opinion

Hosting Talk: Scaling Back Intelligently

While some Internet-based adult companies continue to thrive, it’s no secret that the last six or seven years have seen the downsize of many adult companies and their affiliate programs with extensive (yet necessary) cost cutting. Staying competitive and comfortably afloat in this industry requires strategic decision-making, which often results in staff and budget cuts. And while it’s not pleasant, there are options for outsourcing that can help webmasters save money and cut costs without inadvertently cutting off their left foot.

There’s one department that often sees drastic budget cuts but truly should remain off the chopping block — or at least set to the side — and that’s IT. Nothing will destabilize your company faster than experiencing IT issues that you are no longer equipped to deal with. Full-time IT staff can be draining to maintain, both mentally and financially, but there are options to preserve your tech-savvy status while also downsizing your expenses.

There’s one department that often sees drastic budget cuts but truly should remain off the chopping block — or at least set to the side — and that’s IT.

Unless you are entirely withdrawing from the market and closing up shop, even a scaled-back web operation will have almost constant IT needs. Let’s suppose you operate an affiliate program that you’ve put into “maintenance mode” — meaning that you are still accepting traffic and paying affiliates for the sales they generate, but you aren’t really marketing the program anymore, or shooting new content. You’ll encounter support issues even when operating in such a limited capacity.

There also will be times when your stats are not reporting properly and you need to figure out why in a hurry, or the webmasters remaining on your program will start to jump ship. This is one of many key situations in which you need access to professionals that already understand your systems, which will save you time and money on multiple levels. Many IT professionals have moved from in-house to ad-hoc, offering part-time and as-needed service to multiple companies at a time. And chances are, the essential tech tools you currently use (i.e. your hosting company) have resources you can take advantage of to supplement the staff you’re able to afford. And that’s where a trusting relationship with a capable hosting company comes in.

Red Apple Media is equipped and experienced in picking up slack for clients in need to dedicated (but part-time) IT and even webmaster duties. We see the results of overzealous IT-trimming all too often and have swooped in to save the day, in a sense, countless times. It’s part of our customer service dedication and has inspired multiple clients to rearrange their IT department and rely on Red Apple Media’s talented IT professionals to provide key services. We already understand their websites, apps, tools and systems from the inside out (because it’s our job) and can easily, quickly and remotely handle any network or software problems they’re experiencing. All it takes is a conversation and a plan of attack and you can have a solid outsourced IT structure in place within hours.

We’re happy to help as much as we can, as our staff is capable of and experienced in acting as a go-between for clients and technology vendors — especially those that offer high-tech software and services. We find that clients without core IT contact points have a tremendous disadvantage to their more tech-grounded competitors.

Most major adult hosting providers offer “managed services.” That normally doesn’t include membership support, billing integration issues, CMS migrations or updates, or even consulting. Managed services means that, for the most part, hosting companies will keep your server(s) updated, protected, and help set up applications, FTP, email, or even help reduce spam as part of their hosting fees. You may sometimes need advanced support by a company that understands not only hosting and servers but how everything works behind the hardware and can take on the day to day activities.

Let’s say you run a small studio with only a handful of people. You may or may not have a full-time IT person on staff earning $40,000 a year before benefits, and you might find you no longer need a full-time person in-house or that you want to manage him or her. Or let’s say you run a small studio and already act as the recruiter, videographer, editor, and marketing person.

You simply don’t have the time to set up or manage an affiliate system or even handle member support questions. Maybe you merely want to redo your website to make it look and function in a more modern fashion with responsive design and are in need of a team to get it done fast without in-house delays. This is where outsourcing can play a key role, and these are the types of clients we help every day.

It’s not all doom and gloom. Sometimes the best time to build a business, start a new site, or expand is during the bad times. We’re all familiar with sites that stop promoting, expanding, and keeping the look and content fresh. They go from making gobs of money to mere dollars and soon just a trickle of bit coins, making less year by year until they sell or simply shut down. And then there are companies that remain leaders in the business because they reinvent themselves at key economic turns and make the effort to stay current and focus on their customers’ needs.

