Sex Sells. But what is it selling?

After spending some time browsing some popular social sites such as MySpace and YouTube, it’s ever more apparent to me that sex sells. What it sells isn’t always clear, but what is clear is that no matter what you’re selling or promoting, if you have an element of sex or the hint of sex, you’re going to generate interest. Now I’m not talking sexual acts, it’s more about sexuality and the lure.

Now I don’t know if this works the same for women as it does for men. As a man, I’m going to focus on my perspective. A picture or a video of a half naked man isn’t going to draw me to look at something. If anything it might actually prevent me from looking. However, you make that a half naked woman, and, I’m interested. It’s just like driving by a car accident. You hope that nobody’s hurt, but you just have to look.

As someone who needs to promote services that have nothing to do with sex or porn or anything like it, how do you get the same level of interest in your product or service as those with a sexual element? Is it possible? Do you need to incorporate some sort of sex teaser? I’ve noticed that any photo or video that has anything to do with nudity or near nudity gets about ten times the views as everything else.

I know that humor is a distant second and then there’s everything else. Either way it’s difficult. For example, I have a website that is a C2B referral source. There’s nothing much sexy about it. There’s nothing too humorous either. It’s just a resource for helping people locate the best locally owned and operated businesses. I continually promote the site, but I feel that my efforts don’t yield as high a return as I might like.

So what am I to do? Should I always include photos of barely dressed women in my ads just so I can get people to look? Should I include teaser lines that hint that a video is about sex so people will watch? Here’s the dilemma. If I start adding a sexual element to my marketing and people start watching more, will it ultimately work against me because now my business doesn’t have the same legitimacy? Will I have offended others who don’t want to be exposed to that subject matter?

It’s a tough call when as a marketer you want to get as many eyes as possible on your product or service. I’ll think about it some more. I may even experiment with some bikini babes in my ads. I’ll let you know how it works out. Oh, by the way. If you’re interested in finding the best locally owned and operated businesses, visit: http://iswami.com

Until next time, I’m Tony Rose.