Niche, Micro-Niche, Fetish, Way-Out, and Right-Out
In a generally over-saturated adult site market, webmasters who want to follow the money will likely find themselves traveling outside the box to find it. But, what's it like out there and how will you find your way around?
"Niche" is a very generic term, "micro-niche" is a new term, and "fetish" may be a misunderstood and loosely used term. The purpose here is to see if it's possible to sort out the many pigeonholes into which adult Web sites fall. Not because any webmaster wants to be pigeon-holed (that's a tall order anyway!), but in order gain some perspective and make sense of the incredible diversity of sites currently available-because you've got to know the territory in which you are selling.
What Is Niche?
A "niche" is just any specialty area or focus that a site wants to concentrate on, in order to target the market interested in that content. A niche may be so broad as to hardly deserve the name (e.g. hardcore or softcore), medium-specific (e.g. Asian or mature), or start to get quite precise, as in the case of most fetish sites. Niches are a way of addressing a particular market of surfers, and thus compete with the ocean of other sites out there.
Muffy [2002] has published a newbie's glossary of popular niches, from Amateur to Voyeurism. Niches can get very specific, until finally it's better to refer to them as "micro-niches." According to Kath Blackwell [2003], finally there are limits - you know when a micro-niche is too finely specified when you can't find a suitable sponsor who will work well with what you've created.
What Is Fetish?
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Fourth Edition, 2000) gives four senses of the term "fetish:"
1. An object that is believed to have magical or spiritual powers, especially such an object associated with animistic or shamanistic religious practices. 2. An object of unreasonably excessive attention or reverence: made a fetish of punctuality. 3. Something, such as a material object or a nonsexual part of the body, that arouses sexual desire and may become necessary for sexual gratification. 4. An abnormally obsessive preoccupation or attachment; a fixation.
The last three senses are the ones of interest here, giving two criteria for regarding a niche as "fetish:"
- An abnormal or excessive preoccupation
- Gets off on object or non-sexual body part
That's a little clearer, but still leaves a fair amount of wiggle-room, from two sources. First, there is leeway in both criteria-"excessive" and "abnormal" are open to interpretation and "gets off" can run from just occasional fun foreplay, to always absolutely necessary. Second, both these criteria apply to the market, which is broader than just true-blue kinks-it may include the curious, casual, intermittent, regular part-time, and full-time interested parties. But, fetish niches are different from garden-variety niches.
A Modest Proposal
Here, then, is a first shot at how all this content/market diversity might be partitioned-bringing the kaleidoscope into focus. First, let's distinguish non-fetish and fetish sites, with a gray area of "vanilla fetish" sites in the middle. Micro-niches and micro-fetish sites would involve even more specific combinations of the available niches. See the chart in the sidebar for an imperfect example of how this works. Here are the definitions that were used:
- Generic: These basic classes are very broad (Hardcore) or a media type (Movies) or could have any specific focus (Amateur-could be any type of amateur-guys, girls, next-door, biker babes, etc.).
- Niche: These are the basic types of sites and the component building blocks for micro-niches. More specific than the Generic categories, these include basic sexual orientation (Lesbian), ethnicity (Asian), age range (Mature), body parts (Boobs), and activities (Anal). Combine them, and micro-niches are produced (Mature Asian Lesbians).
- Vanilla Fetish: These include niches that are a bit off the beaten track, and/or have basic fetish elements. Here you find somewhat specialized and less usual topics that are better regarded as "specific interests" or "occasional indulgences," rather than real hard-core fetishes (although they can be).
- Fetish: Here are the true fetishes according to the definition. They include required aspects, such as "abnormal" (Infantilism), objects (Footwear), and non-sexual body parts (Feet/Toes), as well as the many derivatives of the basic BDSM fetish (e.g. Pony Girls). Micro-fetishes arise when combined with other categories, fetish or not.
- Extreme: Welcome to the Outer Limits of the adult Web. Not everything here is fetish, but all is in a class of its own. Included are the otherwise unclassifiable or super-micro-niches (Clown Porn), the bizarre (Mother Nature had a bad day), rare content (Amputees), topics most would find quite icky (Medical), or even disgusting (Scat/Vomit), areas of questionable legality depending on world locale (Zoophilia), and then the outright illegal and untolerated.
Many readers will disagree with some of the classifications, and they may well be right! But here's an example of the kind of thinking that went on. Legs are Niche because most everybody has two of them. Lingerie (stockings/pantyhose) is a Vanilla Fetish because the "object" is now involved in an otherwise very common interest (and there are legs inside them). Feet/Toes go into Fetish because they are as far away as you can get from the "naughty bits," and wouldn't be most peoples' first choice. Your comments, as always, are invited, at Klixxx.com
Developing Niche Fluency
Acclimatizing yourself to a new and unfamiliar niche is very much like engaging in international business-you need to learn the language, culture, history and current events of your new territory. Dino [2003] proposes the following steps for your research:
- Surf the niche to get a feel for it, and see what's out there
- Check out potential sponsors, request temporary passes
- Investigate the resource, community, and "fan" sites
- Look further, using general search engines such as Google
- Get a firm handle on the terminology used within the niche
Getting a handle on the terminology is essential in order to be convincing and effective with both surfers and search engines-you have to learn the language.
It's not impossible to convince someone who's "fluent" in a niche that you know what you're talking about. It just takes a little creative writing. For the most part, you're only really writing the body text for the search engine spiders anyway, but text linking for sponsors is the key here. If you have the right phrases, the right turn of phrase and the correct terminology, you're going to do a lot better than if you went into it blindly and hoped for the best. [Dino 2003]
The greater degree of niche fluency you can acquire, the better you will do with both surfers and search engines. Think of it just like visiting a foreign country-you might not know the language and be clueless there, or might know a few words from the little Berlitz phrase book, or might have studied up and developed reasonable fluency, which will dramatically improve once you spend some time in the country.
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Unrevealed Audiences
No matter how you divvy it up or otherwise make sense of it, the almost unlimited possibilities for targeted content is the webmaster's weapon against content saturation. And, niche sponsors can be mixed and matched in various profitable ways too. [Miss Gwendolyn 2002]
When competition gets unmanageable within a box, there are still opportunities outside it-opportunities yet to be discovered: "While other adult webmasters are trying to squeeze a few bucks out of over saturated markets-such as teen and hardcore-the savvy porn monger looks for an unrevealed audience." [Titmowse 2002b]
Ideas for searching out that unrevealed audience can be found in Fanshaw [2002], Titmowse [2002a, 2002b], and especially Blackwell [2003]. You probably never considered that Christian BDSM or freckles might be profitable markets. As "buy low, sell high" is the golden rule on the stock exchange, here it is "discover a new niche and get there first." Actually, as Connor Young pointed out quite recently, you may be able to offer something that is less available, or you may be able to do it better than what is already available:
If you identify an under-served niche, that means your target audience has a demand for a product or service that you could provide which they could not easily obtain elsewhere. Finding an under-served niche to exploit is comparable to striking oil-it's an ideal situation for an adult marketer because it reduces the effect that competition can have on sales revenues. Finding an improperly served niche can also be profitable. In this case, numerous other companies may offer products and services that on the surface seem to satisfy the demands of a certain niche, but in actuality the companies serving that niche don't fully understand the motivations of their audience, and thus produce an inferior product or service. [Young 2003]
Stranger in a Strange Land
For any webmaster's first site, most agree that you should start from what you know, and what you know floats your boat. Quite recently Kath Blackwell reiterated that sound advice:
Whatever you're into-you should get started right there. Build what you know-and seek out content and sponsors for things that turn you on. Developing your own personal niche as a webmaster starts from within. Whatever clicks with you-whatever jumps out from the screen... that's where you need to start. [Blackwell 2003]
Blackwell calls this the webmaster's own personal micro-niche, which in its straight-up, undiluted form may be totally unique-but no one has a better acquaintance with it than the owner, and a better chance to handle that niche right. However, inevitably it will be necessary to step outside this box to grow the business-what happens then?
Some are convinced that the webmaster then becomes a fish out of water, with little chance of success. Marie, of fetish content provider, Sex Story Text, says:
There are a lot of very experienced people in this industry who suggest that you can only sell in those niches that interest you. I have heard webmasters suggest that the only people who can sell in the various gay niches are gay people, while others suggest that if teens really turn you on then you couldn't possibly sell mature. [Marie 2003]
The more "extreme" the niche, the more chance that the natives will resent the intrusion, and the less chance that the webmaster will be able to gain a truly adequate understanding of it. Both factors mitigate against the site's success, and may be impossible to overcome: "Many entrepreneurs, hoping to cash in on this [fetish] dynamic, may unwittingly shoot themselves in both feet: this type of alternative sexuality can be difficult for "vanilla" types to understand, even if they've researched the subject." [Cohen 2002]
However, that view may be defeatist-and you are an enterprising entrepreneur ready to tackle any new business challenge. Do you have a chance? Probably. There are two factors contributing to e-commerce success within any niche-basic webmastering skills and the specific area understanding and expertise. Just as in the case of the seasoned salesman or marketer, basic webmastering skills are transferable. But, you've got to know the territory:
As long as you don't have a strong physical or psychological aversion to the niche there is no reason why you cannot be successful in selling in that niche. That doesn't mean that you can just march straight in and start churning out sites and make sales... You just need the basic selling skills and you need to understand what you are selling. [Marie 2003]
Brandon Palmer, writing in the February issue of Klixxx, provides a case in point. He says that your biggest enemy is competition, and that the largest online segment, the adult straight market, is packed to an extent that standing out, and generating revenue, is harder than ever. "What many owners don't realize is the enormous untapped potential of the online gay adult market. Regardless of your sexual orientation, you can succeed if you know what you're selling, and how to cash in on the latest trends." What is required, he says, is:
- An intimate understanding of this sophisticated market
- Close attention to quality and member support
- An honest and straightforward approach
- An understanding of the niche you're trying to reach
That is, with good Web business sense and a good understanding of the niche, anyone has a chance: "With a little know-how and effort, even the straightest webmasters can cash in on this highly lucrative market." [Palmer 2003] So the adult Web remains a land of opportunity for all. Some advice on gaining that niche-specific know-how is in the sidebar. Finding that untapped unrevealed audience is limited only by the depth of your market knowledge, business savvy, and most especially, your imagination and creativity.
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