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ONLINE DATING TENDENCIES
In January 2006 Jupiter Research consumer survey found that 5% of Internet users paid for online dating subscriptions in the last year, down slightly from 6% in 2005. Industry-wide user conversion rates fell for the first time since Jupiter Research began tracking that metric. Jupiter Research analyst Nate Elliott said that industry growth in the last twelve months has been driven by higher monthly fees rather than an increasing number of subscribers.
He’s is absolutely right from our point of view. In 2005 dating business field was slightly modified because of huge competition, especially between leaders Match.com, Yahoo Personals, eHarmony and True.com. Dating sites were forced to play with their subscription fees to attract more customers and in result they /dating services/ got less converted customers but the revenue was at the same level or even higher. What does that mean for you, singles who pay for online dating service?
It means only one: you pay for those who didn’t pay yet in double size.
That’s not a big problem because we always pay for something we don’t need to. When you go shopping and see 50% discount and you buy the discounted good and never mind how much could it cost down the street in other shop. You just see “Discount and %” and you’re hooked up by this shop marketing team. It’s their business – to sell the product to customer.
The same happen in online dating. Dating service goal is to earn money and to aim this goal they hire marketing professionals who creates those discounts, attractive payment plans, free registers and other tricks to get your money.
Today we begin our talks from the the most popular trick: “Free Dating” myth. What is hidden under this word and how dating services doing the first step to your money pocket.
‘FREE DATING’ MYTH AND HOW DOES IT WORK
The first trick online dating marketers use it is magic word ‘FREE’. In our heads “save money” effect works every time when we think about possibility to spend some cents or even dollars. When you decide to dating online for the first time you probably thinking that internet is full of singles who has the same interests as you and also interested in free dating and this should be free. And you start searching for free dating service…
Time is going and you’re still searching for free dating service. You think that if “Not at this dating service, but at the next one it should be free for sure”, but that’s not.. that’s really not so easy to find free dating service in our days. And after few hours of hard work, you finally give up and go to the most popular dating service like Match.com, Yahoo! Personals or any other where there are magic words: FREE MEMBERSHIP. First reaction: maybe it is free! Let’s try & register…
That’s all. You’re hooked up. Now all depends from dating service marketing department and staff professionalism because their business from the moment you have registered with is to force you to make payment.
So, the first step is done. You’ve joined the site believing in magic word FREE. Usually it’s free only to register and view members profiles but when you decide to contact someone on site you got message that this option available only for subscribers and you understand that this is not free as you thought when joined this site.
TIPS FOR “FREE DATING” BELIEVERS
So, here is a first lesson of online dating secrets. The “Free Membership” does not mean the “Free Dating” it’s only the opportunity to create the profile for free. When online dating have just appeared in internet there were some dating services where registration was paid and the free register gave the success boom to less know sites and forced others to allow free register also. But now huge competition forces dating sites to minimize their charges to stay on the market.
There are only few free dating sites on the web like Plentyoffishand WeB Datebut the quality of free services is usually low and with bad customer support. As alternative you can join social networks like MySpace.com or FriendSter.com where you can find other singles for free but the kind of services differ from those which provide dating services – because it’s social network, not dating. It’s 2 different things.
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