An important tip to being successful in our industry in 2009
 

Every week that passes there are more threads complaining about how shitty things are in our industry. I thought I'd share a small piece of advice that has really helped our business in the past year. The best way I could say it is: Leave as Little Money as Possible on The Table!!! That means optimize and monetize your sites.

Running any type of site involves a lot of work. I've been doing this for 10 years now and I can honestly say there has never been a moment in those 10 years where I've felt like I had nothing to do to my sites. There is always something (and usually A SHITLOAD of somethings) to do.

In the past if you ran a site (paysite, tgp, whatever) and were not truly optimizing it you could survive and in most cases do very well. In the past year I've heard more and more people complain about how poorly they are doing and how badly their bottom line is being hit. When I visit their sites I see that a lot of those people are leaving a lot of money on the table. The beauty of optimizing your sites is in most cases it involves some initial work and then the money starts flowing in without much additional work required (obviously managing and optimizing further helps you make even more).

So do yourself a favor. Take a step back. Review every aspect of your site(s) and see where you are leaving money on the table. Now is the time to put in the work and get that money. In most cases it usually adds 100% to the bottom line so it increases your profitability.

It's worked very well for us so I'm sure it can help a few of you as well :thumbsup

well said

Very well said.
WG

i like your sig

Truly very well said.

:D

:thumbsup

Words of wisdom.

I like where your going with this... but since i'm posting on GFY instead of optimizing my sites, well I guess i'm leaving money on the table right now! No wait.. i'm a sigwhore... so i'm getting paid either way! How about that!! WHOOHOO!

True. It should always be a work in progress.

Amen to that...

Correct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_myopia
&
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_planning

Good read for the readers in this thread.

Minimizing your expenses is another good one (takeoff from your other thread :winkwink: )

Now is a good time to renegotiate your hosting plan, feeds, see what expenses you have that aren't making you money or worth the amount your paying... trim the fat.

Good advice Shap. Now I gotta go back to work :thumbsup

Or if everything else fails, buy bannerspot on the illegal tubes, and put money in their pockets for providing surfer with free copies of other companies content - Right Shap?

Good advise.

Shap is the Lord.

Shake Y'er Bon Bon Baby.

I think that's what they call... "OWNED"

Shap you are always on the money :thumbsup

Another good point we trimmed the fat about 6 months ago. Best thing we ever did :thumbsup

Nice tip, mate! Thanks for that!

Stating the obvious is sometimes needed as people tend to get lazy when cash is flowing in

Good shit, time to step back

thanks shap!

could you elaborate on some of the things you did in the last year to NOT leave moneys on the table?

thx

true
 

You are in right, just yesterday I've clicked randomly on my sites to see some sites that I've completely forgot that they even exist, and guess what? They are down, god only knows for how long.And this is simplest thing, checking outgoing links.

So there is also a question for processors, why they don't notify affiliates when some website is down?

good tip!
i have this problem :(

Hey Shap, I've heard rumours that you're originally from Sherbrooke. Would you be interested in tutoring a fellow Sherbrookois? :)

OH HELL YEAH! I was talking to someone this weekend that is going to save $100,000 in hosting this year alone thanks to me giving him a heads up on what he should be paying. :thumbsup

I don't know. As far as I know we've never bought banner spots on any tube site. I've never been big on banners :winkwink:

Absolutely. It's such small things too. If you run your stuff alone get a few people you trust and use them as advisers and get their feedback. It's amazing how easy it is to miss something that is blatantly obvious to someone not involved in your site.

Yeah. I was born there. Only lived 10 or so months there. My grandparents still live in Magog.

Hit me up. :thumbsup

nice tips

great advice for sure!

I 100% agree with you

I wouldn't say any of these were necessarily done in the past year. But here are a few that come to mind (mostly for paysites). Some of these may seem stupid. But with hosting changes, affiliate program changes etc over the years simple things that should work you'll find may not be.

Making sure all typo domains are working and pointing to the right place. It wasn't long ago I found a few of our typo domains and the non www.domain.com not working. Stupid shit but easy money left on the table.

Make sure you are using all payment options your processing companies allow. Online Checks, Debit, Web900 are all a low % of total sales but it all adds up.

Make sure your decline process is set up so they hit a backup processor.

Make sure your cancel emails and cancellation process is optimized. There is money to be made there.

Emailing your ex members. Regularly emailing your ex-members is an easy way to get them back.

Properly managing your exit traffic.

Properly managing your mobile traffic

Optimize your join forms and join pages. This one isn't an easy or quick fix but it's an important one that adds huge long term $$$ when you hit the sweet spot. If you've only ever tried one join form (processor end) and one join page (your end) then you are missing out. Test test test. What you think works may not be what's best. Ccbill and Epoch provide fantastic stats to help you know what's doing best.

Another simple thing is make sure you are being paid by your sponsors. This one is a bitch when you have 200+ accounts. Today more than ever this is very important.

now bring that A game mentality to the golf course and let me borrow it..lol

thanks for taking the time to answer. :thumbsup

Yeah - I bet the whole Gaytube/redtube/tube8 or whatever it was called dident happen either. Whatever floats your boat.

Always remember nobody has your back but you. You are running a business and you have to make the business decisions that are best for YOUR business. Listen to your clients but don't worry about anybody else who feels entitled to dictate how you should run your business :winkwink:

That said here are some of the more aggressive things paysites owners can do that will add 100% profit to their bottomline.

Cross sales. Unchecked or checked. Cross sells aren't a bad thing. They exist everywhere in the world. Buy a plane ticket and see how many you get (insurance, bags, meal, wifi). I'm talking about the type of cross sales that epoch and ccbill allow. They are full disclosure and done properly. We run a member forum that is very active and in the 2 years we've been doing cross sales we have not had a single complaint on our board and we've only had a few complaints by email. There is a huge difference between the nasty cross sales where guys are banging cards and running straight up full disclosure ccbill/epoch cross sales. There are not many webmasters that care as much about the client as I do and I'm telling you guys as someone who values my members that cross sales have not had a negative impact on our business. They've in fact been very positive. You can try them on your internal traffic or type in traffic to start. It's worth a shot.

Upsells. This is another thing I held out on forever. Adding upsells to our members area. Live Cams, Dating, Fleshlight, Other paysites. Whatever. We used to always run our members area 100% clean without linking to any other site. What a mistake. We've only added a few banners and done it in a very non-invasive way and the results have been fantastic. It's extra revenue without any disruption in service or retention. Again my number 1 concern is always customer satisfaction and since we've implemented these our customers are still happy.

Remember, you are running a business and the goal of a business is to make MONEY!

I never said it didn't happen. I said I never bought banner spots.

Sticking with the theme of the thread (giving advice) here is another piece of advice for you: If you want to start shit and try to attack someone do it right. Don't do it half assed with the wrong information and don't be a pussy about it. If you want to be the dickhead that tries to steer the thread in a negative direction then man up and do it right. If not don't waste anyone's time (including yours) posting here. I appreciate your time but surely you could have done something more valuable to yourself than posting here :2 cents:

Anytime :winkwink: