YNOT – We all know the world of adult entertainment can be a tough one, which is why any business that manages not just to survive but also to succeed is worth applauding.

Next Door Entertainment will celebrate its fifth anniversary in November. YNOT sat down with the company’s president, Stephan Sirard, to chat about the secrets of success.

YNOT: Please give us a brief history of Next Door Entertainment and how it got to where it is today.
Stephan Sirard: It all got started five years ago when I partnered with Gamma Entertainment in Montreal. At that time I owned an adult modeling agency, FCF Agency, and was producing content for my own websites, Next Door Male and Next Door Buddies. At the same time, Gamma was looking to invest in building a gay cash program and expand their reach in the gay adult market. It was a match made in heaven. I was able to bring expertise on the gay market and Gamma was able to provide the technical expertise to develop winning online products.

From that initial partnership came Next Door Buddy Profits, our gay adult affiliate program. And now, five years later, that initial partnership approach has become the cornerstone of our business. Since then, we have always taken the approach that it is simply good business for gay adult companies to work as partners and co-operatively build each other’s businesses instead of competing with each other.

Today, we are working together with great content production partners such as Next Door Studios, COLT Studios, Falcon Studios, Male Digital and Hot House Entertainment. Their brands and focus on delivering high quality content, combined with the gay adult marketing expertise that we have developed, have been at the heart of our success in the past five years. That approach has allowed us to keep growing in a very tough business environment and has enabled our partners to develop new ways of managing their online business to reduce costs, increase revenues and make them more competitive.

Explain How Next Door Buddy Profits works.
What makes Next Door Buddy Profits exciting and sets us apart in our industry is the partnership approach we have taken in building it. We have developed a philosophy that affiliates are our partners, and when they are successful, we are successful.

For example, we have invested in developing unique new products focused on content niches that enable every webmaster looking to promote gay content the ability to target their traffic’s specific tastes. In addition, we have developed partnerships with some of the world’s best content producers, ensuring the quality of the content our affiliates promote is second to none.

These types of things matter a lot in a world dominated by free and pirated content and a flood of low quality content. Our affiliate partners have access to the best of the best gay content from producers such as COLT, Falcon, Hot House, Male Digital and Next Door. When it comes to converting traffic to sales, these are the brands and the quality content that deliver the best financial returns for our affiliate partners, because these brands have a higher degree of awareness and trust amongst consumers.

We have also invested heavily in providing our affiliate partners with personalized account management, promo tools and promotions. That hands-on approach is behind our tagline line, “An affiliate program unlike any other.” That is not just a catch phrase to us. It is really how we think when it comes to delivering a superior level of customization and attention for our affiliate partners.

In our five-year history, we have been a consistent and trustworthy partner with our affiliates. We pay our affiliates on time, we develop niche sites that enable them to target their traffic, we reach out and work with them to create customized promotions and we continue to invest in their success.

We have been very lucky to have great affiliate partners, and during the coming months as we celebrate our fifth anniversary, we will be hosting some unique events for them. We are kicking off our fifth anniversary celebrations on Nov. 3 in Toronto with a special affiliate event at the world-renowned gay bar Woodys. We will host a series of special events during the coming months, culminating in a great party at the 2012 Phoenix Forum.

What does Next Door Buddy Profits do to help its webmasters attain and maintain profitability?
We have been focusing on three key strategies to help our affiliates make the best use of Next Door Buddy Profits.

First, we have focused on delivering exclusive sites, exclusive content and exclusive brands that enable our affiliate partners to offer something truly unique.

Second, we have been developing new niche sites that provide them with products and content to suit every type of consumer taste. Targeting their traffic to the appropriate product makes a big difference in the ability to convert traffic to sales.

Third, we have developed special and exclusive promotions that are targeted to their surfers. In the coming months, we will be introducing a series of other conversion tools within our sites that will enable affiliates to convert their traffic to sales even better.

Where would you like Next Door Entertainment and Next Door Buddy Profits to be in the next few years?
In the next few years, we will continue to focus on delivering a high quality product. That will be our key differentiator. Simply stated, we will deliver a better option for consumers in terms of the quality of the content, the user experience and the consumer’s ability to engage and interact with our models. These are the things that are worth paying for and that they cannot get from free and pirate sites.

What do you see on the horizon for the industry? Any problems webmasters should start looking at now to avoid headaches later?
The affiliate world has changed in the past five years. In today’s environment, the affiliate field is becoming more and more dominated by larger traffic generators. Five years ago, there were smaller affiliates who could make a decent dollar sending traffic, but today, traffic is the key differentiator and the advantage goes to those with large traffic.

Also, we have seen a need to be more responsive and personal in the management of affiliates. We have responded to that with more dedicated staff, more targeted promotional tools and more investment in content that will convert for affiliates. We are still strong supporters of the affiliate model and will continue to invest in making it a successful partnership for our affiliates and our content partners.

Piracy of copyrighted content remains a big threat to our industry, and along with the affiliates, we all need to ensure that we are working together to ensure we close every door available to pirates. For example, we are working with Porn Guardian at this time to search out and remove copyrighted content from illegal sites.