Breaking into The Adult Marketing & Web Development Business - Updated 10/05/2009

Recently, I’ve received a lot of questions about delving into the adult marketing via Twitter and Facebook; the questions I am asked most are:

1. Is there good money in it?
2. Is it hard to do?
3. What do you do?
4. How do you develop a clientele?

The simple answers are:

1. There can be, if you do it correctly, it’s just like any business.
2. Yes, it is hard to do. Just like any business
3. I do the same thing you do for mainstream clients.
4. You develop clientele just like you do any business.

These questions are just the icing on the cake, what “inquiring marketing minds” actually pondering and asking is how to penetrate the adult industry and creating a successful business. They want to know if it can it worth the time and effort. Well, guess what? Any smart, determined marketer or developer can create a successful adult business, but they have to have a strategic plan to do so.

Here are my tips for deciding if you should start an adult marketing company:

Tip #1: Don’t approach the adult industry like it’s some secret Illuminati society that must be infiltrated. There are multiple ways to enter it: networking, emailing, trade shows, etc. It’s the same as any industry; it takes time and a targeted, strategic approach. Pick on that is most comfortable for you and go from there. For you online types, my next suggestion in perfect!

Tip #2: Set up an alternate Twitter nd start following adult entertainers, designers and other professionals that look interesting (@AudaciaRay, @VictoriaLane, @DarkGracie, @MasterRobyn, @Mindchaotica, @KimberleeCline and @PBVixen are a must). Start reading blogs, looking at web sites, check links and slowly start to comment. Just like it takes a website about six months to fully integrate into the Google sandbox and be allowed to play, it is the same for any new person in the adult scene. When you find something that tickles your fancy, proceed to Tip #3!

Insider Tip #3: Find something interesting? Go Google the crap out the thing that made you go – “OH!” and start studying it. Need inspiration? Check my side links, I put the stuff I really like there. Find a niche that works for you and start there, then grow.

It’s official: Haute Couture, mainstream and independent fashion designers have taken BDSM, Fetish and Kink and integrated them into their design inspirations. It’s about time. So I guess I can carry a crop down the street now, after all - it’s an accessory.

- Callie

Taking heels to crazy new heights for Spring 2009, these dangerous designer shoes were enough to make models stumble and fall on the runways. Walking in designer shoes is a catwalk model’s forte, so what hope do humble fashionistas have maintaining their dignity in them?

Designers from Dolce & Gabbana to Dior and Pucci to Prada all got in on the daunting killer heel action this season. If you have fallen in love with a pair, and you are brave enough to step out in one of these precarious looking pieces of footwear, perhaps you should consider finding a way to incorporate knee pads into your outfit–just to be on the safe side.

Via: nymag

Want to read more?

• Killer High Heels
• Angry Heels

Victorian Goth. Dark Couture. KinkGlam - whatever you want to call it, featuring Bondage & Fetish in mainstream fashion trends has moved beyond Vivien Westwood & Alexander McQueen.

I noticed this trend at the start of 2008; Chanel’s footwear and stocking ads in Vogue, W and Bazaar caught my attention. I thought to myself, “This is foot fetish that men pay for,” being brought to the mainstream masses for free in the glossy pages of haute couture magazines. So for 2009, more couture brands and upscale indie fashion designers are bringing Kink mainstream with bondage & fetish-inspired dresses, shoes and accessories.

I am elated to see it. I shows that mainstream society no longer equates BDSM with pornography and is finally recognizing Fetish as an art form that pays homage to alternative creativity and sexuality.

Fashionising.com, a fantastic blog written by Tania Baukamper, discusses the trend more in-depth and how it is translates in to 2009 trendsetters’  (Rihanna & Victoria Beckham) personal styles.

My next hope is that designers such as Chanel, Christian Louboutin, Givechy & Thakoon take it a step further and ditch the traditional runway models and feature of Fetish industry professionals in their advertising campaigns.

My suggestions: Model -  Kumi Monster Photographers - Steven Diet Goedde or Christine Kessler.

Photos: Kumi Monster in Atsuko Kudo & Fashionising.com.

In the Flesh: L.A. (the West coast version of In The Flesh founded by Rachel Kramer Bussel) is a monthly reading series held the last Thursday of every month at Hustler Hollywood, and features the city’s best journalists, authors, scriptwriters and more offering their torrid tales for your entertainment and titillation, hosted and curated by writer/editor Carly Milne (Sexography, Hooking Up, Naked Ambition).

