Escort Industry Brand

These days we hear a lot about Brands, Branding, Escort Brands. Everyone has a brand but what is a brand? Why do you need a brand? What is a Niche?

Whilst having Twitter and 1 Escort advertisement is technically a Brand it’s not really enough in today’s market if you want long term success.

What is a brand?

Brand = Marketing and interactions

A brand isn’t a logo or a brand name. Your brand is everything you do

It’s how your business is perceived in people’s minds. It’s how people think and feel about your business and what you do.

Digital Marketing and branding influence that perception, but your brand exists whether you actively market your business or not. If you’re out there and people are interacting with your business, you have a brand.

Brand perception is influenced by Digital Marketing so being the first thing people see you want to use it to optimise and ensure people think and feel about your business in a good way before their first interaction with you

Keys for a Successful Escort Brand

In Australia, where I am based, is a market flooded with adult-related activities and I hear from many ladies that they are barely making ends meet.  I also know a few ladies at the other end of the spectrum who are absolutely killing it!

If you do not have the skills to do these things I would suggest paying a professional business with proven Adult Branding and digital marketing skills such as Atlantic.

With 20 years of Escort mentoring, we know a few things about how to be a success.

If you don’t want to pay for services then read all the blogs I write for Sarahs2cents & follow the links that are in the blogs & read those too.

Check out my blog ‘How to get free ads‘ to see a good big list of places you can promote for free once you have an Adult Website

Why are some doing so well whilst others barely afford rent?

It takes time to build a brand and the escort industry is quite saturated so a brand strategy is imperative to get ahead

I have written quite a lot of blogs year on Sarah’s 2 cents that can help you learn about the brand, advertising and so forth.

I wrote one blog ‘what an adult advertising site does‘ (which included a little on SEO & Adult branding) but for this one I thought I would delve a bit more into the importance of having a brand that is your Escort Niche and follow it up with a blog on how adult branding clients actually find us online

What is a Niche?

When I started in the adult industry in London almost 2 decades ago, everyone was ‘high class’, most were £300 for the 1st hour and there were maybe 5-10 online agencies. 

Some of these agencies are still around today; Hamiltons, The Gallery, Carmens Secrets, Aprov

Most profiles had words like ‘classy’ ‘elegant’ ‘elite’ ‘loves the opera’ ‘a lover of fine art’, all the posh things that all went with a ‘high class’ style of Adult Brand marketing to appeal to gents who could afford £300+ an hour. 

Escort Agencies wanted clients in Knightsbridge, Chelsea and surrounding affluent areas of London so adult marketing targeted the Posh

At an Interview I said to a lovely lady; ‘I love your profile on The Gallery, your photos are gorgeous!  I was looking today at TimeOut this morning and saw an ad for Swan Lake, maybe we could go see it?’

Her reply was ‘What’s Swan lake?  I said ‘oh it says on your profile you like ballet?’.  She replied ‘I would never go to the ballet unless I was being paid to go, I hate that shit lol’

Rookie move on my part lol  I didn’t know that adult profiles were mostly nonsense

After getting to know this lady I learned Grace was a Posh British former model who was very fond of kink.  I would never have known from her profile which meant clients didn’t either. 

She hates ballet, and she hates the opera but she is very happy in thigh-high boots and wearing a strap-on. 

The phones went a bit crazy for Grace once I styled new photos and did her marketing

When I started Atlantic Companions in 2002, I chose Atlantic because it started with A, and also as it was the ocean between the USA and the UK.  American clients are always great and I was planning on adding USA cities once we were established in London

Rather than use a sexy name I went with something discreet.  Atlantic Companions was our ‘official name’ but Atlantic is how we were mostly referred to.

Atlantic is a brand name that could be anything not necessarily something saucy…

I used truthful information, which at the time was rather strange. 

Of course, I left out things for discretion purposes but most of it was truthful or close.  I put ages as early ’20s, mid ’20s, late 20’s.  Late 20’s meant anyone late twenties or over.  In those days no one was ever listed as over 25.  If you were 50 you were still listed as 25.   Nobody ever would dare use a number starting with 3 LOL

This honesty made Atlantic stand out.  We used real & recent photos, with very little airbrushing (a bit of colour correction but not much else)

Since the beginning, Atlantic has been honest.  This attracted clients but also ladies who wished to be represented this way.  The majority of ladies who applied to work with Atlantic did so due to word of mouth, either a client or a friend.   Many applied via our website after seeing our adult brands online

I have always loved styling photo shoots and have styled over 500 photoshoots

Agency Atlantic always had photos that were different.  When some advertising sites have 100s of ladies online you need to stand out.  I once styled a set of photos where the lady was laughing & smiling – The feedback we got was ‘OMG a fun real person!’  Back then nobody smiled in their pics.

I did double photos which nobody had done at this time.  I also tried things that weren’t standard sexy pics.  I once made a top out of Pink Bondage Tape that the lady wore with white jeans and a big smile; a 3 girl photo where one girl was wearing a collar and kneeling at the feet of the other 2 ladies who were both dressed like ladies that lunch lol  Classy & Kinky

Agency Atlantic had primarily part-time ladies who were clever, attractive and empowered.  With degrees and corporate jobs working part-time in the adult industry is a side hustle. Total Bossbabes!

