How can dating business make money?
Online
personal/dating services have become the most profitable businesses on
the internet. According to the Online Publishers Association "The
Personals/Dating category surpassed both Business/Investments and
Entertainment/Lifestyles to become the largest paid content category in
2002 with $302 million in revenues, up from $72 million in 2001."MarketData
Enterprises, Inc., Nov. 2002 - Matchmaking social networks have proven
big business with earnings in the $900 million mark in 2002.
Projections of $1.14 billion in 2003 and $1.46 by 2006. There is great
room for growth and new uses of social network applications.
According to CNBC on January 15, 2003 - "Software dating services are
the #1 pay services on the internet...up to 87 million in the last
quarter, the industry will be a 1 billion dollar industry by 2005"
There're many different ways you can make money with your own dating site.
- Offer completely free dating, put advertisement such as adsense.
- Offer basic membership free, and charge a little fee for premium membership.
To go with the first option, your website needs to generate lot of traffics. You need to do lot of marketing such as PPC (pay per click), SEO, banner exchange, link exchange, paid advertisement, affiliate programs, etc.
With second option, you need to have lot of profiles in order to attract new sign-ups and hope to convert them to paid members. With
Dating Software, you have the ability to utilize it's profile network which currently has over a million of profiles while it's still growing. You can then select some basic features to be free like sign up, search, view profile. Then create paid membership plan with low monthly fee such as $8.99/month and include all other features such as send and receive messages, chat room, webcam chat, etc.
Before you make a decision, you have to analyze your target market, budget, resources, and marketing strategy that fits your bill.