From secret dirty confessions to unique sexual insights (and even the odd embarrassment or two), these writers get naked on the page and will make you lust after them and their words. Readers have included Willam Belli, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Maxim Jakubowski, Stan Kent, Shana Ting Lipton, Jenny Block, Regina Lynn, Rob Roberge, Eugene S. Robinson, Marty Barrett, Seth Greenland, Nina Hartley, Jeff Miller, Colleen Wainwright, Adam Grayson, Joanna Angel, Ernest Greene, Maggie Marr and BatSheva Vaknin. We’ve also been written up in Metroblogging L.A., LAist, Thrillist, Fishbowl L.A., Blue Blood and others.

Themed include Survival, Confessions, Madonna, Fears, Embarrassments and many more. Complimentary cookies and cupcakes from Schmerty’s will be offered. The event is free, but a suggested $10 door fee will be donated to the Rape and Incest National Network.

In The Flesh: L.A. debuted in May 2008. E-mail inthefleshreadingseriesla at gmail.com for booking, more information or interview requests.

The Next In The Flesh is This Thursday at Hustler: Hollywood. I will be attending, hope to see you all there!

A good friend of mine and I were talking about Fetish and mainstream marketing. He had bought Ed Fox’s latest book from Taschen and fell in love with it. What came out of this minor “erotic awakening” was how fetishism has creeped into the marketing/advertising for clothing, lingerie and footwear. He now saw it everywhere, even when it wasn’t supposed to be there.

I said, “Darling, where do think the love of women’s’ feet began?” The book is beautiful, high-art and worth the purchase. Check it chickies!

Be Ethical, Be Legitimate. Anyone can work in adult marketing; there are many “designers, developers and marketers”. But I use those terms loosely because many “adult marketing companies” aren’t ethical. They under deliver, over charge and build websites on platforms that their client can’t understand, thereby making them slaves to the webmaster. When did the term adult become synonymous with the term idiot? Just because a client’s business is adult related, it doesn’t give their marketing team the right charge astronomical prices for third-rate service. Sooner or later, a client will speak up, vocalize their discontent and you will lose all your business.

Did you know? An individual adult entertainer usually makes $200,000 to $350,000 per year. A heavily marketed, niche adult website with creative, unique content can make up to $1 million per year. The average investment in marketing & publicity is about 15-20% of the gross income.

Being ethical and being legitimate is the first step in being successful.

Be More Than A Designer: Be A Developer, A Marketing Strategist, An Advisor and A Visionary. Anyone designing adult websites should be able to build just about anything. PHP, CSS, HTML, Java – I don’t care, you better know it and be able to do it well. I am not a designer, I am a marketing strategist; but my design team – Ope/Zig (the best) – can do anything a client needs them to do. They make it a point to test and demo all the adult related content management systems out there. By doing so, they know the best platform for any client site. If a client comes to us and loves what they have, we can work with it, but we work to improve it. If they don’t like it, they identify what isn’t working and develop several alternatives for them. If we have to, we will build what they want from scratch.

I strive to be more than designer, I strive to be a visionary. I not only create a site, I develop a strategy and a vision for the client. Now some clients aren’t ready for it, whether it’s a financial limitation or a mental step they aren’t to make yet, I make sure concept is there from day one. I visualize their BRAND and what it could be, even if they themselves don’t see it yet.

You have to ask yourself, “What is this company or individual’s five-year plan?” Next, work backwards from there. You are still building their brand, even if it’s an individual person and a name. You have to consider what would hurt that brand, what would dilute it and what would make it stronger. Throw in the average shelf life of adult name/product popularity and it’s some work!

If you have an idea that could be “The Next Step” and blow/transform their image into another lucrative income stream, you must present it to them, even if it’s risky. If you don’t present it, you are a bad marketer and don’t deserve their business. You need to be a visionary and an adviser because things in the adult market become tired quickly. It’s your duty to continually maximize their ROI; that’s what you are being paid for.

Have Standards and Integrity. This is where humanity comes in and I gotta get gritty. Our clients are people; treat them like people.

1. If you can’t get over nudity and provocative content, then this line work isn’t for you.
2. If you think you can use your status as an adult webmaster/marketer to try and meet adult professionals for your “personal” gain, then this line of work isn’t for you.
3. If you can’t imagine doing an online video series focused on selling couture sex toys and leveraging social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook to promote it and drive online sales – then EXIT STAGE LEFT.

What I Am Saying: Treat your adult clients like your corporate clients. Put all you know into practice and give them tangible results based on clear, ethical marketing practices. Make sure they have the proper tools to manage their content can do all the things they want to themselves. It allows you fill in the services that they fall short on and make you a more effective resource.

Play Nice With Others. There are great adult marketers out there. Play nice and make friends, you never know when you are going to need them. I keep in contact with the people I know have ethical standards and we trade and refer work whenever we need to. In fact, make sure you follow @PBVixen and @MasterRobyn on Twitter, these people have mad skills and I would work with them and for them anytime.