Happy Holidays to you and yours as well Brian.

Not sure if I missed any other question of yours. If i did let me know

Twitter is a great way to show the public what your site is about. As a consumer I generally like to research everything before I buy. Products, hotels, restaurants, even the seat I choose on a flight (Seatguru.com is so awesome). The information is out there to find out if a product or site or company is safe and you can get a really good feel for what the company is about by researching them. Twitter is a good start because it lets you know if a company is old school and simply shoves their crap down your throat or if they actually care about what their customers have to say.

In the past letting the public know what you were about was very hard but today i think it's becoming easier and easier.

Great post and thanks for sharing. I would have guessed sites had improved but in no way have the hands on knowledge you have. Nice to hear :thumbsup:thumbsup

its cool, shap sold out. take the manwin $$$$ an go watch soccer games in england an the pussy was givin Chelsea tickets away. fade to black, dont come rollin bck splashin lecture shit. yeah you can come bck shap cuz ppl will suck your dick, the newbies have NO respect for ya !!!! how ya gonna out wit the tubes, yea you had one, how ya gonna outwit the filelockers based in germany stuffed with your content ???? gotta laugh at the dinosaurs !!!!! especially the ones that sold out the biz !!!!

:thumbsup

The quality control in this business has always been pretty bad. There are some who do it right but very few actually take pride in the finished product. Take pics for example, most of the mega sites have awful presentation when it comes to pics, even though they have access to a vast library that would certainly appeal to their members if some time was spent editing the final product.

interesting is, i have bought like 5 memberships when i have been in chamonix, france, with my czech card, now, from czech, with the same card, i cannot buy ... makes you really thinking wtf? :helpme :error

Yes, I agree Twitter (and social media more generally) are a good way to improve trust. Those are site specific tools. You'd need to have a strong presence for Twistys, another for Brazzers, another of X brand and Y brand as well. You can't just rely on a neighborhood the way offline businesses can. The exception is bankable brands... having a site 'powered by Playboy' or 'from Hustler' definitely helps but most porn sites do not have that option - so for most it becomes an individual hurdle to clear.

Does your site earn enough trust to make someone confident at the point of sale or not? I view that as the first threshold for a sale. If your site doesn't pass, the person won't join it no matter what else your site has going for it. There are lots of things that can help. One thing with billing for example, there are plenty of reasons to use one biller or another... and reasons not to use one biller or another. However, one thing I rarely see mentioned is that when consumers see a CCBill payment page, many have already used it before on past purchases and trust the site more even if its an available biller and not the primary biller.

WebsiteSecure.org certification has a noticeable impact as well according to clients and it is very visible on top review sites (top review sites also provide greater trust for your site even if they give your site an average score for entertainment value). Anyone who wants a demonstration and references for it should contact me.

There are many ways to help a consumer trust your site... everything from cleaning up the typos on your tour to displaying a privacy policy customers can read. They are all worth doing and usually they are site specific, meaning doing them for each of your sites even if the sites are on the same network, is almost always a good idea. The cost a building a strong reputation is tiny compared to the cost of not building one.

Happy New Year Shap :thumbsup

I'm getting old I had trouble understanding your post. From what I did understand it Sounds like you are a big fan of mine thanks bros :thumbsup

How was business for you in 2013?

Excellent topic points Shap and its great to see you still around here even though you are not in the biz so much anymore. Mucho respect for the business you built, the decisions you made and the interest you still take in the state of the industry.

I love seeing some good business threads here on GFY.

Treating the customers well are points that I always preach in seminars that we speak on at shows. Customer interaction is important and when the customers get to see the human interaction behind these sites it makes for better member retention. That mixed with honest billing and great content are the 3 keys for success.

However, I don't agree with your point about handling your own customer service and not to outsource it. While it is important to have member interaction and provide 24/7 customer support, small-med sized programs don't have the staff of ability to effectively provide it alone. A mixture of using an outsourced company that handles billing support, cancellation and retention offers, order fulfillment questions and password help etc, and the program owners provided support, is a very viable solution, if you are working with a call center/support team that can provide custom support features.

Mitch

Got a different experience. We got members sending us 1000 word essays with feedback. I find it highly valuable.

How about "have an awesome product"???

Has anyone mentioned that yet?

great points for sure

The original post was good, but this. This is the reason I come to GFY :1orglaugh:thumbsup

The days of the hard sell landing page are over. Future successful marketers are those who will focus on developing a content delivery strategy. The higher the engagement factor the better.

