Building And Monetizing Personal Digital Fan Clubs. Q&A with AdultHTML

The audience for adult performers is arguably one of the most supportive and engaged of any that is  around. Knowing this, some talents decide to tap into that resource to make as much bonus money as  possible. The great thing is you don’t need to be a marketing specialist or a business expert to make an  honest living out of the fans' support. There’s a reliable technique that many may consider an old-school  one, but it is actually a perfect option for the digital age. We talk about fan clubs which basically are  one-to-one communication channels branded for particular models and their fan bases. These channels  allow performers to stay connected to their fans and reach out to them directly with unique offers,  exclusive content, and different valuable “goodies”. To shine some more light on this topic we talked to AdultHTML, a design and coding company that has been collaborating with adult industry  representatives since 2009. 

A digital fan club is not a new concept, but what allows it to stay profitable these days? 

It is indeed not a new concept, but modern digital fan clubs are really different from what we’ve seen  before. Web technologies evolved dramatically and now they allow designers and coders to fulfill almost  any client’s request. If a cam model needs to build an all-in-one digital stop to capitalize on a fan base in  all possible ways they can get it. There are many monetization tools that can be integrated into a single  web platform. And using them, an adult content creator doesn’t have to share their revenue with a third  party, which is probably one of the biggest motivations behind launching your own fan club. 

What makes it possible to turn a digital fan club into a powerful money-making machine? A website like that can serve as: 

1. A platform with a membership area. There are several CMS that allow a web project to have this  feature. The scripts get regular updates and we’d say that with each of them it becomes easier  for site owners to manage things on their own. This way they can concentrate on other  important things like creating exclusive content, blogging, messaging, etc. 
2. A platform with a pay-per-clip option. You can use a digital fan club to sell clips and galleries as  well. This can be a great money-making tool on its own or an amazing addition to a membership  subscription feature. 
3. An online store. If you can sell videos and images on your site, why not sell some other branded  things like signed tangibles for example? There’s no need to create a whole new platform for  these needs, you can have a separate section dedicated to them within the existing digital fan  club. Once again building and managing this sort of a site is pretty easy these days. 
4. A promotion tool. Most of the time a model’s decision to launch a digital fan club (even a club  with all the features listed above) doesn’t mean they stop using popular camming sites and clip  sites for good. For many content creators, it’s just an additional source of revenue, and part of  that revenue can be made out of linking to other sites using affiliate/referral links. 

These options as well as some others can be available for a model on a single custom-made digital fan  club. Owning a site like that provides content creators with possibilities to strengthen their online  presence, build a personal brand, gain more control over it, and eventually make some good money.

What about the initial investments? Does it cost a lot to build a digital fan club? 

It all depends. Many things are taken into consideration: “How complex is the design?”, “How many  monetization tools are there to implement?”, “What kind of tools those are?”, “What kind of  technologies were chosen to create a particular platform?”, etc. It’s not a secret that it is cheaper to  create a site, using an online site builder. There are many of those around and some of them are quite  good, but relying on them you need to be ready to deal with some limits when it comes to site  functionality. Having a fully customized web platform is the only way to get rid of those limits. It can cost  a bit more, but it all pays off in the long run. 

Is a digital fan club the option suitable only for popular cam models with big audiences? 

Most of the time models who decide to launch their own digital fan clubs are content creators with big  enough loyal audiences to capitalize on and therefore to have resources for such an investment.  However, from our own experience working with adult industry representatives, we know that it is not  always the case. There’s a way to successfully face any challenge, so there’s a possibility to find a web  solution for a project of any scope and budget. Sure, not all the models can afford a big and  multifunctional version of a digital fan club, but even the simplest site of a high quality can be a great  promotion and monetization tool if you know how to handle it.