Why not 1 mega site instead of 5-6 sites?????

[kgibson01]

Hello all,
I have one major (business) issue, that I haven’t made a decision about. Maybe your experience could help us to decide.

Why wouldn’t it be a good idea for us to create one mega site encompassing all, (mostly black/interracial content with big booty girls, thick girls, orgies, celebrity hosted movies, etc), and creatively market each aspect to consumers, opposed to building out 5-6 mega sites. I understand the concept of creating “storefronts” where one customer may be drawn to one thing opposed to another, but if I can effectively market the type of content that they are seeking why wouldn’t it be a better move? If I have a total of $15,000 allocated for advertising and marketing, I would have to equally promote each site, assuming it were 5 sites, a total of $3,000 each. I don’t save in that area.

Is the concept of more bang for the buck the driving force for most to start multiple sites? Customers feel like they are getting more for the same dollar? Your help is appreciated.

[Hammer]

For the purposes of my analogy, I'll assume that you like steak.

When you want a great steak, do you go to a seafood restaurant that also serves steak or do you go to a steak place that's known for having great steak?

I don't follow your marketing thinking. If you have $15,000 to spend on marketing, are you planning on spending it all promoting a mega site or more logically, wouldn't you still market to a particular audience, even if it was a megasite?

Where would you advertise a mega site?

It makes far more sense to identify places to market the appropriate niches, so if you are advertising big booty girls, you sure wouldn't do it on a skinny teens site.

Let me leave you with this final thought. If mega sites worked, don't you think that all the major companies would have a mega site instead of 20, 50, or 100 niche sites?

[fpanko]

Mega sites can work, but it's best to have multiple front-ends/storefronts. Each targeting a specific niche of users. Most mega sites do this.


As far as your marketing budget; I think it get split up the same way no matter how you look at it. If you want to effectively target a lot of different niches equally, then your splitting up your budget amongst those niches. Wether it's to promote 1 site or 5.

[Hammer]

Originally posted by fpanko
Mega sites can work, but it's best to have multiple front-ends/storefronts. Each targeting a specific niche of users. Most mega sites do this.

Basically what you're talking about is having one large common members area, or at least one large database of content, covering a variety of niches and then building multiple tours. IMO, that leads the very low rebill rates and unhappy members.

Most surfers like a particular type of content and if they join a big boob site, they want to find nothing but tons of models with big tits when they join and get to the members area. They feel cheated if they find a big boobs section along with a bunch of other niches.

[fpanko]

Originally posted by Hammer
Basically what you're talking about is having one large common members area, or at least one large database of content, covering a variety of niches and then building multiple tours. IMO, that leads the very low rebill rates and unhappy members.

Most surfers like a particular type of content and if they join a big boob site, they want to find nothing but tons of models with big tits when they join and get to the members area. They feel cheated if they find a big boobs section along with a bunch of other niches.

Well that comes down to site / user-interface design. If your members can find exactly what they want easily and they keep getting new content, there isn't much of a reason to leave.


However, if your site design sucks and your members have a hard time finding what they want... or simply don't get new content frequent enough, then they'll leave.

[Hammer]

Originally posted by fpanko
Well that comes down to site / user-interface design. If your members can find exactly what they want easily and they keep getting new content, there isn't much of a reason to leave.


However, if your site design sucks and your members have a hard time finding what they want... or simply don't get new content frequent enough, then they'll leave.

When you come right down to it, what you and I are currently discussing is not a mega site and something that many of the large programs do. In some cases they claim you get access to 20 sites for the price of one, when in reality, every site shares the same content database and it is just segregated for different member areas.

However, IMO, that is not a mega site. A mega site is something like http://www.cybererotica.com. It's one huge site covering most of the popular niches and the purpose is to have one website that appeals to everyone. IMO, that kind of site worked back in the mid 90s, but with the advent of niche sites, that model is no longer effective unless it was started years ago and has an incredible amount of content. Cybererotica still makes money, but I don't think it makes sense for someone just starting out to attempt to emulate that site.

It's virtually impossible to build a tour that appeals to everyone. If I like big tits, I'll be turned off by photos of teens with flat chests. If I'm into Asians, I don't want to see black girls. If I'm looking for a fetish site and like bondage and the tour only has a couple photos of chicks in leather, I'm gone. If I'm into bukakke, a few photos of chicks with cum on their faces among lots of other photos that have nothing to do with that niche, isn't going to get me to join.

[fpanko]

I would agree with your views of cybererotica.

IMO, a mega site is any site which trys to encompass a large number of niches or categories without focusing on one.

Cybererotica is one approach to making a mega site, but I don't believe it's the only way to do it.

[grimfang]

Why not 1 mega site instead of 5-6 sites?????

Short Answer: I tried it. When I changed strategies and added more sites, I made a lot more money.
More sites will increase the odds of a surfer finding one of them.
I would really give a long answer, but I just spent 12 hours on the road and really need sleep.

[kgibson01]

Thanks for your expertise. I'll be hammering out this tomorrow with Hammer!

[Boonestoons]

Hammer so rules!

[Paul Markham]

Why not both?

With a good CMS you can market it as one site and split it up into more sites. I'm assuming you have enough content.

[jonnydoe]

I'm sure that "megasites" or as I would call them "all access passes" rebill way better than having a single site. This seems to be the currently successful business model...

[Rcourt64]

Originally posted by Hammer
For the purposes of my analogy, I'll assume that you like steak.

When you want a great steak, do you go to a seafood restaurant that also serves steak or do you go to a steak place that's known for having great steak?

I don't follow your marketing thinking. If you have $15,000 to spend on marketing, are you planning on spending it all promoting a mega site or more logically, wouldn't you still market to a particular audience, even if it was a megasite?

Where would you advertise a mega site?

It makes far more sense to identify places to market the appropriate niches, so if you are advertising big booty girls, you sure wouldn't do it on a skinny teens site.

Let me leave you with this final thought. If mega sites worked, don't you think that all the major companies would have a mega site instead of 20, 50, or 100 niche sites?

I personally like the combo plate myself,
Cuz at times Steak is better with some lobster or shrimp

[Whomey]

Originally posted by jonnydoe
I'm sure that "megasites" or as I would call them "all access passes" rebill way better than having a single site. This seems to be the currently successful business model...

I would think that the All-Access Pass Sites would have better retention because there is a lot more stuff to see and download. I see a lot of single sites out there that allow access to the other sites in the program and then one sometimes site that encompasses them all. I actually consider these sites to be a value to my surfers and let them know what they are getting by indicating there is multi-site access with the memberships.

You have to think about the bandwidth with DSL and Cable these days too though. A member can login for a month (or possibly even a 3-Day trial) to download 1-2GB of content or more to their drive and then cancel their membership only to have that 2GB of porn sitting on the comp getting them off long after the membership has been cancelled. I guess the key to retention is to have so much content they couldn't possibly download it all in a short time.