Spot on analysis - show a customer you care about them and they keep coming back

Yes we do. If more customers are into something or we just like the idea - we go ahead with it. If the script is complicated or microniche - we charge a little extra for it.

Having the right content is a given IMO

By non intrusive, yes, but give the customer the option.

Seems obvious but it is not. Many, many people think really hard how to most easily fuck their members for quickest monetary gain.

I don't think this type of short-sighted behavior is specific to adult. You'll find it in any industry, especially consumer goods and services.

Well said

Spot on about the mix. We use Netbilling for our billing support but still have a robust Zen desk support desk setup to help with tech and other site issues.

How many have mentioned ideas like in the OP and were told "you're too nice." ?

Mitch Great To hear from you!

I should expand on what I wrote and clarify.

Customer support is one of the most important parts of any business. It is important that it is done RIGHT! Your first priority is to make sure it's done right and timely. If you can't make that happen yourself you have to outsource it.

If you do outsource it I believe it's very important that you have full access to the support tickets. It's important that you can take a look at common complaints, problems and issues. Having access to those tickets is a must. It's also important that your brand is being represented properly in the support tickets. You will be judged and remembered based on how those tickets are answered.

I also believe once a company gets to a certain size they should try to internalize the handling of customer support. It's not glamourous, it's not fun but it is vital. From personal experience us handling our own customer support has helped us trouble shoot problems on our site either with the members area or join process. Not only did it help but it sped up the process immensely. Our support staff would let us know that they've had repeated tickets about being unable to join or a video not working and we were able to jump on it right away instead of losing a lot of business had we not been told.

i've definitely had those

exactly which is why this was brought up during a mainstream talk. A lot of mainstream guys are so used to the fast buck from banner advertising and mailing that they have had trouble adapting to how the web has changed.

Customer Support is key but again, with adult, the "customers", while actual people, are also degenerate porn addicts. LOL So let's not confuse adult customers with 'mainstream' customers. Someone ordering a vacuum cleaner or hyperallergenic pillow is NOT the same as someone ordering a monthly membership to an interracial BBW midget cuckold creampie site. :)

One thing I've learned about business in my life is that there are eternal truths that everyone pretends don't apply to them. Business is business. A product is a product. The customer is the customer. A service is a service. Management is management. Etc. etc etc. failing to understand this is a huge limiting factor to growth and kong term success.

I strongly disagree with that.

If you truly believe that then there is no reason you shouldn't be banging the hell out of every single member for as much as you possibly can.

:thumbsup:thumbsup

Btw... Do you think ccbill has a customer service strategy for 10,000 different types of sites, niches, products and so on.... Or one?

And adult customers ARE mainstream customers. They buy bread. They buy clothes. They buy music. They buy cars etc.

This false distinction has been made since 1996 in this business online "surfers are stupid" was all anyone ever said, that sentiment is still echoed in your reply. They are not your cherished customer... They are degenerates which need to be treated as such.

:thumbsup:thumbsup

I owned a gym and gave both my partner and main sales guy a great deal of autonomy in sales because they were extremely good. They loved to remind me that I didn't have their experience in the fitness industry from the sales side to justify everything and keep me at bay.

One day a guy walked in trying to sell something (I think ad space somewhere).

He was speaking to my partner with both of us present and he used every single sales device they did. Once he left, they were laughing at what a transparent douche he was, how he was using the same tired lines and sales tricks they used etc.

I just quietly looked up and said "every single person you sell to looks at you the exact same way. They've heard your lines a 1000 times already from a 1000 different salesmen selling 1000 different products. Your problem is you, and the fact that you convinced yourself that you are different, the customer is different, the product is different and the same old tired sales pitch you use is somehow unique.... because really, your tunnel vision is so bad, it's all you know"

Dead on! I don't think most people don't see that though.

Both you and Shap are misunderstanding my comments here. I do NOT think "surfers are stupid" or that Customer Support is unnecassary. And no Shap, my comments do NOT imply that I would then be a 'card banger' and try to exploit my Members. Fuck you Shap. Let's not swing the pendulum the other way here.

No, my point is that an adult customer's "needs" are VASTLY differant than someone buying a smoke alarm for their Grandmother. LOL Many, many adult customers do NOT want to be 'bothered' or even catered to. They want to grab their porn, whack it, and exit, sometimes as anonmyously as possible. How often should you email your current Members? How many opt out if you send them too many emails?

