Are you a porn star? If so then this article is for you. These are some tips in marketing and branding to help you prosper in the new year.
#1 And this is a biggie – take control of your brand.
Make sure you get a hold of yourname.com and start using it. If your official website starts with a XXX or a Club anything, you failed. You need YourName.com PERIOD. Many years ago Jenna Jameson got ClubJenna.com because back then getting back ownership and control of YourName.com (ie: JennaJameso.com) wasn’t exactly easily done. She had to create ClubJenna.com. Since then times have changed greatly and so have laws and now I can’t tell you how many people are making the grave marketing and branding mistake of using any other domain name that isn’t YourName.com.
Also when you sign a deal with a network or any company then you must make sure you read the fine print on your contract in which you keep control of YourName.com, even if you two and the company part ways in the future.
#2 Make Love Not War
Sounds simple enough and really it is but make it a goal for the new year to avoid any sort of scandal and drama associated with your name. The more drama attached to you, the least likely movie studios are to hire you. That also goes for call times and scripts. When you are booked to show up on set at 10:00 am, BE ON SET AT 10 AM. If you were given a script in advance, READ IT. The more bullshit you bring with you on the set, like not being on time or not being ready to perform then the less likely you are to be booked by that company again in the future.
#3 Consider the booking type in advance
There are some people who have yet to learn the value of diluting their name. This is in part the reason why a Vivid girl is more valuable than a non Vivid girl, for the very simple fact that they aren’t everywhere. Part of their value is in the rarity of the product they are in. A Vivid girl won’t be in 100 or even 30 movies this year. In fact, a Vivid girl won’t even be in 20 movies this year. This means that the few movies she will be in, her fans will be sure to buy all of because they are her fans and they want to see more of her.
What I’m getting at is the more a porn star works it can have a long term negative effect on their value. So what can you do? Well website work is far more plentiful than DVD work and your value is far greater from working on a scene in a print DVD than just for a website, so a smart porn star will limit if not cut out all together any Internet only work and will only appear in scenes meant for DVD production.
Another problem is, if you are available on every website out there because you’ve done so much Internet work, you greatly devalue your own branded website YourName.com.
There is a star out there right now who comes to mind on this subject. She is blonde, big tits, very pretty and quite popular – I would say top 10 popular probably but her website doesn’t make half of what it could because there are so many websites out there they can already see her on. YourName.com may not be a priority for you now, but I promise the world doesn’t end tomorrow so you just can’t think about today. You have to very much consider your future and in the long term that will include a website. So stop being a dumb ass and taking a quick buck today for website work and as a result hurt your chances of making long term money.
If a company is what we call a real company, say like Vivid or Digital Playground or even Red Light District or Zero Tolerance – these are obviously real porn studios who yes, happen to have a website but their main product is still the DVD. These are all fine to do business with but when you come to companies like porn.com, Brazzers, Reality Kings, Naughty America … these are all web based companies who might at times produce some of their product on DVD but in the end their main goal is the improvement of their website. That’s all well and good. It doesn’t make them bad companies, in fact some of their sites are rather decent but like I said, it is probably best for your career not to continue to make scenes for them if you want to think about your long term viability and the profitability of your name.
#4 Don’t think you are better than you are
There is a porn star that comes to mind, well she’s not exactly a STAR, more like a new girl in the industry who really thinks the world revolves around her. She got booked for a Vivid feature film not to long ago and talked about it on Twitter. She mentions how funny it was that she didn’t bother to read the script they gave her. This is obviously a problem because when she got on set that would cause a delay in production and well time is money.
So they asked her when she got on set if she would perform an additional 15 minute dance for an app they were working on. She refused, demanding more money – despite already having cost the company far more than 15 minutes in delays since she was prepared. She caused a big scene and was eventually asked to leave the set, setting the company back an entire day in production of the movie they were working on. Oh and if that wasn’t enough the dumb bitch went on Twitter talking about how that company sucked for sending her home without pay for being a drama queen. DUH.
The adult industry isn’t all that big. People talk shit and the story of your mental instability will get around and as a result people won’t want to book you as much and that means you will lose even more money.
#5 Understand the importance of search engines
When having someone create you an official website you need to make sure they understand at least the very basics of SEO and don’t do something create an entire site in frames or totally flash. Or even worse, do something like Zoe Britton and create the entire thing in all frames and flash. Talk about an SEO nightmare. If you don’t understand by now that fans need to be able to search for you using a search engine, then really you need to hire someone who does because search engine’s are vitally important to the overall success of your career.
