how to get a good start with a new program

[hollywood376]

I have a new affiliate program, and a couple of new websites to go along with it. Does anyone have any advice on where to find and recruit an army of webmaster to promote the product?

Once I find webmasters, how do i convine them to try my program? I dont have a lot of stats to give them, as the sites are new and the program too, so I can only give sign up info for the past few days.

I want to make sure that all the time and effort that went into creating the program is put to good use!

[hollywood376]

I have a new affiliate program, and a couple of new websites to go along with it. Does anyone have any advice on where to find and recruit an army of webmaster to promote the product?

Once I find webmasters, how do i convine them to try my program? I dont have a lot of stats to give them, as the sites are new and the program too, so I can only give sign up info for the past few days.

I want to make sure that all the time and effort that went into creating the program is put to good use!

(somehow i posted this under another forum area, sorry for the duplicate post)

[adam_wildcash]

Can you put up a link to your sites and affiliate programs?

Most affiliate will take a look at your site and know if there traffic will convert or not.

[Useless]

Originally Posted by adam_wildcash

Can you put up a link to your sites and affiliate programs?

If he wants to get this tossed into the spam forum again, he can.

[Tvduijn]

Giving away good promo tools like (FHG, good selection of banners, free content) would help but the most important is that your sites look good and convert well.

Giving away a nice webmaster referral bonus might help aswell, since it encourages to spread your program.

[Greenguy]

Maybe I did jump the gun on moving this to the spam forum, but it does read as if it could very well be a clever spam post

1st you have to find people to beta test it - do this in private by asking your friends to try the program out. Send some of your own traffic at it as well.

Then if the numbers are decent, look into buying ads on webmaster board & magazines, send out press releases, etc.

[nickcage49]

Clever marketing Greenguy!

[hollywood376]

Originally Posted by Greenie

Maybe I did jump the gun on moving this to the spam forum, but it does read as if it could very well be a clever spam post

1st you have to find people to beta test it - do this in private by asking your friends to try the program out. Send some of your own traffic at it as well.

Then if the numbers are decent, look into buying ads on webmaster board & magazines, send out press releases, etc.

I can see how this might seem like spam, however I really am looking for an answer! ( I only posted the link so that people could see what I have to work with. ) As for numbers being decent, I wouldn't know what decent numbers are! What numbers should I be looking for? and what is that number based on, first page uniques/sales, join page/sales, raw etc.?

Unfortunately, I don't have any friends who are in this business. I am relatively new and don't have many connections. I also don't have "my own traffic". Other than to submit to tgp's, etc. I don't have any traffic that I move. If there is anyone here who thinks that they may want to try it out, let me know and I'll give you the address.

[GenXer]

Originally Posted by hollywood376

I can see how this might seem like spam, however I really am looking for an answer! ( I only posted the link so that people could see what I have to work with. ) As for numbers being decent, I wouldn't know what decent numbers are! What numbers should I be looking for? and what is that number based on, first page uniques/sales, join page/sales, raw etc.?

Unfortunately, I don't have any friends who are in this business. I am relatively new and don't have many connections. I also don't have "my own traffic". Other than to submit to tgp's, etc. I don't have any traffic that I move. If there is anyone here who thinks that they may want to try it out, let me know and I'll give you the address.

You REALLY need to post the links to the paysites that webmasters and others will be promoting. I went to your affiliate program, and it all sounds okay, but no one is going to sign up unless we see what we are going to be promoting. There is details about the revshare and the nats and etc, but not much info about the websites. Also, do you plan on giving webmaster access to the members area to get fresh content. etc etc things like that :-). You should think about getting some affiliate support and ....here's a good one

You should buy an advertising spot here on Greenguy and Jim .

[hollywood376]

Originally Posted by GenXer

You REALLY need to post the links to the paysites that webmasters and others will be promoting. I went to your affiliate program, and it all sounds okay, but no one is going to sign up unless we see what we are going to be promoting. There is details about the revshare and the nats and etc, but not much info about the websites. Also, do you plan on giving webmaster access to the members area to get fresh content. etc etc things like that :-). You should think about getting some affiliate support and ....here's a good one

You should buy an advertising spot here on Greenguy and Jim .

Hmmm. I don't understand ... If you went to my program, the first link on every page is a button that says "site portfolio" which has links to the websites. As for access to members area for content, the answer is yes (with some limitations).

[ecchi]

OK, this is my 2c, but be aware it is how I look at new sponsors, other people may disagree. Also please don't take offence at anything I say. I am talking about how I view a site when I come across it as a possible new sponsor, so please don't assume I am accusing you of anything here.

1. You promote 2 solo girl sites. Why are these any better that all the others? If you want me to promote your site you will have to convince me that your sign up ratio or member retention is better than others. And don't just quote figures, give reasons (eg. our members stay longer because after 6 months they get sent a genuine signed photo).

