Worth collecting emails in adult LP or will I lose leads? (16)

I can see the potential to collecting emails that's for sure, the only concern for me would be losing leads if they are put of because of adding their email 2x. Once on my LP and then again obviously when opting them into whatever offer I'm linking them too.

Thoughts?

Test it!

Chances are that yep, you'll lose some leads, but testing's the only way to be sure.

Originally Posted by caurmen

Test it!

Chances are that yep, you'll lose some leads, but testing's the only way to be sure.

We're not so focused on product creation at STM, but there are some great guides out there on the wider Internet.

It's old, but one that springs to mind is "Launch The **** Out Of Your Ebook" - http://www.thelaunchcoach.com/sell-ebooks/

"Desperate Buyers Only" is another good one, although it's more focused on niche-finding than product creation. It's also pretty darn old now.

I think the bigger concern is what you're going to do with the user once he's opted in.

How are you going to grow the list (or keep it alive) in the adult space with content that doesn't get you blacklisted?

That's not something I see many affiliates attempting, and probably with good reason.

Originally Posted by caurmen

We're not so focused on product creation at STM, but there are some great guides out there on the wider Internet.

It's old, but one that springs to mind is "Launch The **** Out Of Your Ebook" - http://www.thelaunchcoach.com/sell-ebooks/

"Desperate Buyers Only" is another good one, although it's more focused on niche-finding than product creation. It's also pretty darn old now.

Originally Posted by Finch

I think the bigger concern is what you're going to do with the user once he's opted in.

How are you going to grow the list (or keep it alive) in the adult space with content that doesn't get you blacklisted?

That's not something I see many affiliates attempting, and probably with good reason.

I have been curious about email capture in Adult as well. Was going to test it with maybe a rules questionnaire style lander that gives me more insight on their adult related interests or fetishes. Also thought if you go really niche and create niche emails relative to their fetish? I think it could be huge if you could figure it out especially because no one is doing it...Or at least they are not talking about it. Also could be a waste of time. Guess you wont know until you test it.

There are two issues to consider here, one purely tactical and the other strategic.

You can handle the tactical issue of justification of re-entering their email address with “reason why copy,” i.e. under the email form field on your landing page “For verification and privacy reasons you will be asked to re-enter your email on the next page. Please use the same one you have entered above for successful verification.” That copy can work very well in any market (it’s called “reason why copy” because it simply gives a reason why someone needs to do something…it is very effective).

That being said, the larger issue to consider is the quality of the lead you are generating, and my experience with the adult/porn market both online and offline has been that it produces a remarkably crappy lead for email follow up.

If you’ve followed my previous posts you know I am a huge advocate of list building and follow up for years after initial opt in because that allows you to buy the click once and re-sell it thousands of times instead of once, maybe twice.

List building works best with a market that has a self improvement bent, i.e. health, fitness, raw foods, dating/relationship advice (both men and women), money-getting, etc. OR a hobby market such as golf, hunting, dog ownership, etc. where people look forward to spending money on that hobby.

The issue with the adult/porn market is it is not a self improvement crowd, and the males who make up this marker have little commonality other than that they are male and like looking at free naughty videos. Often this is escapism/time-wasting/fantasy and not a behavior correlated with the desire for self improvement—if anything, it is an “anti-self improvement” crowd.

I’ve been in the dating advice market for men since 2004, always leading with an opt in page, and it has served me well. At various times online and offline I have tested the adult market for my business, driving leads into the same funnel as all other sources, and the results have always been about the same—rotten, with little interest.

In 2005 I got talked into a full home page ad on the site revengeworld.com (completely different from what it is now) and made the mistake of not writing it myself (the guy who sold me the ad insisted that his writer had a “great rapport” with the market). The copy was absolutely rotten, and I pitched a major fit. Despite that, I got about 2,000 opt ins, and some actually bought on opt in, so I only lost a little money. BUT none of those 2,000 opt ins ever bought anything from me again.

At the same time, I was running heavy on NewsMax (kind of like a conservative National Enquirer), spending about $18k for a five week run (banners, text links, etc.) and the results were excellent. Those customers bought and bought and bought because they were not only a self improvement crowd, they were also prone to reading and following an entertaining personality. Also, the site was full of long running direct response ads for a variety of products, a sure sign of buyers (sadly NewsMax “imaged up” their site, and killed the good placements). Some of those guys still buy from me because their long term value is excellent.

In 2007, I decided to test some of the lower end adult magazines (with such eminent titles as “Barely Legal,” “Big Uns,” “Whale Tail” and “Swank”) because the media was relatively cheap, and if I got a hit there, there were a lot more places to go.

