Someone recently approached me and asked me for help with their Onlyfans. It turned out that his specific page was a market that I have no specific experience in, so I couldn’t provide much help. I don’t know anything about gay male prostitutes, and I was honest with him about it. He was very hostile about it and it became very clear to me that he had no basic knowledge of marketing. I wondered how many others like him didn’t understand this fundamental concept of “target audience.”
Look, there is no one ‘adult industry’. We are a collection of various smaller industries. I know people like to talk about the adult industry as if we’re just one big entity, but we’re not.
What works for one person may not work for another. Not all niches in porn are the same, and our potential buyers are different.
If you are in the market to buy shoes, it would be pointless for me to sell you a dress.
They are two very different products. Sure, you can technically wear both shoes and a dress, but ultimately they’re not the same.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution to marketing adult content to consumers. Every market is really different. Generic marketing advice does not always work for this reason.
Each niche in our industry has its own target group.
A man who is interested in a blonde MILF with big tits will not be interested in gay male porn.
Most people get that part. But what most people miss is that the buyers themselves are different and have very different motivations.
And that’s the part you hyper-focus on.
To really reach that high level of success, you need to understand your target audience and partly understand how your target audience (your potential buyers) is different from those in other genres.
Social media platforms like Instagram tell us very basic information about our target audience, and that’s always a good starting point. Simply open your IG app and view your follower stats from your dashboard. It will tell you if they are male or female, what their age range is and where they come from.
You can also find this out using Twitter analytics (again, very basic information, but something is better than nothing).
- Instagram insights: View data about your followers’ age, gender, location, and activity times.
- Twitter analysis: Shows age, gender, country of origin and times when your followers are most active.
- Facebook audience insights: Provides detailed demographic breakdowns, including education, relationship status, and job titles.
- YouTube Analytics: Shows viewers’ age, gender, geographic location, and device usage.
- TikTok Analytics: Provides data on followers’ gender and location.
I have a girl I work with who has an abnormally large number of followers from New York.
Someone from New York will be very different in personality than someone from Texas. Knowing that she has a large New York following, she would be smart to target her messages to a more urban, fast-paced audience that likely values sophistication, trendiness, and directness in communication. New Yorkers often appreciate content that gets straight to the point, fits current trends and provides quick value or entertainment.
On the other hand, if her audience were primarily from Texas, she might lean toward content that feels more relaxed and community-oriented and that reflects Texas values like hospitality and tradition.
By understanding these nuances, she can create messages, images and offers that resonate more deeply with her followers, ultimately driving engagement and sales.
It’s not just about what you post, but also how you post it. Consider the tone, style and even timing of messages so that they fit the lifestyle of your audience. Knowing your audience at a granular level can help you turn generic followers into loyal communities and, more importantly, turn them into paying customers.
This is why it is important to not only understand your audience, but also take into account the advice that so-called marketing gurus give you. Do they really understand YOUR audience?
I’ll be the first to tell you that I don’t know the ins and outs of every niche in the adult industry.
I can tell you that there are many niches, and everyone has their own unique target group. The advice I post about is often aimed at mainstream female performers or adult content creators.
I have no experience or expertise in the amateur BBW market, the trans market, or the gay male market. If you need help taking your game to the next level and you work within one of those niches, you need to find someone who knows the markets well.
Why?
Because bad advice can be devastating.
You just have to look the latest Jaguar commercial to learn that lesson.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great commercial, but it misses the mark when it comes to reaching and resonating with the typical Jaguar buyer. And that’s the lesson here. They made this great commercial. But if that ad resonates with your potential buyers and actually has the opposite effect of turning them away from you, then you’ve simply done more harm than good.
And this, my friends, is why you need to know who your target audience is. You want to know who your potential buyers are, what they like and don’t like.
Spend the time on your research.
I promise it will be worth it in the long run.