2. Up to 65% payout, plus 5% for referral of webmaster. Considering you are new I guess you are paying about 15% CC processing, that leaves you 15% of the sale price to cover bandwidth, new content, etc. No offence intended to you, but when I come across sites like that I automatically assume they will either be out of business within a few months or will have to start shaving.

3. Free hosted galleries are good, but I need to have a page on your site where I can collect the link codes and decide what I want to use. Having them submitted is no good because: (A) Most of the sites I use FHGs on are 'fake' TGPs with sponsors galleries and link exchanges, no submit form. (B) Sites I have with submit forms automatically check for recips. As your galleries will obviously not meet this requirement, my script will automatically trash them. (C) It looks really amateurish doing it this way. If you got time to submit to all your affiliates sites then you don't got many customers, and if you don't got many customers I would assume you won't convert well for me.

4. Really need to know more about your content. How much do you have, how often is it updated, etc. I believe this is even more important to people who specialise in solo girl sites than it is to me. I was talking to someone (I think on this board, but it might have been elsewhere) who said that he needed plenty of fresh new content all the time to push the girls on TGP posts.

[hollywood376]

Originally Posted by ecchi

OK, this is my 2c, but be aware it is how I look at new sponsors, other people may disagree. Also please don't take offence at anything I say. I am talking about how I view a site when I come across it as a possible new sponsor, so please don't assume I am accusing you of anything here.

1. You promote 2 solo girl sites. Why are these any better that all the others? If you want me to promote your site you will have to convince me that your sign up ratio or member retention is better than others. And don't just quote figures, give reasons (eg. our members stay longer because after 6 months they get sent a genuine signed photo).

2. Up to 65% payout, plus 5% for referral of webmaster. Considering you are new I guess you are paying about 15% CC processing, that leaves you 15% of the sale price to cover bandwidth, new content, etc. No offence intended to you, but when I come across sites like that I automatically assume they will either be out of business within a few months or will have to start shaving.

3. Free hosted galleries are good, but I need to have a page on your site where I can collect the link codes and decide what I want to use. Having them submitted is no good because: (A) Most of the sites I use FHGs on are 'fake' TGPs with sponsors galleries and link exchanges, no submit form. (B) Sites I have with submit forms automatically check for recips. As your galleries will obviously not meet this requirement, my script will automatically trash them. (C) It looks really amateurish doing it this way. If you got time to submit to all your affiliates sites then you don't got many customers, and if you don't got many customers I would assume you won't convert well for me.

4. Really need to know more about your content. How much do you have, how often is it updated, etc. I believe this is even more important to people who specialise in solo girl sites than it is to me. I was talking to someone (I think on this board, but it might have been elsewhere) who said that he needed plenty of fresh new content all the time to push the girls on TGP posts.

I certainly don't take offense at anything someone says. This is business, not personal. Now, let me see if I can answer some of your questions/comments:

1.) Why are my solo girls sites better than other solo girls sites? Well, to be quite frank with you, they probably aren't. There are, I'm sure, sites that are better and sites that are not. Making a claim to be the best would just be foolish. As the sites are just as new as the program, I can only tell you what is offered and why membership retention should be good. The sites are updated at least once per week with at least one picture set or video. That does not include live web shows, which should also make a difference in the retention. Plus, a member to the site gets free membership to both sites, or any sites that are added later.

2.) The payout percentage is tiered. It has a base percentage of 50, which climbs to 65 as the number of sales increases. Everything in business is a matter of cost. If I only have to pay one person for 25 sales, then I only have to pay the labor for my accounting to write one check. That's much less work than writing 25 checks for 25 people who made 1 sale. I'm well aware of my margins and how much I need to make from a sale to be profitable. While I would much rather pay you 4% for each sale, I doubt you will send a single click my way for that. As to shaving, I always leave this offer open to anyone: Come to my office, log in to my stats and see for yourself. There is no need for it. If a reasonable and fair profit cant be made from a transaction, then there is no need to stay in business. I think there is a general feeling that every one in the adult business is shady and that it is just expected that "everyone shaves" who has a program. I know it's not true, because there is at least one that will never do it. Additionally, I have more sites in the works, and for each one that is added my costs decrease. For each new product, I don't have new office costs, supply costs, computer and equipment costs, etc.

3.) Inside the program you can generate the links for every gallery etc and choose what you want. The service for submitting galleries for those who ask is supplied as just that, a service. When the demands of my staff out weigh their ability, the service won't be offered to anyone new. As to not having a lot of customers affecting your conversions, I would think that the opposite of what you are saying is true: The more customers I have, the more likely you are to be competing with them for conversions?? Maybe I missed something there.

