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10 Tips for Increasing Member Retention
by Muffy @ Webmaster Vault

Do you wish that you could make your customers take off their coats and stay a while? In the good old days of online porn, a mere six or seven years ago, online adult entertainment customers were loyal. This loyalty stemmed from the fact that there really were not many other places to go for them to get off. Competition was not as fierce as it is today and free porn was definitely not as rampant. There is so much high quality and unique porn available on the Internet now that there is no incentive for customers to stay with just one site. Smut consumers are now finicky and get bored very easily of the same old, same old. They want variety, quality and porn that are original and unique and if they do not get exactly what they are looking for at one site, they will simple move onto the next. So, what can be done to prevent customers from doing the two-day trial peek and run?

1. Originality
The best way to prevent your members from picking up and moving onto the next site is to give them something that nobody else can. If you are a creative genius then perhaps you can carve out your very own niche. If you think with the other side of your brain, like I do, do not fear! You can still be unique without having to give your nonexistent creative juices a workout. Instead of coming up with a new niche, try exploring niches that are not overexposed yet and then have a content provider create custom content for you within that niche.

2. Custom Content
Many webmasters balk at the costs of getting custom content made for their sites and choose to go with the less expensive content that is already plastered all over the Internet. What they fail to realize is that while the upfront costs for custom content may be great, in the long run this route can be much more profitable. People that are paying for porn want to see stuff that has never been seen before. If you give them something that is unique only to your site, then chances are if your content is good, your members will be more likely to stay because they will not be able to find it anywhere else.

3. Updates
Update and update often!!! The best advice that I could give to someone who is purchasing leased content: do not always believe content providers when they say that they update their content. I have come across many content providers in the past who say that their content is regularly updated either weekly or monthly and then have had the content remain exactly the same for up to a year. So, let that be a lesson. If your site states that you update your content regularly, then be true to your word. If this means harassing your content provider about the updates that they promised, so be it!
4. Continuing Content
Personally, I believe that this is one of the best things that a Webmaster can do to boost their member retention. I like the idea of featuring content that runs in ?episodes?. Each week feature a new episode or continue a storyline. Porn and suspense can go hand in hand. Keep your members guessing as to what will happen next and you keep them around as members much longer.

5. Run a Contest
A terrific incentive for your members to hang in there is to run a contest, perhaps even a monthly contest for some good prizes. Make sure that in order for them to claim their prizes they must remain members until the draw is held.
6. Give Your Members Incentives for Staying
A nice way to recognize the patronage of your members is to reward them for renewing their subscription. If they remain a member for say three months then you could give them a free t-shirt, hat, etc. It is the little things that make the difference in the long run; it is doing the little things that usually result in some rewarding paybacks.

7. Ask Your Members What They Want
The best way to find out what would keep your members around is to ask them yourself. You can post a questionnaire to the site that allows members to answer questions and anonymously submit their responses, or you can even email a questionnaire to all customers and give them something small for filling it out and sending it back. In your questionnaire, you will want to ask questions about what they currently like or dislike about the site, where there is room for improvements, and what additional features would make the site more appealing to them. Once you receive your feedback, you must assess the needs of your customers and take action.

8. Give What You Promise
One of my pet peeves is when you visit a paysite?s tour and it promises that the members? area contains hundreds of thousands of pictures, and thousands of movies, tons of live shows, etc. Then, you get into the site and there is not nearly as much content as was promised. Nothing will piss off a paying customer more than if they feel that they are being cheated out of what was promised to them. Do NOT state that your site has hundreds of thousands of pictures if it is not true. Instead, try describing the type of pictures that you do have. Remember, that it is quality not quantity that can make the difference.

9. Variety is the Spice of Life
Each member is unique and has different tastes when it comes to the type of porn that will get him / her off. Make sure that you provide your members with a little bit of everything including pictures, videos, streaming feeds, live feeds, games and more.

10. Complement Your Porn With Some Mainstream
Just because your customers sign up to see smut, does not mean that is all that you have to give them. Why not make your site almost like a portal? You can provide your patrons with links to popular news, sports, and health sites as well as give updated news headlines, horoscopes, advice columns; the possibilities are endless. By adding these things to a basic porn site, you make it more of an ?experience?. It would be great if someone could find out the news, check their stocks, and see some tits and ass all in one place.

Any comments?

Decent ideas.. good article. :)

But, what are you doing to improve your retention rate?

Yeah, it covers the main ideas, seems like a decent enough article.

yupp, good points and important!

important stuff! we do almost all of it..