No, adult customers ARE "people" but they are differant kinds of customers. Their main concerns *usually) are:

My password doesn't work (easy fix)
I cannot figure out how to download the content on a Mac or a device (again, easy fix)
I do not like the content (sorry, see ya)
I want MORE content (so here's a bunch of links for you to check out other Programs....)
The videos won't stream on my device or laptop
How do I contact this model?
When is the next update?

So what else would you be catering to? Let's not pretend an adult customer needs a lot of hand-holding here. Technical issues aside, what do Members want or expect?

They expect to get the content they paid for and they expect to have a good 'user experience'. Do they expect a chat feature? Do they expect forums and social networking? Perhaps but it also greatly depends on what KIND of adult website you are promoting. Some niches rely heavily on Member interaction while others do not.

But again, and finally, catering to your Members via good Customer Support is important but is not THE KEY TO SUCCESS. It is a factor but how much time you spend on it really depends, I think, on the feedback you get from your own members.

I think you are misunderstanding. Customers are customers. The questions and concerns may certainly differ from product to product, service to service etc but that has absolutely nothing to do with treating customer service as a very important aspect of success. What concerns or questions exist, has zero to do with the processes and procedures you implement to properly deal with customer service. THAT is what does not change across any industry, product or service



This again is exactly what separate those who strive for and create excellence and those who can only reach mediocrity.

"The key to success"

Every factor is either a key to success or failure. Every factor needs to be fully addressed and managed well. Those who continually strive for excellence treat every factor involved in their success such as customer relationships as life and death. Those who don't, never achieve anything truly great, are never modeled or copied and never remembered for what they built or did and are quickly forgotten.

Who and what do you think will be remembered in the end? You and any one of your sites? Or Shap and just one of his sites? That's something to think about.

Well, to answer the last part first, Shap's will be remembered more than my little operation that's for sure. But that also has MUCH to do with scale. A better question might be:

If Shap and I started at the same exact time, with the same resources (little to none), who would be a bigger success and which company would last longer? I started in 2009 and Shap started ten years earlier. Another question might be: could Shap be as successful as ME if HE started with zero in 2009?

And sorry, it is you who are are not understanding ME (or my responses). I actually agree with you and Shap that Customer Support is important (and nowhere in any of my comments have I contradicted this). In fact, I myself answer every single Member email (not a 3rd party). I am also the one who does ALL communicating with Members (ICQ, emails, newsletters, etc). So I know what Customer Support is and I always (always) go out of my way to help my Members, even extending Memberships as a standard response to any complaint.

My comments are more geared towards company resource allocation. And perhaps I am merging 'Member Area interactivity/updating' with the overall general topic of Customer Support, to whcih I apologize for mixing apples and oranges. Although, in the end, it's all one big fruit basket. LOL

Of course the answer to that would be only speculation... but my money would always go towards the guy who

1) is most passionate about what he is doing, his business, his product and the users experience
2) who looks at every little detail and strives to make it perfect


No worries man, its just a forum. :)

To clarify, this is exactly how I see things and how many who do things well, unintentionally approach their business.

My absurdly linear brain needs to see steps, flow, processes and so on. I identify say all the steps in the customer experience and map them out on paper. From the first link he clicked or first watermark he typed in to his 3rd month as a member, upsells and so on. Then i break each one down into all the factors which contribute to, positively or negatively each step.

But basically the math looks like this to calculate the compounding returns on improvements in a sequence:
= [(1)*(1+F1%)*(1+F2%)*(1+F3%)*(1+F4%)] – 1
where F represents an identified factor in the sequence and the % it is improved.

An rough/quick example would be how the user finds the site, what he see's on the index page, what he sees on the tour pages, what he see's on the join page, how many submit, how many are successful, what they see in the members area, how long they stay in the members area, how frequently they return, how much content they viewed, how many rebilled etc etc etc etc.

If there are 10 steps that you identify as major factors in the user experience that determines the value per visit or whatever metric you use, it looks like this
= [(1)*(1+F1%)*(1+F2%)*(1+F3%)*(1+F4%)*(1+F5%)*(1+F6% )*(1+F7%)*(1+F8%)*(1+F9%)*(1+F10%)] – 1

IF you improve each step by an average of 10%, by the time you get to the end result, there is an 185% overall improvement in the outcome.

Then, you apply that 185% back to step 1... traffic generation and again multiply the benefits exponentially.