4.) I have quite a bit more content for one site than the other. I know that I have enough photo content to update one site for at least a year, updating once per week. And I am supplied with at least two photo sets/videos every week, so for every week I am online my capacity increases by two weeks.

I understand anyones reluctance to try a new program, and that is why I am asking these questions. One thing is certain, without good affiliates the websites will be doomed to fail, and I don't want to see that happen. With some affiliates that are willing to give me a try and offer their views on how to improve, I think we could have a successful program. I can tell you that we are dedicated to making it the best that we can, which means improving at all phases, now and in the future.

[ronnie]

Before you ever try to recruit webmasters to try your program, your site(s) should be throughly tested, most importantly as mentioned, how well they convert and retain. Once tested and acceptable numbers reached, only then should you be gathering other webmasters to send their traffic. I dont mean to be rude, but it's like asking webmasters to take a chance. We all work very hard for our traffic and try not to waste it, when possible.

The sites should be tested with many different types of traffic and fine tuned, guarenteed they will need it, "before" you ask others to send their traffic. If your new to the business, how can you expect webmasters to believe your sites will sell and keep members when you dont have the experience to know what works?

Again, I dont mean to be rude, but your asking alot. To have webmasters send valuable traffic to test your sites and help improve them, with a good chance of the webmasters not making any money, that should be up to you to do, again, "before" asking webmaster to take a chance.

If you really want to be dedicated to making it the best it can be, you need to be buying different types of traffic and getting the sites up to par on your dime...

ronnie

[Useless]

Originally Posted by hollywood376

1.) Why are my solo girls sites better than other solo girls sites? Well, to be quite frank with you, they probably aren't. There are, I'm sure, sites that are better and sites that are not. Making a claim to be the best would just be foolish.

Very well said. Any sponsor with a solo girl site could say that his girl is the hottest and we'd all sit here thinking "yeah, right". It's a matter taste.

I like honesty. Save the marketing text for the surfers. They're the ones who have to fall in love with her.

[ecchi]

You missed the point of my post. I was not posting to ask you to justify your site, I was pointing out what changes you need to make to get webmasters to sign up to your affiliate program.

1. If a webmaster is interested in promoting solo girl sites he will already have a full portfolio. He will have no interest whatsoever in signing up another one unless you give him a reason yours is better. Regardless of what UW says, saying your sites are as good but no better than others is saying "don't bother signing up with me, you already have plenty of sponsors like this, go elsewhere and find a better sponsor". (That said DON'T lie, just find a reason you are better, or different, to others.)

2. Don't tell me this, make it clear on your site (although be more concise than you were in your post). You need to convince anyone who comes to your site that you really can run a website on 15% of membership fees. Otherwise a lot of them will assume you are a shaver and not sign up.

3. and 4. Again make this clear on your site (although again make it more concise). If I had come across your affiliate program as it is while looking for solo sites to promote, I would not have signed up. But if it had all the info you have in your post I probably would have done.

Although N.B. my comment "make it more concise". I read all your post here, but if there had been that much wordage on an affiliate site I would have skipped it and gone elsewhere. Try to make each point in 3 short sentences or less.

[eman]

You need to sort out the confused pricing information on the join pages/join forms.

[hollywood376]

Originally Posted by ecchi

You missed the point of my post. I was not posting to ask you to justify your site, I was pointing out what changes you need to make to get webmasters to sign up to your affiliate program.

1. If a webmaster is interested in promoting solo girl sites he will already have a full portfolio. He will have no interest whatsoever in signing up another one unless you give him a reason yours is better. Regardless of what UW says, saying your sites are as good but no better than others is saying "don't bother signing up with me, you already have plenty of sponsors like this, go elsewhere and find a better sponsor". (That said DON'T lie, just find a reason you are better, or different, to others.)

2. Don't tell me this, make it clear on your site (although be more concise than you were in your post). You need to convince anyone who comes to your site that you really can run a website on 15% of membership fees. Otherwise a lot of them will assume you are a shaver and not sign up.

3. and 4. Again make this clear on your site (although again make it more concise). If I had come across your affiliate program as it is while looking for solo sites to promote, I would not have signed up. But if it had all the info you have in your post I probably would have done.

Although N.B. my comment "make it more concise". I read all your post here, but if there had been that much wordage on an affiliate site I would have skipped it and gone elsewhere. Try to make each point in 3 short sentences or less.

good points. Of course I will not be so wordy on the site, as I know people don't want to read more than they have to.
One problem I have is that I don't want to mislead anyone. Should I get on my site and claim to have ratios of 1:72? Becasue I can say that and not be lying, I just wouldn't be telling the whole story. One guys traffic differs from another, so past ratios realy don't mean a lot, except to the person that earned that ratio. Plus, what's the number based on? 1st page? 2nd? Join? Those differences can drastically change the ratios. 1:1200 1st page might be 1:150 join.

