Yes, online dating is a goliath of an industry today, but what's it gonna take for us to GROW?!

Will there be tech innovations? What keeps singles from online dating now? Are there other revenue streams to leverage?

Good Question.

That's exactly what the Internet Dating Conference tries to uncover.

Increasing this business requires increasing 3 things:

- Customer Retention
- Conversions (sales)
- Web Traffic

One way to double the business is increase customer retention. The average customer spends 3-4 months on a dating site then is gone. If you can get 6-8 months, you've just doubled the business.

Conversions are also huge. Sites get a ton of web traffic, but converting them to paying customers is a science. That is a far detailed subject.

Last is web traffic, which I think is where your question was aimed. That requires marketing. Some of the larger companies are expending enourmous sums of cash marketing. Some are specifically targeting certian markets. Cupid.com targets Radio. eHarmony targets Television. Lavalife and Match.com are focusing on billboards in metropolitan areas. It appears that branding is their strategy to more traffic. Other firms are gaing traffic via more economical means (ie: affiliate programs).

The online casino business does not double overnight. Neither will this business. But the industry does have the press favorably reporting on it quite often. That does help.

Marc Lesnick
Conference Organizer
Internet Dating Conference

Is it really realistic to increase average membership time? I mean the more successful your site is at matching someone up the sooner they will be off your site and no longer looking for a partner.

It is possible to double the retention time. You need to offer more.

For example, Gay.com is a huge community site as well as an online dating site. Although people may be looking for dates, they will remain for other aspects of what the site offers.

I didn't say it was easy. But it is possible.

Marc Lesnick
Conference Organizer
Internet Dating Conference

"Although people may be looking for dates, they will remain for other aspects of what the site offers. "

That hits it right on the head. The trick is to build an online community, not a meat market. We've been building online communities pre-internet (yes, during the prehistoric days of dial-up) so I sure of what I am talking about. When people feel they belong to a community, your retention skyrockets. There are plenty of tricks to doing this. Feel free to stop by our site for more info (www.netvillage.com), or write me at nate@netvillage.com[/quote]

I agree. Value Added services will keep daters returning to the affiliate website.

With the right products, the operater can improve the cashflow by reducing the size, and impact of customer churn. They may even be able to claw back customers

According to wide-spread statistics, it will take five years to double the industry profit. However, since the past year has seen a growth in other social networking abilities integrated into a few sites, the statistics would be contingent on this trend.

One plan we have in Phase II is to integrate our users ability to have an anonymous blog which appears on a completely different blog site. This way the blog site can be independant for users who do not want to sign up for online dating, and it also provides us a wonderful advertising opportunity.

What do you think of this idea?

This is where a secure email solution is a good idea. We can provide Dating operators with the technology and/or the service that will help not only retain customers, but also claw back old customers.

How?

We have designed our service to allow the member to take their secure email account with them even if they close their dating account. This ensures that the dating operator continues to receive a residual income.

Excellent read!

The first thing you have to do to double your dating net income is invest in good domain names.

Instead of paying millions of dollars on advertising on tv or paying millions of dollars advertising on google and yahoo; you should invest in good domain names so that you get quality targeted traffic for a life time.

TV ads dont run for life unless you are willing to spend millions; yahoo and google ads dont run for life either unless you are willing to pay big bucks.

I have seen eharmony.com and match.com ads on tv.....99% of people watching those ads are NOT interested in your ads.

I want to sell the following dating domain names for a
total price of one million u.s. dollars.

meetpeople.com
singlewomen.com
singlemen.com
meetgirls.com
meetlocals.com

Five domain names for only one million bucks!

100% of people who goto these domain names are looking to meet someone.....you will get this targeted traffic for life.

Please help spread the word at idate 2005 conference.

If you find any serious buyers, please let me know.

Thanks,
--Anunt Patel--