Atlantic didn’t make sense in the market at the time which made our Escort Brand very strong. 

Our niche was part-time adult industry workers with careers who were smart, fun and friendly.

Standing out with photos and sticking to our Niche increased our market share.

It made perfect sense to me but then I have always loved doing different things & in my own way.  I have never been a sheep, I like to learn and also try things to see what works.

Some things I have tried have failed but failure is part of running a business.  Not everything works!

When I started Atlantic the Adult industry was small. The internet was just starting up so I pushed the envelope with digital which was great fun for a web nerd like me :)

Agencies were mostly offline with ads in the newspapers.  Technology and digital were pretty new not everyone had a computer and there was no such thing as a smartphone or even social media!

Things have changed so much. Now were are bombarded daily with so many images & content. Sometimes it’s a bit overwhelming trying to keep up

In 2002 being a web nerd meant I was able to create online things that nobody was doing yet

I looked at real-world ideas like frequent flyer programs & coffee cards. I came up with a member program idea. 

I created a separate gallery of hidden photos that were only available to members, as well as other things like services lists (they were never public back then just discussed over the phone). 

I also tried adding a chatroom (it was shit, the internet was too slow) and I had a photographer mate shoot a video but we couldn’t get that to work either, technology simply wasn’t there yet!

For members, I started a frequent booking program where gents would get a 20% discount on their 10th booking.  I also did public promotions like Wild Wednesday; where one lady would be available for a 20% discount

All these things made Atlantic stand out!

We were different!  I had a fab team of girls, who were lovely and wanted to be top of their game.  I mentored and coached them, they listened & learned and went on to become great adult industry workers.

Very few start on day 1 as unforgettable and the best ladies have learned all the small things that make a meeting wonderful for a client.  Simple touches like having wine and candles help make a meeting more memorable for a client

I have always believed it’s my job to make them money as well as keep them safe and sane!

Discount promotions have never been an issue for me as I am not money-hungry.   Discounts came out of Atlantic fee never the ladies so it was a win-win for everyone

Atlantic was able to stand out for all the right reasons but it was easier to do back then as there were a lot fewer online sites.

Atlantic had its niche & it was successful. 

I was honest, transparent and straightforward.  I treated ladies and gents with respect and represented primarily part-time ladies who were smart & fun.

Have a point of difference

As an Escort Agency, we had a point of difference

All the ladies were individual adult brands within the Atlantic Brand so it was Carla Minx @ Atlantic.  Rather than having each lady as a solo brand of her own, it was working together that kept the Atlantic brand strong

If girls changed agencies I would often see them promoted with the Atlantic name ie Formerly Carla Minx @ Atlantic

I also created a website named PureBrit.co.uk that was for British adult industry workers only.  The site had both Atlantic and independent adult workers

Some current Atlantic clients have been booking with me since the beginning and some I have known for 10 years or more and some of the girls have been working with me on & off for over 5 years

Nowadays many are clever as f*ck, many are part-time and the industry is so much more diverse.  So creating a niche brand is a little more difficult than having some tech skills and being honest lol

The biggest failure you can have in life is making the mistake of never trying at all

Create your Escort Brand

When Lucie Bee started working with me. I asked her what she did with her time in real life. She said she did Cosplay (I had no idea what that was so I had to google it) and that’s how her nerd cosplay porn star brand was born.  It was a unique niche that truly got her noticed

I have worked with a couple of memorable heavily tattooed ladies; Jasmine Eve & Evelyn May.  Often ladies would remove their tattoos from photos but instead, we focused their Brand on the Tattoos; they were promoted as Tattoo Models

Off the top of my head; Some of the stand-out Australian ladies I can think of are

• Christine McQueen aka CMQ. She has an acronym FFS so yeah that’s a cool brand
• Charlie Forde clever, pretty and rather zany Pole Dancer and Porn Star
• Phoenix Chase with her glamour yet tattoo edgy coolness
• Piper Jackson who is always so super positive, smiley and happy

That’s how I see these ladies’ brand anyways.  I am sorry ladies if I got it wrong?

For me, these ladies stand out as being cohesive brands; they promote themselves in a way that shows us who you will meet when you book a meeting

That’s what a brand does – It makes us think of that person or website when we are looking for something and we generally use google or social media search to find them

Push & promote your Brand

Like most ladies, I love shoes.   If I am wanting to find shoes on the internet I usually check my favourite brands first (Manolo Blahnik, Sophia Webster, and Chanel. I may also look at my favourite stores, Net-a-porter, Harrods, Bergdorf Goodman

If I was less brand loyal and just wanted to find a shoe shop I may try ‘shoe store near me’ or ‘shoe store near me’

Just as branding is important for shoes, Escort branding is also very important as it is where you can really stand in a sea of many.  According to this article in The Business Insider, there were 40-42 million sex workers in 2012

I hope you found this blog helpful