Today I am running some gallery traffic through my FHG's to see how they convert? A few hundred thousand hits should tell me something, I would think. I'll share the results when I have them.

[ecchi]

Originally Posted by hollywood376

One problem I have is that I don't want to mislead anyone.

Yes. Misleading people may get you a lot of webmasters to start with, but they will soon bugger off again when they realise you are stretching the truth.

The thing to do it try and find something that is uniquish to your site. If you do not have something, add something. If you cannot add something, do not expect to make a lot of money in this business.

That said, it does not have to be amazing. An example is the "autographed photo" thing I mentioned a while back. It will cost you, what, a dollar. But if it gives you 6 months membership fees it is worth the dollar. And things like that will also attract webmasters to sell the site.

One big important fact you appear to have got wrong is that you think you are in the porn business. You are not. You are in the advertising business. Whatever is on your site, however unique it is, however good it is I guarantee several thousand people will be doing the same thing. And a lot of them will be better than you. Tell me now why someone should sign up to your site instead of one of the other several thousand similar sites? Think, if you were the buyer not the seller, why the hell would you join your site instead of someone else's? The only thing that gets people to sign up is your tour. Even if you have the best webmasters in the world pushing your site, with the best adverts in the world, when the surfer hits your site, if it does not tell them "this site is exactly what you are looking for", the surfer will bugger off without buying. And worse than that, the webmasters who know what they are doing, know this. If they look at your site and do not think it sells itself, they will not pick you up as a sponsor, they have more profitable things to send their traffic to.

And the same goes for the webmaster's page. You have to sell it to them. You have to convince them that they will make more money selling your site than someone else's. Fail to do that and you get exactly zero webmasters.

And you have to do all this without lying.

That is why I said you are in the advertising business, not the porn business. If you are no good at 'selling' the surfers will never even see your porn.

There are two things you should have done before setting up a paysite. So, if you have not already done them, do them now. They are:

1.Read lots of books on advertising (and I mean lots of books, put in several hundred hours of reading just for the basics). And if possible consider taking a course on advertising.

2. Create lots of free sites and galleries selling other sponsors. Only by practising this will you work out how to sell to surfers. And you will also find out what webmasters want, by being one. Don't consider this lesson over until you are making a good living out of free sites and galleries. Don't even imagine that you have the slightest hope of getting webmaster's to use your affiliate program until then.

Maybe I am scaring you, but don't read this and think "Oh shit, I can't do all that". Instead think "I AM going to do all that. Because you have the site now, so you have to do that.

[Worfik]

Just quick tip: Submit your paysites to adult reviews sites (Rabbit Reviews, The Best Porn etc.). When I'm searching a paysites from specific niche to promote, I go there first.

[orange]

Originally Posted by Greenie

I wonder if orange
has checked out our new and improved
Adult Webmaster Sponsor & Affiliate Programs

Of course I did!

[Phoenix]

hard to get webmasters these days...so much competition out there.
conentrate on direct relaitonships...go after review sites...and webmasters who might require one small thing extra from you but will send immediate sales....like link list guys....maybe they need some content or some fee hosted sites and you are off...i t hink you will be building y our base webmasters for sometime

good luck

[JohnWebcams.com]

Here is how you have a successful webmaster program:

1. Generate enough of your own traffic to pay all of your bills and make a profit
2. Use the profit to advertise on a few webmaster boards. The main point of advertising isn't for the banners, it's so you can promote your product in a tasteful way without having to get in trouble for spam. Some boards are more tolerant of spam than others.
3. Get webmasters to sign up through this promotion
4. Spend all day emailing and talking on ICQ with as many affiliates as you can to get them to try you out. This means contacting 50+ people per day, asking them what they need, providing special things to them, etc.

I think if you contact 50 people per day you can expect to grow by 5-10 joins per day per month with persistence.

This is assuming you have good sites, a full time designer & programmer to provide people with custom promotional items, and are persistent with your sales.

[first-nude]

free sites for linklists is a good idea, however the main idea is retention and conversions obviously. so, what is the best way to do it? offer two sites for one price, get gorgeous girls, try to get the girls to be as kinky as possible, however if it is a beauty nudes site dont show this in the tour too much or it turns beauty guys off, instead keep it in members area to make them retain. offer a vip zone for members of three months or more where they get access to the high definition video area or something like this, sex scandal celeb tape area or whatever sells. i have had people sign up just because i offered a free kama sutra ebook as a bonus-they figured all the sites the same but here i get a book on cool sex! be different. use text links on your landing page to make it easier for the surfer to get what he wants fast. try to install a private messaging service that surfers can send messages to the models. get a livewebcam and it will greatly increase retention. all the best. chris

www.first-nude.com where love pays