her clothes off and I was trying to get a feeling of what she was into and how far she would go," Jay Man recalls. "And then she started negotiating with me, which is something models usually don't do.

She said, 'For $50 more I'll take my panties off.' I counter-offered with $25, and she said, 'One hundred.' You don't see that too often."

Hardly surprising for a young woman who notes in her About Me page at RavenRiley.com that her dream car is a Mercedes and her first ambition is to "make lots of money." If web models need a capitalist idol, Raven Riley is their girl.

Jay Man began shooting Riley for AmateurFacials.com, an affiliate program of AF Dollars, in 2004. That's when his business partner, Tom of PicHunters.com, suggested that Jay Man provide Riley with her own solo girl site. Jay Man and Riley agreed.

"So every time we shot her for Amateur Facials, we had her arrive on set with four more outfits, and we ended up taking five sets every day. We did that for about six weeks and before we knew it we had 30 sets of content that we owned outright." Jay Man, Tom and Riley – collectively, the business entity Third Pentacle, LLC – opened the Raven Riley paysite in December 2004. The saturation of Raven Riley on the web came through a pre-existing network.

"I had worked for resource site Netpond since 1999," Jay Man explains. "I did management support, marketing, advertising, and I had a show on Netpond Radio. So through all of that and my work with Amateur Facials, I was a branded entity. Tom came with his own network of people through PicHunter and that was big traffic people. Tom's network and contacts were pure, big TGP traffic people."

Jay Man, says Kevin Blatt, "is friends with a lot of big players and that just opens up a floodgate of traffic."

"One thing we did at the very beginning with marketing Raven Riley," Jay Man says, "is every set of content that we released to members, we also released to webmasters; every set you could download in the webmasters area – not the whole set, just 20 pictures or so. That gives people marketing tools as an affiliate to push her name."

And before you could say, "a star is born," there were 1.3 million websites pushing Raven Riley. Jay Man reports that RavenRiley.com receives 70,000 unique visitors per day, and 65-70 percent of their sales are direct request type-ins.

"Our type-ins are insane," he boasts. "If we don't get another affiliate we don't care."

Currently, JayManCash and Third Pentacle hosts three niche sites aside from Riley's web address, including Bangin Becky.com, CumOn Candy.com and LadyBoy Crush.com, the latter featuring Asian transsexuals. Jay Man's goal is 20 sites of all different niches.

"To me, niche means exclusive content," Jay Man says. "It's a captured market. There's only one place where the consumer can find exclusive Raven Riley content, and that's on her site. She's not in anyone else's member's area."

Jay Man says Riley is very active on her site, spending three hours daily corresponding with members via email and message boards and webcam.

"She's even on our support forum," Jay says with a laugh. "She's a very strong personality, very dedicated. She's a full partner in the site and in the company. She makes a cut of everything we do. She's long term."

Sean Trotter hopes that Riley is sending a message to all the girls in the industry. "If you build a site, you have to shoot as much content as humanly possible. Too many girls put up 30 galleries and then expect to be millionaires," Trotter says. "If Raven becomes a millionaire off her site, then she deserves it. Her marketing and dedication to the site is unparalleled by any other single girl site out there, and I for one am impressed."

To implement the second phase of their Raven Riley marketing plan, Jay Man and associates are actively looking for contacts in the Los Angeles area.

"Our goal for 2006-07 is to have the hottest DVD out there starring Raven Riley," Jay Man says. "We are not selling tits and ass; we are selling personality and fantasy."

After the full implementation of the three-year campaign, Jay Man says Riley will more than likely switch over from model to model manager and scout for Third Pentacle.

The New Danni?
"I just think that after three years she will have put her time in," Jay Man says. "I would like to see her site become like Danni's Hard Drive, where she is the host with member access to her thousands of galleries, but we start bringing in other things."

Through savvy marketing enabled by the unique distribution and sales channels that the Internet has created, Raven Riley is living proof of the economic theory of The Long Tail, first advanced by Wired magazine in October 2004. Although she is squarely a niche model – attractive, young, natural, though not everyone's concept of the ideal pin-up girl – the total volume of low- to mid-popularity items on the web exceeds the volume of high popularity items.

In other words: Move over, Jenna Jameson, Raven Riley is in town.

Copyright © 2024 Adnet Media. All Rights Reserved. XBIZ is a trademark of Adnet Media.
Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited.

More Articles

profile

'Traffic Captain' Andy Wullmer Braves the High Seas as Spirited Exec

Wullmer networked and hobnobbed, gaining expertise in everything from ecommerce to SEO and traffic, making connections and over time rising through the ranks of several companies to become CEO Mobile at TrafficPartner.

Alejandro Freixes ·
opinion

To Cloud or Not to Cloud, That Is the Question

Let’s be honest. It just sounds way cooler to say your business is “in the cloud,” right? Buzzwords make everything sound chic and relevant. In fact, someone uninformed might even assume that any hosting that is not in the cloud is inferior. So what’s the truth?

Brad Mitchell ·
opinion

Upcoming Visa Price Changes to Registration, Transaction Fees

Visa is updating its fee structure. Effective April 1, both the card brand’s initial nonrefundable application fee and annual renewal fee will increase from $500 to $950. Visa is also introducing a fee of 10 cents for each transaction, and 10 basis points — 0.1% — on the payment volume of certain merchant accounts.

Jonathan Corona ·
opinion

Unpacking the New Digital Services Act

Do you hear the word “regulation” and get nervous? When it comes to the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), you shouldn’t worry. If you’re complying with the most up-to-date card brand regulations, you can breathe a sigh of relief.

Cathy Beardsley ·
opinion

The Perils of Relying on ChatGPT for Legal Advice

It surprised me how many people admitted that they had used ChatGPT or similar services either to draft legal documents or to provide legal advice. “Surprised” is probably an understatement of my reaction to learning about this, as “horrified” more accurately describes my emotional response.

Corey D. Silverstein ·
profile

WIA Profile: Holly Randall

If you’re one of the many regular listeners to Holly Randall’s celebrated podcast, you are already familiar with her charming intro spiel: “Hi, I’m Holly Randall and welcome to my podcast, ‘Holly Randall Unfiltered.’ This is the show about sex, the adult industry and the people in it.

Women In Adult ·
trends

What's Hot Now: Leading Content Players on Trending Genres, Monetization Strategies

The juggernaut creator economy hurtles along, fueled by ever-ascendant demand for personality-based authenticity and intimacy — yet any reports of the demise of the traditional paysite are greatly exaggerated.

Alejandro Freixes ·
opinion

An Ethical Approach to Global Tech Staffing

One thing my 24-year career as a technologist working to support the online adult entertainment industry has taught me about is the power of global staffing. Without a doubt, I have achieved significantly more business success as a direct result of hiring abroad.

Brad Mitchell ·
opinion

Finding the Right Payment Partner

Whenever I am talking with businesses that are just getting started, one particular question comes up a lot: “How do I get a merchant account?” It’s a simple question, but it has a complicated answer.

Jonathan Corona ·
opinion

The Taxman Cometh for Every Business

February may be the month of romance, but it is also a time when we need to think about something that inspires very little love: taxes. April is not far away, and the taxman is always waiting. This year, federal and most state income taxes are due Monday, April 15.

Cathy Beardsley ·
Show More