BDSM Stats.....
 

Absolutely correct about the BDSM surfers being not only real educated about what's out there, but also real educated in general. This is a VERY different consumer group than "vanilla porn". Our polling over the past 12 years of our members show some interesting data:
1. Income average > $100k a year;
2. Predominant number of college and post graduate educated;
3. Predominant number in advanced level careers;
4. Average age of member: 48 years old

As for conversions, bdsm surfers are VERY savvy about what to look for in the sites they join. The majority are "lifestyle" bdsm players and can smell cookie cutter wannabe sites with purchased content a mile away. These surfers are looking for the "real deal" when considering purchasing a membership.

As there are only about 8 "real bdsm" content producers with paysites on the web, surfers will tend to eventually find them and, the good news is, the retention is far above the adult industry average. Wasteland has a healthy retention rate of about 4.5 months, and a few annual members that go all the way back to 1996. Our longest term member is an elderly college professor from Iowa that joined in early 1996 and faithfully renews every year (and follows up with a friendly phone call to the staff here with his "wish list" for new shoots).

As for your observation that Kink is clocking in at around 2.3 months retention, I suspect it is much higher if you look at the big picture. They have a large variety of sites and I suspect that members go from one to the other periodically, but stay within the Kink family of sites.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Peter and the Kink team have built a great infrastructure and have truly raised the bar for production values for the rest of us in this bdsm marketplace. Check around some of the other similar programs and you'll see what I mean. A new gold standard has been established. The other bit of good news is that the average bdsm consumer is a member of 3 bdsm sites simultaneously (average monthly expenditure is around $100 - yes, this is an affluent consumer group!), so this opens up a lot of additional promotional opportunities for affiliates.

Cheers,
Colin at Wasteland

Tons of girls who worked for my sites have done work for kink.com too and all had nothing but positive things to say about everyone there.

EB

I'd like to pickup on Wasteland's point here.

Shooting BDSM content is an entirely different animal than most other adult oriented material. And I believe one of the strong points over at Kink.com has been shooting models that are known more for "vanilla porn" and fans of these particular models will join sites of Kink.com purely for the thrill of seeing their favorite vanilla models in a rough BDSM scene. The downside can be, as Wasteland was mentioning is that these performers are not lifestyle BDSM players, and a big part of being able to withstand some of these tortures is pleasure. If they derive no pleasure from bondage itself - it can be a traumatic experience...however all in all Kink.com has proven itself time and time again to be the best at what they do.

Looking over records and communicating with members of Everydayslaves.com I've noticed an striking resemblance to Wasteland's.

I think this has a lot to do with the fact that the BDSM community really is just that...a community. And so people who enter it, tend to stay in it a lot longer and have that much more dedication towards it, partly because it's very hard for many people to enact many of these fantasies on their own in their real lives, and so they rely on the internet and paysites to provide them their need.

The point I think is, BDSM is one of the harder niches to shoot because it involves pain. And with that knowledge in mind - Kink.com has done a spectacular job at what they do.

I also agree that shooting models that are BDSM players, or even in our case living in 24/7 D/s relationships is much easier and realistic, which has proven to play well with the average BDSM surfer, as Wasteland said - these surfers have become extremely savvy. And many of them are looking for the "real thing", 24/7 D/s couples are like the amateur of vanilla porn, and its become a marketplace that is simply ripe for the picking.

EDSmontreal hit the nail on the head in so many ways in this post.
The community aspect is one of the most critical aspects of bdsm site structure, and working with lifestyle players totally pays off in conversions and retention, with the added bonus of having actresses that are "into it" to avoid surprises when shooting (and, after shooting, as is the case in this thread)!

Great set of sites you have there, "north of the border"!

Cheers,
Colin

Do you really think that?
The girl is just saying what she thinks people want her to say and what she thinks is best for her to say.
She doesn't look that comfortable to me. Looks more like she was loath to do that stuff.

Nice to have your input here Colin, I have been an affiliate of yours since 2002.

I'd like to talk with you, can you shoot me a quick e-mail? [email protected]

Thanks man,

Socks

Nice to hear from you, Socks!
I'll pop you and email right now and we can chat a bit about bdsm traffic.

Cheers,
Colin

Good to see you again baddog remember me? We hooked up in Vegas a few times back in the day...
I was no pro at all in fact very far from it as far as promoting bdsm and related niche sites but with the help of Colin from Wasteland and a little studying on my own it is for the most part the only thing I promote these days.
Mike S (Mayor) once gave me some of the best advice I recieved many years ago when he told me I was designing pages and sites just towards what I liked not thinking outside the box what others may want. Now I still havent brought myself to promote gay sites as of yet (Not that there is anything wrong with that...sorry for the Seinfeld joke) but that advice and the happening to to meet Colin from this board a few years ago had helped make me much more sucessful than I otherwise would have been

I think the girl is telling the honest truth as she sees and feels it and I think Kink does whatever it can to prevent it - but when you shoot this kind of content with that many models whom they know nothing about before they show up to shoot you're going to get the occassional traumatized model. same thing goes on in the hardcore industry where girls assholes are ripped apart from double anal scenes. at the time of the shoot they are gung ho - they are eager to please, buoyed by adrenaline - it's after, maybe even much after that the post traumatic stress type stuff comes.

Also face it, if you're pulling that much of your talent out of the LA hardcore porn pool you are dealing with some pretty messed up girls to begin with.

Wasteland says they don't hire talent from outside the lifestyle - this is a big part of the reason - Kink needs so much fresh talent that they have to use the LA agencies and the second reason, - who looks better, the 21 year old girl next door fresh off the bus two weeks ago from Kansas or the 35 year old ugly chick who lives the BDSM lifestyle?

I was going to post what the fuck this shits crazy and insane.

But, then I spent the time to read on and watch the video and I just laugh at the post now ;)

Maybe 35? I don't know but at least to me they don't look ugly:)

http://www.eroticaxxx.com/gal/sp3/choke.html
http://www.eroticaxxx.com/gal/sp4/choke.html
http://www.eroticaxxx.com/gal/sp13/index.html

Hi Mutt,
Interesting observation about the age and appearance variable. What we've found over the years is that age and appearance is not of greatest importance to the bdsm lifestyle community. Of much more importance is that they see other lifestyle performers engaging in edge play that hook into their interests and individual fetishes. Kink's business model, as Tuffruff pointed out, is to showcase well-known internet personalities, most of whom come from mainstream adult entertainment. They do this extremely well and hence appeal to mainstream porn surfers that want to see their favorite internet stars take a walk on the dark side.

Wasteland and a lot of the other lifestyle bdsm community sites tend to focus on recruiting bdsm players that have a passion for pain and putting on a good performance for viewers like they do at their local bdsm clubs and events. It's sort of comparing apples to oranges in this regard. We've actually tried over the years to bring in some high profile adult talent and "girls off the bus from Kansas" with pretty mixed reviews from the members.

So, if you can believe it, a niche as small as bdsm actually has two very distinct audiences. Drop me an email if you want to further explore this odd little topic. I don't want to keep bumping this poor thread....;-)

Cheers,
Colin at wasteland

that was my point - Kink's focus on well known porn starlets and newcomers will lead to situations like this happening no matter what safeguards they have in place while BDSM sites where the talent is from within that scene won't often have talent suffering from post traumatic stress type symptoms.

The only trauma wasteland generally faces is if we run out of coffee on location. LOL

Totally agree with you there.

she prob when home and freaked out when she look in the mirror! its a very hard industry! and if your not mentally ready for it, it will give you PTSD

In laymens terms for idiots like me...Real converts better than not real because the users that want it KNOW THE DIFFERENCE..