In the 90s, in what is now regarded as the golden age of porn, being part of the pornography industry used to be a super-lucrative business, especially for models. In those good ol’ days, female porn stars made up to $10,000 per week on average. These days, however, it’s not as glamorous. In 2019, many porn stars are struggling to pay their rents.
The internet happened to the porn industry, and with all of its benefits, as well as its many more pitfalls. The porn industry has grown considerably since the beginning of the 21st century aided by the internet.
As of 2010, 12 percent of all websites on the internet were pornographic, and another 35 percent of total downloads from the web had adult material in them. One-quarter of all searches made across all search engines were adult content related. The year is now 2018, sex is still selling, and the industry keeps growing exponentially.
The downside is that while the market has proliferated so much, it’s become saturated with lots and lots of free content, free content gotten illegally, alongside countless problems that come with the unrestricted sharing nature of the internet. The sad thing is that almost 90 percent of traffic that goes to porn go to porn websites that offer adult clips for free downloads. So, the general public perception is, why will people pay to watch steamy stuff online when they can get easily get it for free online?
Recent research shows an alarming rate of only 1 paid video per every 10,000 available porn clips on the internet. Also, porn is the only industry with no pay rise for models in the last two decades. This means porn stars are working more and earning less these days significantly.
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So, what gives? How does one make money in porn these days?
The silver lining is that while it’s so difficult to make money from porn these days, it’s still possible. You can still earn some cool, steady cash from adult content. First, you have to begin to see yourself as a business, and not just a model.
“The porn market is drenched,” Jason Maskel told Financial Times in 2015, “where before you could make a pornographic film and sell it, now you have to chop it into six or seven revenue streams—DVD, online, mobile—then spin out licensing deals into different countries.”
Porn is no longer just a job; it’s also a lifestyle. One has to be in control to still be able to keep yourself from getting overwhelmed. Also, you need at least basic knowledge to understand how marketing works.
For you to make serious money from either acting or producing porn, you need to be able to sell yourself well. It involves lots of hard work, patience, a shitload of perseverance, and honesty.
Mark Spiegler, a celebrated agent for female performers based out of Los Angeles is of the opinion that while the porn industry is not like what it once was, there are still so many people making money off it. “Making porn isn’t expensive,” he says. “If you cannot make money from porn, then you are not very good at it.”
How to Market Yourself…and Your Brand
Before, there used to be box covers and proper marketing teams that could promote DVD sales effectively. Models were paid nicely weighty checks and were able to sign juicy deals with ease. Nowadays, it is not that straightforward. You can’t just star in a shoot, kick your legs up and expect a paycheck. You need to put in the work so that you become a brand that people look forward to investing in. Mainstream businesses are even hijacking the usage of the word porn; you must have heard of phrases like ‘food porn,’ ‘word porn’ and the likes online. Why not do same for yourself?
Do research and find catchphrases that people can relate with enough to spark their curiosity. Mainstream businesses these days’ hire people to watch the biggest porn stars so that they can find cheeky ways to promote their businesses through these porn stars indirectly. Why not flip the script and do the same?
Cross Marketing
Cross marketing, or cross-channel marketing is what companies do where they target the promotion of one product or service to the customers of a related service or product, sort of like what Oprah Winfrey does when she promotes books, magazine, her book club and website on a TV show. Phone companies also do this when they partner with famous musicians and package their songs as exclusive ringtones so that it benefits both network and artist. This is the easiest as well as the most successful form of marketing as it drives down costs and benefits both parties.
If you want to make things easier from yourself, consider cross-marketing. You can look at a fashion brand or product and devise strategies to craft their product to fit into your marketing strategy and attract their fan base. That you are a porn star doesn’t mean you are a bimbo.
You can also hire someone to help you out if that’s too much work and you can afford to pay for it. If you do things right, you can contribute to expanding their business and market your brand to their audience at the same time. It’s hard work, but it works.
Porn Affiliate Marketing
On the internet, affiliate marketing is an effective way of increasing reach and making important conversions. Typically, it involves businesses paying publishers on a payment per performance basis. If you refer a customer to your sponsor’s website, you get a commission for every customer you refer that successfully makes a purchase.
Many affiliate marketing plans involve you getting paid 20 percent commission for every product you help sell. Affiliate marketing typically involves three partakers: the affiliate sponsor who pays you an agreed commission per product you sell, the affiliate publisher who promotes the sponsor’s service or product through their platforms, and the customer who buys the product through the affiliate publisher by clicking links and ads or paying for subscriptions on the publishing platform.
How Adult Affiliate Marketing Works
In this affiliate marking strategy, you’ll be playing the role of affiliate publisher. This means that as a porn brand, you have to take yourself seriously and build a website. Then you get links to form your sponsor ad post as ads on your website. These links will be your referrals unique to you.
When a surfer (that is, the customer) clicks an ad link on your website, they are then redirected to your sponsor’s website where they can buy the porn clip. If the customer decides to pay for a video on your sponsor’s website or subscribes for a premium membership on your sponsor’s website, you earn a commission once they have made a successful transaction. Simple and sweet.
To further explain, here’s an analogy: think of yourself as the affiliate publisher who owns a blog or website. If you decide to promote for a big porn company, say, Brazzers and they agree to pay you $50 for every client you send their way, all you need to do is to publish the affiliate link conspicuously on your blog or website. You can choose to embed an enticing animation on the link to attract people.
This link will be unique to you so that every person who visits your blog or website sees the ad and clicks on the link will then be redirected to Brazzers’ website. Once they successfully pay for anything over there, you earn $50 instantly.
Affiliate marketing is such a wonderful strategy because you don’t need to do much-just make sure you have enough visibility and your website is optimized. Your web developer can help you with that. You don’t have to be actively involved in the process. You don’t even need to create any product of your own. It can be useful as a source of easy side income.
Adultmoneymethods has a very simple affiliate marketing system as you can see. They take care of everything, and you don’t have to worry over licenses or software. Their payment is instant and automated, plus they do not have any hidden targets to reach before payment. Join their affiliate marketing chain, sit back and watch the money jump into your pockets.
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