We are in need of online marketing/promotions for our dating/social networking site. www.Ell-asia.com went online June 2006. We now have over 19,000 registered members. The split in profiles is about 11,000 female and 8,000 male. Since June last year we have averaged 60 registered members per day. We have reached the point in the development of the site that we must charge a nominal monthly fee of $9.95 USD to the male members. It remains free for everyone to register their profile and to browse all the members profiles. The fee is for the communicating with the other members. It's a good clean site but its not "known" yet. What's the best way we can be known to the Dating/Social Networking world?
The overall site concept continues to develop and is currently about 3% developed.

Hello,
I'm a student at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania doing research on online dating sites. Specifically, I'm looking at the best marketing tactics for use in the start-up stage. If anyone can answer any of the following questions, I'd really appreciate it.
*Are there any tactics that every start-up dating site must use (besides SEM)?
*Is there a difference in tactics for paid vs. free dating sites? Can a dating site even start off as a paid site or does it need to begin free in order to build a user base?
Thank you,
Sara

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Sara Paccamonti
Wharton School of Business
Class of 2009

I do not believe there is are any major tactics on what form of advertisement that should be used by paid and none paid dating sites. As both of them gears toward getting customers. However, I believe that honesty in any advertisement is the best tactics that you can us.

_________________
http://www.yourchristianzone.com

I spoke with Sara and she is 'for real'

She is really a college student at Wharton doing summer research on the topic of online personals and advertising.

Anyone that can help here with some advice I think would help her a long way.

Marc Lesnick
Conference Organizer
Internet Dating Conference

What kind of research is she doing and what kind of help does she want.

Be a little bit specific

_________________
http://www.yourchristianzone.com

Online Dating Magazine estimates that 99% of new online dating services will fail. We see anywhere from 2-8 new online dating services launching every single day. Some of those are serious efforts and some are from people who purchased a template off of eBay and think they'll be the next Match.com simply by uploading the template.

Most important in starting a new online dating venture is members. Without members, you will never succeed. To that end, we suggest starting local. Don't try to take on the whole world first - focus on your local area. Get the local media involved in promoting it, set up some local events, take out ads in your local newspaper and on your local radio stations.. Consider some local Cable TV ads, which are usually cheaper than most people think.

The local connection is vital because that allows you to build a successful venture then expand it out. Maybe your next step is to promote your local state or province, etc.. By building an active database of local users first, you give yourself an advantage going forward.

Yes, web marketing and search engine optimization are important, but not when you don't have a userbase. Those efforts should be secondary to your local efforts and local expansion.

Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg when starting a new dating service...

Cheers,


Joe Tracy, Publisher
Online Dating Magazine
Online Dating Industry Journal

Columnist,
Inside the Online Dating Industry

There are so many bid successful dating websites all over the world, it's a challenge to compete with them. only if you can find a specific field that people never touch more.

Free dating sites on the internet are a great way to communicate and meet new people. There are many sites which are not actually free dating sites, but they are serving the same purpose too. These are many social networking sites, matrimonial sites and friendship sites. These are free, so these seem better to people to use for virtual, or real in the long run, dating purposes. But people on these sites are not always interested in dating. So it becomes tricky and complicated to actually find people who would be interested. If you are adding people for this purpose, maybe the next person is not there for the same purpose.