We at Maxpays.com offer them the following:

-> Updates every 2 days.
-> 50% of our content is Exclusive content ( a part of this content we have shot ourself )
-> Lots of different contents like Videos, Pictures, Stories and Live cams.
-> Polls of what they like ( only 2 times a month )

I like the ideas you have about '' Run a contest '' & '' Ask Your Members What They Want ''

I dont like your idea about '' Complement Your Porn With Some Mainstream '' they dont come to my site to read the news paper.

But it might be a good idea to put news about the adult industry. for example about that Pornstar Lara Roxx which had AIDS

Reak.

Great article, if you have create CUSTOM content that you can't get anywhere else helps. If you update like you advertise, so if you say updated, 2 times a week, you update 2 fucking times a week. I've worked for a company before that said twice a week, and he gave maybe 1 full update then a couple teaser trailers to CUSTOMERS, liek they care about the teaser video. But they wouldn't put that video up for almost 2 weeks! That is a bad way to lose customers!

jDoG

Why are the real business threads always dying so fast?

nice read...
:thumbsup

I think that it is really important that your customer is getting
what he paid for 29.99 is a lot of money for a monthly membership so you need to give them a good feeling.

- Good Quality content
- Easy(understandyble) to navigate members area
- Regular updates
- Stories updates would really work better!!
but will only work for concepts like milf and bangbus
or something like that.
- Customer Support 24/7 quick anwsers on questions.
- 2 way interaction e-mail/sms/chat/cam

I think there will be alot more of good add's to this thread
it's just MO there will be beter ones from people who are here alot longer then me.....

Thanks guys for your comments :)

I see you forgot one of the most important things you can do to increase your retention.

Offering your memebers or vistors activities such as puzzles, games soforth will improve your retnetion 10 folds!

Here is a product that is totally customizable www.xamo.com/customtemplate

I think those are great ways to increase member retention. But 'custom content' is probably not needed. If you have a ton of things to offer, update frequently, and use content that hasn't been overused I'm sure you'll still have good member retention. Movies are good too, keeps them busy downloading. And don't forget stories.

good read :thumbsup

A great read and from a good old buddies Muffy and Pornjester.
Well done.

Theses are some great points that I will be covevering in detail at The Cybernext Expo SATURDAY, JUNE 12

Running a Profitable Paysite -- 11:45 a.m. - 12:45 p.m.
Avoid the pitfalls and costly mistakes. Learn what makes a tour effective and a member's area retain. What about merchant accounts?
Speakers: Rochard (Lightspeed Cash), Mitch Farber (Netbilling), Brooks Talley (Bondage.com), Derek Smout (ContentGuys), Raffi Vartanian (AdultLounge)
Moderator: Quentin (TopBucks)

I have some comments and suggestions that will be discussed at the seminar. :) I hope to see you there.

because it involves reading and thinking, apparently.

:1orglaugh unfortunately youre right

#5 is so true.... buy my games, customize them , brand them with your site name, start contests giving away prizes like mugs, caps, t-shirts branded with your site name or monthly memberships and you'll see you your ratention rate will bust...

it's hard to know what to say on a thread like this.

i see paysites out there with content of a lower quality than i put on my tgp galleries - i'm not kidding. mature paysites that have lots of women barely 30 years old. and paysites that update irregularly or not when they say.

you would have thought this stuff would be obvious, but apparently not.

btw, our members never click on our games pages. they aren't interested at all.

nice thread! :thumbsup

Goos helpful post, thanks Mario :thumbsup

nice article

Basic.. but true!

Good post.

The costumer support is a real good one. We suply forms where people can request content or send there questions to us inside the member areas.

They love it.

well if you burry the link somewhere in the members area of course they don't click it.
but if you start some contests (if the games have a top10 feature) I'm sure you'll see some results... INTERACTIVITY - this is the way you can create a community, invlove them and make them feel good, it's something you can't create with vids and pics only...

also you must have some games that allow you to change the content from time to time, I'm sure they will get bored stripping the same girl over and over again...
our games have a feature to rotate the content daily, so you'll keep your members happier and you won't lose time with updates too...

1. What about lowering your membership fee every month the member stays longer?

2. And what about giving a new paysite for free every month the member stays longer?

3. If you shot your own content, create an exclusive DVD as well and send it over for free to your members when they stay for example 2/3 months, or make a deal with a DVD online store ( Targeted advertising for the store + another happy member )

I can go on for ever

I'll be there!