On May 1st Poland moved from the sidelines to center stage. It now has a central role in a dynamic economy – and no, it didn’t name Chicago* the new capital of Poland. As of May 1, 2004, Poland is now the most important new member of the European Union.On May 1st Poland moved from the sidelines to center stage. It now has a central role in a dynamic economy – and no, it didn’t name Chicago* the new capital of Poland. As of May 1, 2004, Poland is now the most important new member of the European Union. They’re one of nine new countries joining the EU, and they are the biggest, richest and the most “European” of the new members. The World Wide Webmaster recently visited Warsaw, Poland and saw sure signs of growth: expensive restaurants and construction everywhere. Not to mention some of the most beautiful women in the world, looking great in the latest European fashions.

POLES ONLINE

The Internet in Poland in 2004 looks a lot like it did in 1998 in North America and much of Europe. The key is that the number of new Internet users is still growing fast. Last year 25% more people came online than the year before, leading to a total of over 7 million net users as of January 1, 2004. This rapid growth will continue. There are still 31 million people yet to come online. Given 40% connection penetration (US and EU level) we can expect the number of net connections to double in the next couple of years as Poland catches up. This is a golden time to grow your adult business in Poland. But how to do it in a profitable way? Before we answer that question, we need to talk about how to get money from Polish end users and what the adult online industry looks like in Poland today.

BILLING

Most Poles, who earn about $10,000 a year on average (about half the European average), do not have a credit card. Telephone billing is the key to making money in the Polish adult market. The dialer used to be “the” payment solution for end users in Poland, but as with its neighbor, Germany, a few bad seeds committed fraud. These criminals gave the whole adult dialer industry bad press. The government, predictably, overreacted.

New telecom rules set the end user per-minute rate to US$0.93. This price is too high for the majority of Poles to use dialer billing to access adult sites. The only telecom billing tool available was regulated to an impossible price. Salvation appeared in 2003 – and it was in everyone’s pocket. It was telecom billing again – this time SMS billing. Today the primary payment solution in Poland is Premium-SMS. Prices per Premium-SMS range from US$0.25 to $2.29. The consensus estimate is that daily SMS volume for the adult Internet is 10,000 to 20,000 at US$2.29, or US$22,900 to $45,800 per day. The total size of the annual market for SMS access to adult sites in 2004 is estimated to be between US$8 and 15 million.

ADULT INDUSTRY PAST/FUTURE

Though the future looks bright today, Poland’s internet industry suffered setbacks from the beginning and the adult Internet industry was particularly hard hit. Three factors limited the early growth of the adult internet in Poland.

Internet industry growth was stunted by:Passive telecom – Polish telecom monopoly made internet access too expensive and rolled it out slowly (imagine AT&T as your only option).

Income tax – Pay the government tax even if you haven’t been paid.

Poor marketing – As if things weren’t bad enough already, the adult community hurt itself by giving away too much content for free, and giving too little content to the people who paid to enter a member’s area.

Today, the structural issues have been resolved. Poles can choose their ISP from among several competitors. The income tax is being updated so that you don’t pay taxes until you have been paid. However, the adult internet industry inside Poland has not yet fully recovered from its own mistakes. This has created opportunity for foreign webmasters. The way to enter Poland is to apply what you have learned in your own market – offer end users more for their money. That’s the wide open secret.

KAPTURING THE KIELBASA

How do you put it into practice? Follow these three easy steps to get your piece.

Step 1: Find a partner who can bill for the traffic you are going to attract.

Step 2: Go local by translating your sites.

Step 3: Get Polish end users to your sites.

BILLING PARTNER

Most billing companies you already work with don’t deal with Polish traffic. They blacklist the credit cards coming from Poland and may not have telephone billing. Nocreditcard.com accepts all forms of payment from Poland and is the only global billing solution for adult offering Premium SMS in Poland.

GO LOCAL

You have two options to get local. Either sort Polish traffic to a program that has already translated content areas into Polish, or hire a translation company, such as Porn Translation, www.porn-translations.com.

GET TRAFFIC

This may be easier than you think. Check your stats. Chances are you already have Polish traffic that you have yet to convert into cash. They’re there – ready and willing to pay you. First, set up the billing to let them pay you to enter your site. Then begin translating and watch your conversions and cash grow. Use browser language detection to deliver promotions translated into a language that Poles can read – or partner with a firm that offers this already. You can also find sources on the net for purchasing Polish traffic. Just post on the largest English speaking Polish board to meet traffic partners, www.sex-forum.net.

Grow with the EU and grow your business in Poland. Next month in World Wide Webmaster we will take you to another exciting and profitable market. See you then!

*For the last 50 years Chicago has had more citizens of Polish origin than any other city – inside or outside of Poland itself.

This article was originally published on Klixxx.

Andreas manages the German-speaking markets for Nocreditcard.com. Mitch manages the English-speaking markets for Nocredticard.com. Clay manages marketing at Nocreditcard.com. Founded in 1996, Nocreditcard.com works with some of the largest, most respected companies in the industry. It’s a recognized leader in turning traffic into cash both domestically and internationally.