The Pornography Industry has lost its Marketing Marbles.
Throughout History, Pornography became the driver of information and technology helping innovate some amazing ideas and technology. From as early as the creation of the English language, the first written journals, and some of the first printed short stories, Porn has had its dirty little hands in many aspects of History.
Once the 80's finally made it around, the Telephone (phone sex), recording technologies (VCR), Cable TV (subscription porn), and much more became a small part of what Porn help create the booms for.
The Porn boom of the 90's easily crushed any previous explosions in Porn, maybe short of Larry Flynt's explosion onto the scene. Without question the Online Adult Industry helped innovate, expanded and created some of the best commerce, marketing, and traffic driving ideas to date!
But something happened, just before the dot com boom, while most of the Online Porn Industry didn't notice anything, the Mainstream Adult Industry started to feel the crunch from a major technology spit. After 2000 and for sure by 2002, the articles and rumors that the Mainstream Porn Industry was starting to feel a hurt quickly spread around.
It wasn't a secret that the Mainstream Porn Industry blamed the online world for the downfall. From Piracy, to Gallery Posts giving everything away for free. They viewed us as a problem. And like wise today, the Online Porn Industry blames the Tubes and Piracy, for the downfall that most of the Adult Industry is feeling.
The finger pointing changed directions, now that most of Mainstream Porn went online through some Paysite or Video on Demand service. The finger pointing has really charged directions.
The result? The Industry started to copy each other. The majority of the Adult Industry looked at what the competition had created and copied them. From Paysites, DVD's, Affiliate Programs, Marketing Ideas, Traffic of every type, and so on. We clammed up; we stopped doing something very important to our entire Industry survival.
We quit following the trends... We assumed since the 90's appeared so good, that we were the Kings of Online! We never noticed the world around us changed, we stood still and the entire Internet followed other fads and trends and we didn't.
All these fads and trends, created one thing, a much bigger Internet. It wasn't more people, even though more came online ever day, it was more attractions that keep people busy and away from Porn! They Stole Our Surfers!
Let's name a few: Role playing games (WoW), all games on computers, social networking and media, all online news, email, feed readers, cell phones, articles of all types, forums, chat rooms, design and help sites, communities of all kinds, local online hangouts, Bbay, Amazon, YouTube, music sites of all types, dating sites, and the list goes into the 10,000's. Then with Piracy, lets be honest, Torrent get used to find mainstream movies, music and software. Porn is a bonus, not the reason they use it. Even pirated music, it's a person doing something other than looking for Porn that is important.
they will pay for anything, but they have to be sold first.
Today people at the mass levels don't come online and think about Porn. What they crave is Entertainment in general. If it's watching some nut job ride a bike off a house on You Tube or talking to friends or business on Social networks. What they aren't doing is "looking for porn" but that doesn't mean they won't watch it, or grab that bonus Porn, if it's offered to them.
General People on the Internet are following the trends and fads of the Internet, and the majority of the Adult Industry, does not participate. The Adult Industry can't sit back and continue to watch the millions and millions of online users get branded by 1000's of other brands daily, that aren't our own, that aren't Porn. People have started to forget about us!
As the average person watches the News or hear friends talk about Twitter, FaceBook, Myspace, Games and so on, they go to check it out directly. After the exposure is higher enough, they almost all follow the trend. Most don't do it for Business they do it for fun, finding old friends, meeting new friends, and sharing ideas.
Most adults consume these trends and fads, like they're back in 8th grade cutting and bleaching jeans, doing crazy hairstyles, saying funny words, or maybe sandals made you the trendsetter back in the late 60's. We all did and we all still follow fads and trends. Even that big giant flat screen hanging on the wall, or the super satellite package with some godly amount of channels no human could ever possibly watch. It's all some fad or part of a trend, most of us blindly follow someone else ideas or likes in our daily lives, but we ignore these same patterns of habits when it comes to our own Business.
Like the Mainstream Adult Industry ignored the Internet trend, the Online Adult Industry now ignores the traffic trends happening all around it. The Internet continues to boom, while most of the Adult Industry feels they are dieing.
The Adult Industry does not set fads or trends, it follows and defines them, it helps create and expose amazing things to millions of people. The Adult Industry seems to have forgotten that. Once the majority of the Adult Industry embraces these fads and trends as part of Business, the masses of Adult Webmasters will do something very powerful!
As the expansion into these global online trends take place it will create trickles of traffic back into the Adult Industry. Once this happens across 1000's of Webmasters and Companies, it will bring several million unique eyeballs viewing Adult Websites and Products, every day!
This newfound source of trend traffic will naturally filter through the majority of the Adult Internet. Through trade scripts, link exchanges, exits, cross sales and even back into the Social Networks. The sharing and exchanging of traffic and buyers, is the one thing the Adult Industry does really well.
possibly larger than what it has ever seen before. The Internet
has the people; the Adult Industry simply needs to go get them!
Things have changed, traffic has moved, but people are still buying. People are doing different things and they perceive the Internet differently than they did 5 or 10 years ago. We have to adapt, go get the people and bring them to us, not wait for them remember us.
The Adult Industry must start following these trends; it must expand and force its dirty hands into all areas of the Internet. If people in the Industry wish to stop the downward spiral they think it's in, they must first stop being the "Online Adult Industry" and become part of the new Social Internet trend.
Over the next several Months, TheDocBlog will move deeply into Social Networking and Social Marketing. Together we will explore the tools the masters use, and of course tips and ideas for marketing and networking within these new traffic mediums. I hope to lead by example, show you what I'm doing, what I'm reading, and show you that it works!
Having fun on Adult Webmaster Forums and talking on ICQ or IM, going to trade shows, in general being nice and having a good time, is Social Networking and Social Marketing. The Internet has changed, but the people haven't, they are willing to spend the money, we just have to get them to us, rather us waiting on them to return.
We can take back what once belonged to the Adult Industry, returning us to the global traffic power and the Internet attention whores! But that means we have to put our egos aside, forget about fears of the unknown, and try something new that you may not at first understand. The words 'adapt or die', have never rang so true.
Welcome to Porn 3.0 ~TheDoc
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0 The Pornography Industry has lost its Marketing Marbles.