Become Your Own Customer
by Cynthia "Cyndalie" Fanshaw, Marketing VP - PSW Billing Solutions

Growing up my father used to spring all kinds of metaphors on me as little tidbits of wisdom that he, in his own way, just had to pass along. "Dummy Up" was one, but it never quite hit home without the smack upside the head for doing something stupid. "When in doubt, throw it out" was a great cleaning philosophy I still use today. But one stuck with me more than others. Whenever I wanted anything really bad, albeit toys or boys, he would always say I had "tunnel vision" because it's only when you get too close to something, the harder it is to truly see or criticize. Many webmasters are so wrapped up in being ‘The Webmaster’ and creating their sites in tune to what other webmasters prefer or suggest that they forget their role as being their own customer.

When was the last time that you joined an adult pay site? What was your experience like? How did you select which site you wanted to join and what was the icing on the cake to finally fork over your card number? How many different forms of online payment have you actually used? How many of us would actually tell our mom, sure mom dialers are safe go ahead and call psychic from your computer? Have YOU ever actually used a dialer to pay for something online? What about online checks? Forking over your CC Number is one thing, what about your bank account number, do you want online pornographers to have that too? (And don't say "I'm a webmaster, why pay for porn?" If that is the case, you will become your own worst enemy. Write it off, it’s “market research”!)

It is astounding to see just how few webmasters have actually become a recent customer of what they work so hard to provide and promote. When you design a new website, database, or functionality on your web site how many times have you gone through every step to find broken links, bad scripts, page errors, compatibility, and actual function? For most webmasters, this is what we do best. But the marketer in me says there is another flip to this coin and it's the only side our surfers care about.

After 5 years in adult webmastery, I know that when a site catches my eye enough to consider joining, they are either doing something right or I'm a sucker. Either way, there are things to learn from these sites and I'm here to break it down from marketing to billing and I suggest all webmasters become their own customer and find out if their own is a site that they would join.

Case in point, being found. There are 2 ways to market in this business. You can either play the numbers game where it takes money to make money in advertising (PPC, PPI, Banner) and bulk traffic purchases or you can go the targeted market route. There are advantages to both: Quantity vs. Quality traffic. Mega porn sites, hardcore and soft, have a higher tendency to do better the Quantity route because they gain the advantage of branding, and with a large number of affiliates, quantity can grow while advertising costs may drop after the program and branding launch. However plan to have some major bucks to advertise to both Surfers and Webmasters.

Targeted traffic tends to have better results for smaller, more niche sites, from amateur to midget fetish. Since the surfer knows exactly what he or she is looking for, they may be more inclined to purchase from a site that promises the type of content they are looking for that they may not find at a mega site. However the lack of "brand name" recognition for smaller sites leaves more responsibility on the webmaster to make the surfer feel SAFE enough to purchase.

To give an example, when a surfer goes online to purchase a porn subscription, he or she may already have a site in mind they saw a few times before that they are still interested in. In order for this person to come back a brand name, domain, or bookmark must already be in the surfers mind or machine, or search engines will usually point the user to an affiliate who is promoting the site. If this affiliate runs a pop up hell click through page the user may try again or get side tracked. It is very important for large and small sites to be sure they come up first in the search engines with a clean click through to make the most on returning traffic.

For any site I would consider joining the first thing I look for is how to cancel before I join. I've spent time doing customer service for adult site billing services many many years ago. This experience was invaluable to me now as I see many of the issues are still the same when it comes to a porn surfer. "What is this charge on my bill"? Communicate to the surfer for each billing method you provide, EXACTLY what they can expect. Show them where to cancel from your join page, this way they do not feel trapped. PROVIDE not only a URL and/or Email for Emergency Support (either to you or your billing service) but also provide the Customer Service Numbers for the billing service right from the join page! Hiding your cancel links or simply leaving it up to the customer to find his way to cancel can only lead to charge backs costing YOU money.

Have you ever paid and joined your own site before? Try it again! How long does it take for the users account to become enabled? Tell them how long they must wait if it is not instant. Have you tried subscribing to your site with an online check? What appears on your bank statement? Regardless if whether you can publish this information or not, of if it is provided by your billing service, it’s always a good idea to have a “Questions before you Join?” link to an FAQ or email link so the customer knows the site is alive and the owners are responsive.

Several online billing companies, such as PSWBilling.com, provides the option of customizable join forms for adult sites. Co-branding these join forms is important however it will make your customers feel secure knowing that their payment details and personal financial information will be handled by a professional and discreet billing service. Not everyone wants "Jimmy's Porn Shack" having their account numbers, so within the co-branding option for payment forms, reassure your potential customers that they are in good hands and will be provided with secure and professional service.

Recently I joined a site for a trial period and had a great experience. The site is well branded and easy to remember, and I had been to the site maybe 6-7 times prior considering the purchase. In these times people are not so frivolous with their purchases online. The days of "my dog stole my credit card number" are dying fast, and the "I wasn't me!" credit card scam is fading. It wasn’t too long ago and still common with some services today, that billing companies placed credited and charged-backed numbers on blacklist. Suddenly these customers who thought it was a “safe way to scam” are experiencing inability to make online purchases at other sites. This is our only first line of defense when it comes to protecting adult merchants from repeated “scammers” and “stolen” card numbers.

My only qualm with my recent porn purchase was the that the actual cancel page which requests your card number did not appear to be secure because it was in a frame set. To an average surfer this would have been a red flag and they may have felt safer calling their credit card issuer and asking for a cancel or a chargeback, rather than just submitting their card number to some site they were sent to cancel at from the site they joined, that does not appear secure. Since porn customers are always suspicion of online scams, an average customer would NOT have felt 100% secure. I did not at first, so I sent an email. As a webmaster I was able to figure out why there was no secure lock in my browser window. It was only after going to Properties and viewing the page out of frames was I able to confirm the page was secure. After understanding why things appeared this way did I calm down. I had expected top service from the billing agency and was surprised that something this simple, even if it is correct, can throw a customer out of whack.

So with all this in mind, find a site that peeks your interest that you feel safe at and would consider purchasing from. Compare yourself to the “big boys” and your smaller competitors as well – What are they doing right? Regardless of how much quantity or quality of traffic you have, the end result is the same: the Join page. By promoting honesty, discretion, security, and professionalism from your home page to your members area communication to your surfers is essential for new sales and retention.

Cynthia "Cyndalie" Fanshaw is the Vice President of Marketing for PSWBilling.com. An established expert in search engine marketing, Cyndalie has over 5 years experience in the Internet industry and working with webmasters. For more information about PSW Billing Services please visit http://www.PSWBilling.com or contact Cyn @ PSWBilling.com

Contact Cyndalie: Marketing@PSWBilling.com

Republication NOT AUTHORIZED without permission. All rights reserved. Copyright PSW, Inc and Cynthia Fanshaw