Dating Agency

[chicken/egg]

Advice needed!

A very good friend of mine has decided that she wants to run an online 'dating agency' - she's been looking into all the back-end database etc, but my concern is how is she going to drive traffice to her site. She feels pretty confident - I don't want to see her throw her money away!

Does anyone have any experience in this arena? Or a template business plan she could be working with?

I want to be able to support her and not feel that I'm always throwing negative thoughts at the project - so any advice would be gratefully received.

Many thanks

Karen

[sharp]

I noticed last night that match.com are advertising on ITV prime time several times across the peak slot....that's quite something to match up to... but maybe if your friend finds an angle....there must be as many angles for dating sites as there are different types of people! Or perhaps do something that is county or city specific....concentrate on being the biggest and best in one specific area and then roll out more county-specific or city-specific sites?

The more you think about it....the more the niche angle has to be the key to success these days with online dating...a bit like the reason why you'd buy wine from a specialist online vintner rather than from Tescos Online.

Annette

[dmc]

global and general agencies can hardly succeed... big shots are already established. she should make something special and/or related to certain region. for instance, dating agency for latinos living in UK.

[SteveGibson]

I think your friend could have problems.

All things being equal, it's a market where clients are going to go wherever there is the highest volume of whatever they're looking for.

So, as Annette & DMC suggest, the way to take on the big guns is surely to find a niche.

Then the question is: which niches are big enough to make it pay and how can they be targeted in a cost-effective way.

Also, how does she populate her DB when she's starting off? After all, who's going to join a dating agency with no members?

Steve

[dmc]

finding a niche and having unique approach is very important. nowadays it's close to impossible to find service/product not offered by lots of other businesses locally and globally. so... you must offer something unique about the product/service itself and find your own way how to convince people that your offer is neccessary to them.

[Teresa2084]

Udate, yahoo personals, match.com, friendfinder, girlsdatefree, loopylove and all those sites are huge competition. This is a review on date sites "Matchmaker is an umbrella of dating sites that has the world covered."

Ihave a date site that I havent put up. My friends have dates sites. one = trudates.com and that cost £10 000 and its been up for over a year now and heavily worked on by her & her friend & its not able to compete with the big ones. Now its up for sale as they have given up trying. I wouldnt pay the money they want for thier site as I know a web master that builds them for a living & thats all he builds & they cost alot less to buy and alot less than £500 too. I know several other fantastic companies you can buy excellent date sites from and they provide excellent support as well.
My other friend has a date site and he is another webby I know and he needs alot done to it. Ive been asked to go over it and let him know what needs changing. Its dreadful to look at & he let it go downhill despite a fair few members on it. It needs a complete makeover & to encourage all its users back to it.

There is in fact one area of dating that has not been covered to date by those big sites and could only find one site like it on the net or related to it & that ones dreadful.

[Teresa2084]

Heres one I am sure you can't find on any search engine ha ha
This is how NOT to do a human date site

[url]www.petdate.co.uk[url] and that site cost the poor owner £10 000 (no not me) and his web master thought it was such a brillaint idea that he invested in the site £4000 so it ended up still costing the owner 6k. Its up for sale if you are completely barmy and want to buy it although I dont recon on your chances.

When you first go on it you think ah ha a pet site take note of all cats welcome and charlie the managing dog and the cats magazine.
Oh but its not for pets at all. Look deeper ha ha as I fall off my chair laughing. The idea is for YOU to pretend and be your pet and date other people also pretending to be thier pets. Needless to say in the almost 2 years since it was built, it doesnt have a single user on it other than the managing dog and the daft web master that thought it would be a great hit. I wonder what pet he is. probably a fish.

[Aoife]

well, things happen. I just wanted to advice on quite good solution for online dating software. You don't have to spend much on it. It's just there for those who want to start their own dating business online-dating-software.net

[Rick Stally]

Hmmm

There's a bank somewhere in India that has a very similar name to my company, a lot of the employee's mistype e-mail address to each other and subscription services that end up on my server.

I've had all sorts of files from Insurance Fraud Investigation reports to peoples bank balances for the last 3 years in Excel. Why am I telling you this?

By far one of the most common subscription services we get messages from are the dating agencies, is there an Asian Dating agency based in the UK specifically for UK residents of an Asian heritage?

That would be a great market to target, for one thing there is a lot of them, for another my expereince is that Asian's embrace technology and use it a lot. Obviously subsections would have to be based on religion but other than that there will be a vast market to tap into.

Just a thought, everyone is saying "Niche" but no one appears to be giving any real suggestions.

Good Luck to your Friend and your support is paramount to her success so be positive.

[warmhearts]

Hi there, My names tracey I've started my own Dating Agency so I know how she's feeling it's been hard work this last year but things are looking alot better now. Warmhearts has taken alot of different routes like social clubs, monthly, magazines, forums, hen & Stag weekends the great thing about this project is you can reach to thousands of different companies because Dating is the biggest Social event ever and you can mix with hundreds of different products.

I would advise her to choose a few other interests linked to the dating game in some way and they should all mould together..

If I can be of help just Pm me!!

Oh and it's nice to be here in the forum I'm new!!!! Hope I get to speak to some new people..