Finding Finland
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Find Finland. Go ahead, try. If you're an American it might be challenge. According to a recent survey over 10% of Americans could not even locate the USA on a map.
The US scored second to the bottom for geographic skills. Sweden, Finland's neighbor, was at the top of the list. Our neighbor, Mexico, was at the bottom. So, how does a worldwide webmaster find Finland? And, what does he find when he finds it? In this month's issue of the Klixxx Worldwide Webmaster we go straight to the frozen, dark land of hard drinking and easy sex.
Five million people currently live in Finland. They speak a mysterious language that may, or may not, come from Ghengis Khan, the man who rolled over from China and stopped just short of Germany. Its closest language relative is Hungarian, thousands of miles to the south. Finland's geographic boundaries cover slightly less land than Montana, yet its population is five times larger. This market is larger than it may appear for adult online entertainment. 51% of Finns went online in the last month, the majority over broadband connections. Finns are used to paying for access to quality adult content and are major consumers of sex toys through online shops.
What's Hot in Frozen Finland
As long as its legal, Finland will pay to see it. But what really opens a Finnish wallet? Local content. They love the fantasy of the girl next door.
Recently, however, the girl next door has begun to object to "dirty" content online. Tanja Karpela, a former model and Miss Finland who also shot "erotic" content, is currently the Minister of Culture for Finland. She has come out against porn and begun a campaign to target the adult industry. The Finnish adult online community operates openly and legally so there are no concerns about a major crackdown or sudden shift of government policy that would affect the adult online market.
In general, the disease of pedophilia has brought a bad name upon porn in Finland. Recently, several local celebrities including one of the most famous disc jockeys, have been convicted for storing and distributing child porn online. Imagine the impact if Howard Stern was caught with a hard drive full of under-18 child pornography, and you begin to see the boost this gave to conservative politicians such as Tanja Karpela in Finland.
Traffic Generation
How do you get Finnish traffic? Most adult webmasters will find that they already have a significant (given the size of the country) amount of Finnish traffic to their sites. That is good news. Finns are, on the whole, quite wealthy, technologically literate, and ready to pay. The key to maximizing Finnish traffic conversion is to offer the right combination of content, language and billing. We'll get into more of that in a moment. First let's take a look at how to get more Finnish traffic.
Every major portal and search engine has a version in Finnish. Check out www.google.fi - "Kokeilen onneani" means "I feel lucky." In this highly developed Internet economy there are large variety of both mainstream and adult portals from whom to source local Finnish traffic. Perhaps the most efficient way to access this traffic is through organic and paid placement in Google.fi. It is the most popular search engine in Finland and is the integrated search tool in all major Finnish portals. Four high traffic mainstream portals in Finland to look into are: www.webinfo.fi and www.suomi24.fi and Eniro.fi and www.fennica.ascentia.fi. If trading traffic and linklists are a better fit with your overall traffic strategy you may consider investigating the following sites:
When paying Finnish webmasters for traffic, keep in mind that they prefer wire payments or payments on electronic cards such as epassporte. Checks work well but can be quite expensive to cash, especially small amounts.
Preferred Payment Options
Imagine you are Finnish. Now put on a sweater...and a coat. Now visit your site. What do you want to see on the payment page?
You've seen the tour, twice, and now you are ready to pay. Let's look at each available payment option from your Finnish point of view.
The Dialer - Quite a popular payment method. On the decline, as the majority of Internet connections are now broadband in Finland. Still key for the over 40% of your Finnish surfers who use dial-up connections. Finns trust the dialer. The government has been very strict with those who have tried to abuse this technology.
Voicecall - Absolutely essential. This is the #1 way to make money with Finnish traffic. They are ready to pay up to 3.50 Euro ($4.50) per minute to access your high quality content. Though 90% of Finns speak English, it is important that the instructions are in Finnish.
SMS - The land that brought you Nokia loves paying by SMS. It is currently very popular and is continuously growing. People here love to send SMS messages to chat, and are comfortable using their phones to pay for membership or pay-per-view subscriptions.
Credit Card - Finns do not like to give credit card details over the Internet. In fact, very few Finns even have credit cards. You may find it best not to offer this option at all for Finnish traffic.
Preferred Content
Finns like it all. It is very rare to find content produced in Finland. When Finns find it they are much more willing to pay. So, if you've got it give it back to them (piece by piece and at a high price!). Latina content is also quite popular. After all, eventually all the blondes start to look the same.
Legal Issues
All content is legal except underage (below 18), animal, and hard violence.
Site Optimization
How should you optimize your site to convert Finns? Offer a wide variety of content, and, if possible, spice it up with local productions. Videos are quite popular for broadband surfers and sex toys sell well.
The majority of Finns speak English, so translations are not so important. However, localized front ends can triple Finnish traffic conversion. Not up for translating into Finnish? Consider partnering with a global traffic converter such as Nocreditcard.com for local, translated front ends and the full range of local billing options, with customized back ends to maximize revenue from all foreign traffic.
Adult Webmaster Networking
There are quite a few adult webmasters in Finland. You can easily find them on the popular BBSs you currently visit, such as GoFuckYourself. There are no major local adult webmaster boards in Finland.
In conclusion, the Finnish market has been growing and will continue to grow. Mobile billing is increasing its share of the billing market and mobiles are becoming the new way to view porn in Finland thanks to advanced mobile technology delivered over 3G networks. Localized versions of adult sites will also continue to grow, as will your profits once you take the simple steps outlined in this article to maximize your Finnish traffic. The next time someone asks you where Finland is, you can confidently say, "At my website, having a great time and paying me for it!"
The Worldwide Webmaster would like to thank Mika Laamanen of www.bar18.com for his invaluable contribution to this article.
Take the geographic literacy survey here:
news.nationalgeographic.com/news/
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