This is why is say "step 6: managing customer service and managing customer relationships well" is just as important as any other. Even more important is doing these things well over time when you don't really see the immediate and obvious benefit to it... its not about that. Its about that one factor in a sequence that directly impacts every other.

This is why i also say that those who strive for excellence in everything have a HUGE advantage over those who don't. They are automatically trying to tackle every factor and make it perfect because its in their nature, because they can't accept mediocrity anywhere, not because they understand the mathematical advantages of doing so. Most importantly, because its in their nature and a part of who they are, they will also do it with fanatical consistency, where others will not. The benefits to that behavior are massive.

So my bet would go to Shap on the "who would do better over time, had you started at the same time". Building enduring success isn't really about statistics and numbers and traffic and cross sales, cheating or not, right time or wrong time,.... its about the personality traits of those competing.

interesting topic, i do see your point in the CLV metric. however you are unique in that you have a unique and exclusive product. i think people with cookie cutter sites are more looking to track the overall value based on how many crosses they can bang out. in their case the CLV is null as no one with a brain would ever re-join. i think few in adult are tracking things are well as through should over the entire customer lifetime, those that are and have a unique product could probably mine very valuable data. :2 cents:

Well again, I will address the ending first. Please do not judge my "personality type" based on comments posted here on GFY. Perhaps you have met Shap and have more information than I do but if we are comparing who cares more, who works harder, who understands things more, I would place myself right next to ANY human being, including Shap.

Now, having said all that, we must also look at intent and timing. For it was never my intention to build a single site or "brand" like Twisty's. Nor do I (generally) shoot my own content. Timing IS a huge factor when we're discussing Adult. Shap started when you could begin with zero and, through sweat equity, earn millions in a relatively short time. We're talking the "Golden Age" of adult, pre-Tubes, circa 1999-2005. Now fast forward to January 2009. Post-Tubes, post-Manwin, post-credit card changes, post-nearly everything that constituted online Adult's "Golden Age". In 1999 you could start with $1000 and make millions; in 2009 you could start with $1000 and make.....how much? Millions? Doubtful.

Now while the Adult Industry continues to trend downward my little company continues to trend upward. Twisty's rose on a rising tide of online Adult's Golden Age, where a moron could put up a nude picture and earn thousands a week (not saying Shap is a moron LOL). How many others do you know of who started with zero money (and zero knowledge/skills) just five years ago and have what I have today? There IS a huge differance.

Sorry, but I would bet on myself over Shap or any other human being, you included, under the circumstances. Why? Because 99.9% of people would've given up by now if they started like I started, with nothing.

I do love your mathematical breakdown of user experience steps. :) Math is not my strong point but I can easily focus on the Steps, and this is what I do in my own way. Just the other day a Member complained about a photo gallery not loading correctly and I dropped everything to fix it. Turns out we lost some content when switching servers so I had to re-upload the entire site's galleries, which took hours. LOL Ah well, things MUST be "perfect". Well, as perfect as can be reasonaly expected then one must move on.

When you see my new HD mini-network and affiliate program called Eleganxia (coming end of January) you will see how I've evolved and on what level I'm playing now. :)

Again, this is subjective and speculative for me or you or anyone to say. More a thought experiment and opinion. I for example, would not bet on myself because I know from doing it in the past, that I would not find that passion for the product that others do. I prefer PPC and data and being able to make huge amounts from my note book while depending on no one. Not that it says anything good about me, i've just found I thrive better that way and made the decision to stop everything else and chase it 100%.


I have no doubt that you will do well. This is not an attack but more an example of how a third party like myself sees people from the outside looking in when trying to evaluate two people.

Who would be predicted to succeed over the next 20 years? Bill Gates who seems to be more about sales numbers than the product or a Steve Jobs that understands not only what people want, but what they will want and has a vision of how to really impact peoples lives with the products he creates and how those products will become an extension of the customers themselves and where the products are more than devices, that they are status and social currency... and who has a deep passion for every aspect of the product and customer experience and how that product fits into and impacts everyone's lives.

Though you may disagree, i see this as a similar comparison... at least from my uninformed perspective. Numbers vs passion.

I have never been a fan of Apple (though Microsoft is forcing me in that direct with Windows 8 and turning my computer into a shitty smart phone).... but I would bet my money on Jobs (had he not committed suicide) over Gates.

Both however, could easily make an argument for how awesome they are and how awesome the future will be. Gates speaking sounds like he has a better grasp on the future of technology than anyone... but running Microsoft as a business and making its products an irreplaceable part of that future is a different problem and where they are and have been failing.