Online Dating Business: More Ways To Enter The Game
I have listed a few options to enter online dating business but they are unlikely to make you a fortune, sorry.
There are certainly more ways: for example buying relatively cheap established (preferably niche) dating related websites.
In a couple of years depending on your investment budget and performance of your dating property you can become an owner of a nice dating network. Though I again am doubtful you will be able to compete with any of the top industry players, you can get a nice income of revenue from multiple income sources ad space sales, contextual ads, subscription revenue.
What sort of dating sites can you buy and where? Just a few samples below of the recently put on sale dating related sites:
* URL: datinglink.org/
* Page views/month: 1,000
* Monthly Revenue: 20
* Google Pagerank: 1
* Uniques/Month: 1,000
* Winning Bid: $100.00
DateYard
Fully developed web 2.0 dating site with cool features, great revenue potential and close to zero running costs
* URL: dateyard.com
* Established: Mon Jul 31 2006
* Page views/month: 17,000
* Monthly Revenue: 10
* Google Pagerank: 3
* Uniques/Month: 1,100
* Bid: $350.00
Social Network (14,000 members) - Premium teen community for sale
#1 Teen dating site - Unique and custom designed
* URL: www.mylol.net
* Established: Fri Nov 17 2006
* Page views/month: 5,960,556 (!!!)
* Monthly Revenue: 500
* Google Pagerank: 3
* Uniques/Month: 43,741
* Bid: $6000.00
So, you have got an idea. Does it work or not with dating? I am not 100% certain, but have friends who run website networks in other competitive niches - pharmacy, adult, etc - and they do nicely…
Dating Sites Success Stories
Most dating websites provide a list of success stories of married couples who were happy to find their love at this very website. I do not think that all those stories are fakes, but a certain portion certainly is.
What about dating site happy end stories that are published in the newspapers? Do dating services sponsor the articles? JDate is no doubt a reputable service and I do not want to state that online dating services just operate to collect their subscription or advertising money. They work hard to earn their money 5% of total dating websites members ever used a paid dating service.
JDate, a behemoth in the burgeoning universe of religiously based, online dating sites. Founded in 1997, JDate has grown to 700,000 members worldwide - including 400,000 in the United States - who, under a variety of plans ($39.90 for a month’s membership, $150 for six months, etc.) seek fellow Jews for romance and marriage, says Gail Laguna, a spokeswoman for the site.
One of the articles that focuses on a religious dating published in one of mainstream newspapers recently.
It is real fun to read dating site members experience like:
Risa Sugarman, an off-and-on JDate member for eight years before e-mailing her future husband, recalled one dud date at a Brookline sushi place: “He started playing with a tooth as he was eating. He said, ‘Oh, I have a crown that’s loose.’ He was kind of lisping, and he kept fixing his crown during the date.”
Dating Services: Smart & Clumsy Ways To Get Monetized
Just in continuation of the last week post about your own dating site launch and chances to enter the dating market. There are many experiments that smart guys carry out with online dating projects just read how OKCupid tries to compete with monsters like Canadian Plenty of Fish (though run by the team of two only) and Match.com
Despite all that funding and smart idea with speed dating button widget it is not yet clear if the site will be turn profitable. To tell the truth, I have a feeling that they have min chances to succeed judging by the amount of traffic they get and need to break even. And this just proves that the market is so tough.
This story has reminded me of some other idea to monetize an online dating service.
The former Russians have set up an agency, I do not remember the State and am not certain probably they are still in the business. The way to make the money was quite smart. They charged their male database for every OPEN e-mail letter that they read from Russian ladies. They also have to pay to send them letters. Each open/ sent letter was charged for about $5.00. Not much until you start opening or sending letters in tens or hundreds. Then the dating service would arrange tours to Russia, Ukraine and Belarus to meet those ladies.
The idea was not bad, but it is too easy to abuse it. And the backfire was fast and inevitable. A lot of fake letters from fake lady profiles that cost the guys thousands of bucks. The dating service have tried to introduce some screening system, but all in vain. I remember the dating services was blacklisted, not sure if they run their dating business at this time.
I guess there are many more stories of successful/ failed online dating services trying to get rich providing their services. Would you like to share any?