PHOENIX, AZ – Following on the heels of this morning’s traffic seminar, day two of the Phoenix Forum continued with the Gay Site Marketing Seminar, moderated by CCBill’s Patrick Curran. The panel was comprised of Lisa Turner from Bad Puppy, Rainey Stricklin from PrideBucks, Brian Dunlap from Bionic Pixels, Reena Patel from Naked Sword, Andy Fair from Dirty Boy Video and Karl Edwards from Bedfellow.Full of hot topics, one of the elements covered by the seminar was the question of community standards and laws. Since those standards differ from community to community, the question becomes one of personal decision rather than of absolute law.

Edwards noted that the sodomy laws are obviously not a factor for straight porn, but that when it comes to marketing gay porn, the community standards are more relevant.

In an effort to determine the community standards in their region, Turned explained, “We go shopping at adult bookstores in our area all the time to see what’s on their shelves, what kind of magazines are available and the type of content that’s generally accepted and sold.

Edwards added, “We’re often riding the edge between the laws and acceptability.”

The talk turned to options and possibilities for offline marketing, including print publications as well as covering mainstream events to generate publicity and attention to their gay adult product.

Turner mentioned that the mainstream market is open to receiving their marketing. “We do lots of promotion in mainstream, from advertising in print publications to attending or participating in mainstream gay events.”

Edwards noted that establishing a brand name in mainstream can “take time, a long time.”

“Don’t go blow all your money on one full page color ad in a magazine and then turn around after that discouraged and say ‘print doesn’t work.’ I would suggest you take that budget and spread it out over four issues with a quarter page ad instead,” offered Turner.

“The gay community is more open to sex and there are so many avenues and events for offline promotion,” added Stricklin.

“The gay community is (generally) more sexualized, and it’s a little easier to penetrate with advertising for porn,” said Dunlap.

Asked about their strategies for advertising, Turner said, “We use different ads and target our audience by choosing the publications, and we use different models to appeal to as wide as audience as possible.”

Patel offered a different perspective. “We’ve been focusing on branding. We use the same logo and the same look to our ads to be recognizable. We’re trying to be everywhere with our brand.”

Moderator Curran turned the topic to the question of whether gay companies would consider building and marketing straight sites, the way that some straight site companies have added gay sites to their roster of sites.

While not quite unanimous, the panelists agreed that while there was potential for development in that direction, the marketing is vastly different and requires appropriate marketers who understand how to sell straight sites. However, noted Fair, adding links from a gay site to straight or gay-curious sites can provide good results.

Patel said they had intentions to work more closely with straight companies, but noted that it would potentially scare away their gay members if they were to “dump a whole bunch of straight content into the gay sites.”

“If you can partner up with the right people,” said Dunlap, “then it can work.”