#6 The use of Nicknames on social networking sites is a mistake
Nicknames may be cute but when a fan goes looking for you they should be able to find you easily on social networking sites so always make an effort to use yourname or even yournamexxx if yourname isn’t available but when given the option always first chose YourName. For example www.Twitter.com/YourName or www.MySpace.com/YourName. Make it easy for fans to be a part of your life. ALWAYS KEEP MARKETING IN MIND WITH ANYTHING YOU DO!
#7 AND THIS IS A BIGGIE – Gross ticket sales matter for porn as much as they do for mainstream
Do you know why Will Smith makes as much money as he does for each movie he does? Simply put, because when he’s in a movie it’s almost a guarantee the movie will make a shit ton of money. Same goes with Julia Roberts and Angelina Jolie. Their name caries a lot of weight and it’s not just about being famous. It’s specifically about money. Jennifer Aniston is just as famous but her movies don’t make as much money as Angelina Jolie so as a result she doesn’t make half as much to be cast in a movie as Angelina Jolie does.
Let me be very clear here, the more money a movie makes that you are in, the more money you will make. How? Well because when the word gets out that YOUR movies are making money more people will want to book you and the more money you can charge per scene.
Let’s say a company casts you to do a feature film. You need to find out what you can do to help promote that movie, just like the real celebrities do in mainstream because every time a movie comes out in mainstream, the stars do the promotion round, doing all those interviews with talk shows, etc. So a smart porn star will volunteer to do promotional interviews for a feature film they are in because the more promo is out there for a movie, the more the movie will sale. The more money that DVD makes, the more people will want to book you because companies are about money and they always always want to go with stars they know will sale DVDs. Seriously. It’s just plain business. BE SMART. Remember this is a business and always do your part to promote any DVD you are in when it comes out.
Not only can you volunteer to do interviews to help promote the movie but you can also tweet about or post a photo or two on your myspace page. Tell fans about how fun it was to make that movie. Talking about a movie while you are making it won’t really help that much. Promote it as it becomes available on DVD.
Eva Angelina tweets about how great her movie Deviance was and as a result her fans have come out in droves to buy it. Sales for that movie have skyrocketed and retailers are going back to companies and telling studios, get me more Eva Angelina movies.
Smart porn stars understand that this is a business and will understand that it only benefits them if they go out on the promotion trail when they make a movie.
About The Author
Get a Twitter and a Myspace page and run it yourself. I have tried to find many Twitter pages of porn stars and many don’t have one. Get one before someone else does. And as you said, YOURNAME.com and not some other weird name.com. I tried to find a Twitter and Myspace account for Vivid’s Lia. Can’t find one! Smart girl!!!
I’ve tried for months, more so lately, to get a hold of female porn stars and to tell them to buy their domains. I even wrote down which ones are still available. A couple have written back saying thank you. Others wrote back saying they already bought some of their other domains which I didn’t list. One woman the other week said thank you so much and I’ll do it as soon as possible. But most won’t even write back. I don’t know if it’s just me and they’ve heard stories about me or if they don’t understand what I’m talking about. Is it hard to write back and say thank you so that at least I know you saw the message?
I’m glad you pointed out the gross ticket sales thing. I don’t think some porn stars realize how important they can be to the success of their careers with such little things like promoting the movies they make. If you take a half ass movie, and so many of them are such crap, and promote the hell out of it, chances are that movie will sell better and then guess what? More companies will want to work with you, driving up your booking rates simply because your movies sell.
People want to make movies that sell and if you help those movies along in the sales department then more and more people will want to work with you. So if you aren’t out there promoting every movie you make like it was the best movie *ever* then you are just crazy and only hurting yourself.
Darrah,
I believe Lia’s real myspace page is still myspace.com/netlia.
But, I totally agree with everything in this story and have told girls this myself but they only listen to what they want when they want.
Years ago I seen in interview with Jenna Jameson where she was talking about how she got famous. She was with Wicked Pictures and they didn’t really give her movies the promotion she wanted so she would go out and use a fake British accent to book herself on radio shows to promote her own movies even though they were actually Wicked movies. But anyway then she would like star in a movie that sold really well and then the next time around she would do the same. Eventually it came time to renew her contract and she was able to ask for way more. I always liked that story about Jenna Jameson. That is why she was a smart pornstar. Now she is worth like $35 million?
Thought of another great tip I forgot. STOP GIVING IT UP FOR THE FIRST GUY WHO ASKS. Dude seriously. Save some things for later on. I seen this chick the other day who has been in the business for about 5 movies now. She did her first anal for naughty america and you know what? Now she’s devalued herself to nothing. Had she not been a dumb ass, waited 1 year maybe even 2, when she did finally do anal it would have been worth something special and she would have gotten a nice pay day. What a dumb ass. Now she is going to take it in the ass for about as cheap as some of the smart pornstars are getting paid to go lesbo.
Can’t believe this post is still one of the most viewed more than a year later. LOL