The bottom line is that no matter how much you cut back, if your company is still operating to any extent at all, you need IT people. At a bare minimum, you need people who can handle affiliate support, run your payout reports, do basic troubleshooting on your tracking software and stats reporting, and to handle your most basic coding needs.

You need someone who can offer internal tech support, answering questions and putting out the sort of minor “tech fires” that flare up in the normal course of business. Because if your network goes down, and you don’t have a competent IT staff in-house, you need a proactive plan B — and outsourcing is the logical solution.

Steven Daris is CEO and co-founder of Red Apple Media, a managed hosting, e-commerce and video streaming solutions provider.

Related:  

Copyright © 2024 Adnet Media. All Rights Reserved. XBIZ is a trademark of Adnet Media.
Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited.

More Articles

opinion

How to Halt Hackers as Fraud Attacks Rise

For hackers, it’s often a game of trial and error. Bad actors will perform enumeration and account testing, repeating the same test on a system to look for vulnerabilities — and if you are not equipped with the proper tools, your merchant account could be the next target.

Cathy Beardsley ·
profile

VerifyMy Seeks to Provide Frictionless Online Safety, Compliance Solutions

Before founding VerifyMy, Ryan Shaw was simply looking for an age verification solution for his previous business. The ones he found, however, were too expensive, too difficult to integrate with, or failed to take into account the needs of either the businesses implementing them or the end users who would be required to interact with them.

Alejandro Freixes ·
opinion

How Adult Website Operators Can Cash in on the 'Interchange' Class Action

The Payment Card Interchange Fee Settlement resulted from a landmark antitrust lawsuit involving Visa, Mastercard and several major banks. The case centered around the interchange fees charged to merchants for processing credit and debit card transactions. These fees are set by card networks and are paid by merchants to the banks that issue the cards.

Jonathan Corona ·
opinion

It's Time to Rock the Vote and Make Your Voice Heard

When I worked to defeat California’s Proposition 60 in 2016, our opposition campaign was outspent nearly 10 to 1. Nevertheless, our community came together and garnered enough support and awareness to defeat that harmful, misguided piece of proposed legislation — by more than a million votes.

Siouxsie Q ·
opinion

Staying Compliant to Avoid the Takedown Shakedown

Dealing with complaints is an everyday part of doing business — and a crucial one, since not dealing with them properly can haunt your business in multiple ways. Card brand regulations require every merchant doing business online to have in place a complaint process for reporting content that may be illegal or that violates the card brand rules.

Cathy Beardsley ·
profile

WIA Profile: Patricia Ucros

Born in Bogota, Colombia, Ucros graduated from college with a degree in education. She spent three years teaching third grade, which she enjoyed a lot, before heeding her father’s advice and moving to South Florida.

Women In Adult ·
opinion

Creating Payment Redundancies to Maximize Payout Uptime

During the global CrowdStrike outage that took place toward the end of July, a flawed software update brought air travel and electronic commerce to a grinding halt worldwide. This dramatically underscores the importance of having a backup plan in place for critical infrastructure.

Jonathan Corona ·
opinion

The Need for Minimal Friction in Age Verification Technology

In the adult sector, robust age assurance, comprised of age verification and age estimation methods, is critical to ensuring legal compliance with ever-evolving regulations, safeguarding minors from inappropriate content and protecting the privacy of adults wishing to view adult content.

Gavin Worrall ·
opinion

Account-to-Account Payments: The New Banking Disruptor?

So much of our industry relies upon Visa and Mastercard to support consumer payments — and with that reliance comes increased scrutiny by both brands. From a compliance perspective, the bar keeps getting raised until it feels like we end up spending half our time making sure we are compliant rather than growing our business.

Cathy Beardsley ·
profile

WIA Profile: Samantha Beatrice

Beatrice credits the sex positivity of Montreal for ultimately inspiring her to pursue work in adult entertainment. She had many friends working in the industry, from sex workers to production teams, so it felt like a natural fit and offered an opportunity to apply her marketing and social media savvy to support people she truly believes in and wants to see succeed.

Women In Adult ·
Show More