So, I invested $20k in a buy across several different titles (one guy handled all of them, so it was really easy to place media) with an ad that had been proven in a variety of different publications—BlackBelt, Grappling, Inside Kung Fu, Natural Bodybuilding, Reps, Iron Man, North American Hunter, and many others.

Here’s the ad:

http://www.womenapproachyou.com/john...agazine-ad.pdf

It worked particularly well in a magazine called American Curves (my first buy at $997 produced $12k of revenue, a huge home run) which featured fit, sexy women in bikinis, lingerie, etc., but not nude or pornographic. If you were a red blooded man who loved women, you could not put this magazine down. So, I was fascinated to see how the “body parts magazines” would do.

They were a complete disaster. I grossed about $8k in revenue on a $20k spend, a definite strike out. What was even more remarkable was how low the lead count was for a free report about how to get women to approach you. So, I read through the magazines and what I discovered was the audience had no interest in real women, that they looked at the magazines to escape from them, to indulge in fantasy without responsibility. Furthermore, I noticed there were no Penis Pill ads in any of them (and these ads run at a premium rate in almost every male magazine you can imagine, including the back of Road and Track), which was shocking to me. Perhaps these guys were broke?

That wasn’t the case because what I did see ads for in almost all the body parts mags were direct response ads for $8,000 Real Dolls, which are life size mannequins of women made of silicone. Those ads ran over and over (having a high transaction value helps), proof that the readers were actively trying to avoid real women. Clearly not a self improvement crowd, and to this day none of the leads I got from those magazines bought anything else.

So, when it comes to list building, initial selection of market is very, very important and the adult market does not lend itself to list building. The only exceptions I’ve seen are emails from female porn star names talking about her exploits and essentially providing an ongoing masturbation saga with little to sell except her own live shows, DVD’s, etc. The TwoGirlsTeach Sex guys have done well in adult, but selling via VSL first, then marketing to the buyers. But even then, the buyers are not nearly as good as those from other sources.

Finch is also quite correct in that you will have issues with companies like Aweber who don’t want adult marketers, so you’ll have to run your own server in order to scale, at least as far as I know.

List building is a fine thing to do and can really unlock your business because you get paid now and paid for as long as you can keep your list interested in your emails (I will be speaking about this in London). But initial selection of market is paramount to making this work, and the adult market is not a good market for it. There are plenty of great markets that can make you a lot of money with a shockingly small list, and those are worth focusing on. The key is a self improvement mindset or a passionate hobby, a long term interest (fitness guys will spend money on fitness, golfers will spend ALL their money on golf), proof of buyers in that market, and whether or not they are prone to following an entertaining personality.

Sidenote: as a good marketer I occasionally retest the adult market to see if I can find some “pockets of profit,” for my business, and the only semi-success I had was running in Penthouse, which was at the time “porn with a few serious articles.” I ran for three months before lead cost was too high, then tested a year later with bad results. I ran one ad in Hustler which was mildly profitable, but the customers were so bad I never ran again there, putting the money in the fitness magazines instead.

Great write up johna5150 . I appreciate the time you took to write that as it answered quite a bit for me. Looking forward to hearing you speak in London. List building is definitely something i want start taking more seriously as i build my business. Thanks again for the input.

Hey Finch man your premium posts 2015 was a great read man. You going to be at the london meetup?

johna your post was great. kudos

Originally Posted by johna5150

There are two issues to consider here, one purely tactical and the other strategic.

You can handle the tactical issue of justification of re-entering their email address with “reason why copy,” i.e. under the email form field on your landing page “For verification and privacy reasons you will be asked to re-enter your email on the next page. Please use the same one you have entered above for successful verification.” That copy can work very well in any market (it’s called “reason why copy” because it simply gives a reason why someone needs to do something…it is very effective).

That being said, the larger issue to consider is the quality of the lead you are generating, and my experience with the adult/porn market both online and offline has been that it produces a remarkably crappy lead for email follow up.

If you’ve followed my previous posts you know I am a huge advocate of list building and follow up for years after initial opt in because that allows you to buy the click once and re-sell it thousands of times instead of once, maybe twice.

List building works best with a market that has a self improvement bent, i.e. health, fitness, raw foods, dating/relationship advice (both men and women), money-getting, etc. OR a hobby market such as golf, hunting, dog ownership, etc. where people look forward to spending money on that hobby.

The issue with the adult/porn market is it is not a self improvement crowd, and the males who make up this marker have little commonality other than that they are male and like looking at free naughty videos. Often this is escapism/time-wasting/fantasy and not a behavior correlated with the desire for self improvement—if anything, it is an “anti-self improvement” crowd.

I’ve been in the dating advice market for men since 2004, always leading with an opt in page, and it has served me well. At various times online and offline I have tested the adult market for my business, driving leads into the same funnel as all other sources, and the results have always been about the same—rotten, with little interest.

