Different Strokes: Building Sites for the Fair Sex
A niche? That's what they say, but there are now more women than men online--this is a rapidly developing market that the adult webmaster can't afford to ignore.
This was an important step forward for the porn industry. Unfortunately
too many other assumptions remain about women and their porn viewing
habits.
According to a Nielsen NetRatings study, reported in USA Today, 51.7 percent of US Internet users in 2001 are women--for the first time, an exact mirror of the gender breakdown for the general population. And women spend just about as much time on the Web as men do. In May, 2001, men went online an average of 20 times, spent ten hours and 24 minutes there in total, and viewed 760 pages. For women it was 18 sessions, eight hours and 56 minutes online, and 580 pages. And women under 30 are the Web's most rapidly growing demographic.
Hardly surprising--it was only a matter of time. A little more surprising, however, were the results of a recent survey commissioned by MSN and conducted by Millward Brown IntelliQuest. They discovered that sixty percent of female users of the MSN Web site click on banner ads, and that that thirty-four percent return to the advertiser's site later. According to Media Metrix, even a few years ago 20% of female surfers had visited a porn site, at a time when only a few sites were aimed specifically at women.
This market is still young, rapidly developing, and full of opportunity for adult webmasters. It is also a significantly different market from the one we are accustomed to, and therefore demands a somewhat different approach. Often termed a niche market, it is really too large and important for that designation. It is certainly a market that the adult webmaster cannot afford to ignore.
Content Is Queen
It is generally accepted that erotic stories are prime content for women. Just look at the incredible success of paperback book series like the Harlequin romances. Harlequin (www.eharlequin.com) publishes over 70 titles a month, and has annual revenues approaching $600 million. Its books are translated into virtually all the major languages in the world. That's not a whole industry, just one publisher--the equivalent of one Web site.
That kind of revenue is what one of the most successful adult sites might make annually, and it's hard to make a profit at all with print publishing. Usually, mainstream e-commerce learns from the adult Web--mainstream surely hasn't made much money yet--but the example of the print-based Harlequin romance novels should indicate one way for female-oriented sites to do it right. Women like erotic stories--a lot.
Women also like to shop and talk to one another. Maybe that's a stereotype, but it's an acknowledged one. The Women's Erotica Network (www.womenseroticanetwork.com) recently offered the following tips for webmasters: "Women are normally looking for something more in a site than just pictures of men or couples. One thing you can add is an adult toy store, but augment it with reviews of items you've actually ordered and used, or a video you've seen and think other women would like. Another way is to have a discussion board where women can interact regarding issues of sexuality. Perhaps offer an article and an accompanying forum to talk about it."
This is not to say that women do not want to look at porn, because they definitely do. CJ, the brains behind Purve.com, one of the first women-oriented sites and probably the most successful, put it this way, is Boys Have a Penis and Girls Have a Brain: "I heard repeatedly, that 'Women aren't visually stimulated,' despite the fact that I would surf porn at every private opportunity I could find. Since then, we've managed, quite successfully to prove that the true stereotype is 'Women are More than Visual', meaning that, yes, they are visually stimulated, but can also be stimulated by using many different marketing methods."
The Right Place
Women not only demand the right stuff, they also want to visit the right place. Sharon Reed, in What Do Women Want on the Internet?" emphasizes that content is only the beginning--it must also be presented in a format acceptable to women. She points to Purve.com's site, which looks like a print magazine, complete with informative articles, sex quizzes, erotic stories, chat, and even a section on astrology. She says the Cosmo-like format is used to set a "female tone," which translates into content that both stimulates and educates. But it doesn't end there. According to Reed, the successful 4Women webmaster also needs to display good taste, if he or she is going to appeal to the ladies:
Beyond setting a female tone, the magazine style also connotes taste, which many women complain is lacking on sites meant for male viewers. "Taste is always a subjective thing. It's so hard to describe, but you know it when you see it," says Dr. Susan Block, who uses this same magazine format on her own Web site (www.drsusanblock.com). Complaints of bad taste by women, regarding sex sites, are that they are often flashy, without focus, and degrading to women. One online surfer says that male sites often look like they were made in the '70s, with bad decorating and worse haircuts.
"Many of the sites that have popped up for women are simply different tours, put on the front of a standard members section," CJ recently advised me (obviously a big help in writing this article, since I'm a 4Women newbie myself), "This can be a successful model if the members section contains a large amount of content that was specifically developed or specially presented for women. Presentation is very important in this market, but making each female surfer feel that she is at the right place is vital."
Between Mars and Venus
Women are different from men (really?--I guess you've heard that before) and not only demand something different from an adult Web site, but are actually changing the character of the adult Web. JonKatz recently posted the following in a rather contentious article on SlashDot.com: "In many ways, they're creating a different kind of medium--communicative, community-centered, culture-driven. Beyond the wildest dreams, of any slick and usually dumb women's mag, they define their own agenda. Chickclickers as some dub themselves, are perhaps the single most important social phenomenon online. And online, they make different choices than men."
You know that the thumbnail gallery post ampland.com posts a cartoon every day. Recently Amp's cartoon showed a man and a woman meeting for the first time. The woman is thinking, "Hmmm... college degree, two years of graduate school, probably making $50,000 a year." The guy is thinking, "Hmmm... two tits and a pussy." That's it in a nutshell--women demand a bit more than the male surfer is perfectly happy with, and the successful 4Women webmaster must deliver the goods. By the way, note that the guy wasn't necessarily interested in whether they were especially nice tits or not--I'm afraid our standards are somewhat lower than the girls' standards. A marketing plan designed to attract the ladies, needs to be fundamentally different from a plan directed at men.
CJ states in Converting Gay Traffic to a 4Women Site that "The 4Women market started out as a venue for 'beefcake content' and is now slowly evolving to women's fantasies and couples erotica." Sandra, in Lust for Ladies, said that her Lady Lynx visitors say they are "looking for quality sites with content created with them in mind. This means photos of naked men who are clearly heterosexual, and also couples. They are interested in reviews of videos, sex toys, and other sites. I believe women need to be marketed to differently than men. For the most part, women are interested in a feeling of community and a place where they can share things with other women." This is a whole different ball game. For some practical advice on these concepts, see CJ's Fem Resources tutorial, "Building a Community."
Safety and Security
Issues that are especially important to the female surfer are privacy, safety, and security- and from two different perspectives. "It's because of the safety and security the Web delivers that the female animal often rears its horny head," says Sharon Reed, in What Do Women Want on the Internet? "Safety can exist mentally or physically: Safety from catching or spreading STD's, safety from pregnancy, safety from any kind of unwanted behavior, and safety from being vilified as a slut or nymphomaniac."
The 4Women webmaster must provide this security and make it clear that it is being protected. However, once the female surfer feels basically safe and secure, then some inhibitions are set free, and fetish or S/M content may find a very receptive audience. This is a far more important issue for female surfers than with guys, who just don't want someone to steal their credit card number or have their partner find out what sites they have been visiting.
The keys to marketing an adult site to women boil down to targeted content, a tasteful format, a presentation acceptable to women, and providing a clearly safe communal space where women will want to spend time. CJ gets the last word: "I've provided many seminars on the specifics of marketing to women, but almost everything can be summed up by these statements: (a.) Make each woman feel that she has come to the right place, and (b.) Acknowledge the individual qualities of each woman.
|
Printer
Friendly Version