If you really want to see the full force of human ingenuity at work, tell people there’s something they’re not allowed….or supposed….to have. Depriving people of a product or service that they’d otherwise be interested in paying for gets the wheels of capitalism turning faster than any heartfelt appeal to doing something for the good of humanity ever could. So that means booze, drugs, tobacco, guns and porn inspire human innovation like nothing else around. While some or all of these are frowned upon in certain countries, and illegal in others – there’s a lot that can be learnt from the economies that have grown up around these products. But for this post I’m going to focus on porn, since it’s long been one of the true pioneers of the Web.

While porn isn’t illegal in the United States, there are plenty of people out there who wish it was. The “moral majority” point to the proliferation of online porn as a force of evil that can destroy relationships, harm children and undermine the “moral fabric” of society. But despite these objections there’s clearly a huge market for porn and in the US alone, it’s a multi-billion dollar industry. The point of this post isn’t to pass judgement on the porn industry – I’ll do that later in the “Reader’s Wives” forums – but instead to look at how you can look to porn to improve your own product.

1. Connect With Your Customers

The Web is awash with free content – from breaking news to porn. But where news organizations have been unable to convert their audience into paying customers, adult entertainment companies and performers have had fewer problems. Many adult sites have built strong businesses on the back of monthly subscriptions or one-time purchases in a way that would make Rupert Murdoch dribble all over The Daily.

So how do they do it? One of the keys is being able to connect directly with customers. In the case of adult entertainers they’ll build a strong, loyal community of fans by creating the illusion they’re communicating with them directly. From direct engagement on Twitter all the way through to personalized emails, the sense of being directly connected helps to coax customers to keep putting their (sticky) hand in their wallet. People like to feel as if they’re “special” or have some kind of personal bond with their idols or favorite brands, and the porn industry knows exactly how to work this angle.

2. Content Sampling

You can have the greatest content in the world but that means nothing if people don’t get the chance to experience it. The porn industry has mastered the art of converting users via offering free samples or previews. A 30 second clip here, a one minute download there – the notion of giving the customer a small but powerful taste of the content is something that many e-commerce outfits could learn from. Amazon lets prospective book buyers see a sample chapter and iTunes gives wannabe music purchasers the ability to listen to a preview of a track before buying it. Giving a little to get something in return is a strategy that the adult entertainment business really understands, and is something that absolutely works.

3. User Experience

When you strip everything down to bare bones, porn is essentially about video. So in order to create the optimal user experience, you want to make sure that you’re offering the best possible video playback options you can imagine. The porn industry not only understood this, but aggressively worked to become one of the biggest technological innovators in the video space. This is something that other video-based businesses – like TV and movie studios – didn’t fully capitalize on until much later. While most TV networks were showing horrendous, postage-stamp sized videos in Real Player the porn studios were streaming good quality, high-res video content. So understanding what the key focus is of your product and then unashamedly working to be the best in class is something a lot of companies could learn from. Imagine if newspapers and magazines had taken a similar approach – maybe outfits like The Huffington Post or Flipboard wouldn’t have had the chance to get the traction they have.

4. Rapid Change Where Necessary

While online porn is still big business, many adult entertainment companies have seen their businesses come under threat from an explosion of ad-supported/affiliate sites that offer free content. In many cases these sites are using non-rights cleared content and eating into the profits of some of the porn studios. In order to respond, some adult entertainment companies are exploring things such as live video streaming and live chats in an attempt to build a new revenue stream as a flanker to their core business. This type of rapid change in response to emerging threats and market conditions is something many traditional companies could learn from. Don’t just sit back and let your customers be stolen from under your nose, but make rapid changes when necessary.

5. Embrace New Platforms

Within 24 hours of the iPad’s release the first porn site specifically optimized for Apple’s new device hit the market. Porn was one of the early pioneers in mobile video. In short, if there’s a new technology out there the adult entertainment industry immediately understands it needs to start playing in that space. Not all their bets will be successful and not all technologies will flourish, but some will and out of those could grow some very lucrative revenue. Compare that with some larger corporations who often approach new technologies with suspicion and fear, not as a new opportunity.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 6th, 2011 at 12:21 pm and is filed under User Experience. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.