In 2005 I got talked into a full home page ad on the site revengeworld.com (completely different from what it is now) and made the mistake of not writing it myself (the guy who sold me the ad insisted that his writer had a “great rapport” with the market). The copy was absolutely rotten, and I pitched a major fit. Despite that, I got about 2,000 opt ins, and some actually bought on opt in, so I only lost a little money. BUT none of those 2,000 opt ins ever bought anything from me again.

At the same time, I was running heavy on NewsMax (kind of like a conservative National Enquirer), spending about $18k for a five week run (banners, text links, etc.) and the results were excellent. Those customers bought and bought and bought because they were not only a self improvement crowd, they were also prone to reading and following an entertaining personality. Also, the site was full of long running direct response ads for a variety of products, a sure sign of buyers (sadly NewsMax “imaged up” their site, and killed the good placements). Some of those guys still buy from me because their long term value is excellent.

In 2007, I decided to test some of the lower end adult magazines (with such eminent titles as “Barely Legal,” “Big Uns,” “Whale Tail” and “Swank”) because the media was relatively cheap, and if I got a hit there, there were a lot more places to go.

So, I invested $20k in a buy across several different titles (one guy handled all of them, so it was really easy to place media) with an ad that had been proven in a variety of different publications—BlackBelt, Grappling, Inside Kung Fu, Natural Bodybuilding, Reps, Iron Man, North American Hunter, and many others.

Here’s the ad:

http://www.womenapproachyou.com/john...agazine-ad.pdf

It worked particularly well in a magazine called American Curves (my first buy at $997 produced $12k of revenue, a huge home run) which featured fit, sexy women in bikinis, lingerie, etc., but not nude or pornographic. If you were a red blooded man who loved women, you could not put this magazine down. So, I was fascinated to see how the “body parts magazines” would do.

They were a complete disaster. I grossed about $8k in revenue on a $20k spend, a definite strike out. What was even more remarkable was how low the lead count was for a free report about how to get women to approach you. So, I read through the magazines and what I discovered was the audience had no interest in real women, that they looked at the magazines to escape from them, to indulge in fantasy without responsibility. Furthermore, I noticed there were no Penis Pill ads in any of them (and these ads run at a premium rate in almost every male magazine you can imagine, including the back of Road and Track), which was shocking to me. Perhaps these guys were broke?

That wasn’t the case because what I did see ads for in almost all the body parts mags were direct response ads for $8,000 Real Dolls, which are life size mannequins of women made of silicone. Those ads ran over and over (having a high transaction value helps), proof that the readers were actively trying to avoid real women. Clearly not a self improvement crowd, and to this day none of the leads I got from those magazines bought anything else.

So, when it comes to list building, initial selection of market is very, very important and the adult market does not lend itself to list building. The only exceptions I’ve seen are emails from female porn star names talking about her exploits and essentially providing an ongoing masturbation saga with little to sell except her own live shows, DVD’s, etc. The TwoGirlsTeach Sex guys have done well in adult, but selling via VSL first, then marketing to the buyers. But even then, the buyers are not nearly as good as those from other sources.

Finch is also quite correct in that you will have issues with companies like Aweber who don’t want adult marketers, so you’ll have to run your own server in order to scale, at least as far as I know.

List building is a fine thing to do and can really unlock your business because you get paid now and paid for as long as you can keep your list interested in your emails (I will be speaking about this in London). But initial selection of market is paramount to making this work, and the adult market is not a good market for it. There are plenty of great markets that can make you a lot of money with a shockingly small list, and those are worth focusing on. The key is a self improvement mindset or a passionate hobby, a long term interest (fitness guys will spend money on fitness, golfers will spend ALL their money on golf), proof of buyers in that market, and whether or not they are prone to following an entertaining personality.

Sidenote: as a good marketer I occasionally retest the adult market to see if I can find some “pockets of profit,” for my business, and the only semi-success I had was running in Penthouse, which was at the time “porn with a few serious articles.” I ran for three months before lead cost was too high, then tested a year later with bad results. I ran one ad in Hustler which was mildly profitable, but the customers were so bad I never ran again there, putting the money in the fitness magazines instead.

For what it's worth, I have had some mild success (nothing on John's scale) with list-building in adult - but that was for a very specific niche, rather than broad adult, and was also for my own product rather than affiliate stuff.

In general, listen to John on this - he's forgotten more about list-building than I know

I tried it in the first adult days ( think 300-400% ROI ) and still couldn't make it work.

I am sure there must be a way but it's as easy as it might sound.

i think is very good idea capture this emails.
i keep sending dating offers via email with some good results
when you have ready a 10k list let me know