Is Marketing Like Dating or Dating Like Marketing? It’s all Good When You’re a Geek
By Steven Phenix, ViaMetric Principal
Is marketing like dating? This site declares:
“To be able to sell effectively, they should have enough confidence in the product to believe that they are doing the customer a huge favor by telling them about the product. They should believe that it’s in the customer’s best interests to learn about the product - and that the product will improve the person’s life in some way.”
Or is dating like marketing? This site claims:
“Dating operates in much the same way as marketing. Like a sales person you have to sell yourself. You dress up, put the product’s (your) best qualities forward, and introduce yourself to as many people as you can. The more targeted the market the more people who are going to respond to you.”
What I do know is that as a marketing guy who is entering the daunting world of online dating for the first time… I’ve got my work cut out for me.
When I was last single — nearly ten years ago — online dating didn’t exist. But neither did any of the Web 2.0 elements we now use every day. If I can master social media, it should be a snap to have success with online dating, right?
So as metrics-driven marketer, I first determined the size of the market, then set the goal and created a strategy with measurable benchmarks. Then I executed and then measured, measured and measured again each program and adapted to what does and does not work.
The secret world of online dating quotes a Pew Internet study that says, “Looking at the total Internet population, 11 percent of all American Internet-using adults—about 16 million people—say they have gone to an online dating Web site or [a site] where they can meet people online.” So just to be ridiculously simplistic, let’s say my target market is some 8 million women, which I of course winnowed down the targets by age, location, education and many other variables. Basically, my target is single women, 28-38 yrs-old, living in or near Austin, TX.
The goal is easy: Success comes when I’m happily ever after married. With kids.
So I first went to Plentyoffish.com, a newish, but rapidly growing online dating site that has a lot of Web 2.0 goodness and user-generated reviews (and that means there’s data I can use.)
According to Canada’s Financial Post”
“Plentyoffish.com was the 82nd most-visited site in the United States last month, according to data from Hitwise, a U.S. company that measures Web traffic. It ranks third in U.S. market share among online dating sites, ahead of heavyweights such as Match.com and eHarmony.” FP also says the site “400 million page views per month in Canada alone.”
Markus Frind, the CEO of Plentyoffish reported this week:
“Americansingles reports 43% drop in subscribers. Match.com reported a big drop in US subscribers last week as well. True.com’s marketshare dropped 75% in the last 3 months, rumors starting again of impending layoffs/bankruptcy.”
Mr. Frind has reason to gloat: he pulls in more than $5 million a year with his one-man operation.
So instead of the older, tireder dating sites, I concentrated my efforts on PlentyofFish and set up this profile. I noticed that many of the profiles on this site employ grainy camera phone pics taken while out having fun with friends, or grainy vacation shots, or those blurry, god-awful Glamor Shots that you can get at the mall. To differentiate my profile, I hired a professional photographer and this is the lead photo I used on my profile. (Chris Caselli does great work.)
After the photo posted the votes started rolling in. I’ll share the data in a second, but first check out this message from an “admirer”:
“Please read all of this.
“I’m not trying to rude but to me you look like a smart know it all geek.
“But you caught my attention. I think its that first pic with the pen touching your lips and them eyes, kinda sexy to me.”
Needless to say, I didn’t reply back.
This first photo pulled in 61 votes and from this I can conclude that I’m a hit with women 41 yrs and older with 22 votes that gave me a rank of 8.69 (out of 10). With women 18-25, there’s not a lot of love there — only six votes that ranked me at a paltry 2.5. Men can vote on other men’s profiles and I didn’t connect with this demographic at all. Sixteen men voted to give me an average ranking of 4.6. I did have a 41+ yr old give a 9, so I’m flattered by that.
Next, I wanted to change up the program so I could get some comparative data. Taking in account the admirer who thought I was a know-it-all geek, I switched the main profile photo to the one she liked. This was, after all, customer feedback.
And then voting got a little more interesting. I currently have a total of 26 votes and from this small sample I’ll risk a conclusion that this new photo appeals to a younger demographic of women and men can’t stand it. Women over 41 gave me 12 votes and a 6.25 ranking. The new pic still has no appeal to women 18-25, with two measly votes and a sad ranking of 2. What was surprising is that suddenly women 26-32 expressed interest with six votes and a high rank of 7.17.
How the men voted was telling, funny even. The men in all age groups gave me a total of five votes and a 1 ranking! I think the men were threatened by my dashing good looks so they were strategically voting me down — or at least that’s how I’m choosing to interpret this.
So in conclusion, the pic stays for awhile while I pull in more data. I’ll let you know the cost-per-lead when I’m happily married. With kids.
I’ve always thought dating was like a job interview. The interviewer and interviewee are both probably a little nervous. They’re both trying to make a good impression so they leave out all the bad stuff. And then when it’s over one of them is sitting there thinking “Are they going to call? I really hope they call.” And they’re both a numbers game - the more interviews/dates, the more chances for a good match.