Types of Dating Services

With so many dating website now operating, many are finding it essential to differentiate themselves in some way in order to compete and survive. One way to do this is to develop a special focus, serving a specific group of singles instead of all of them. Some have become very successful with this strategy.

Some examples of how these websites and singles groups might be classified include the following areas:

There are many more potential classifications, everything from singles that like country and western lifestyles, swingers, skiers, by your astrological sign, you name it. A Scripps Howard study found that at least 41 dating services it examined had names with the words “Christian”, “Jewish” or “Catholic” in it.

Value of Industry Segments  ($ millions)

Source: Marketdata Enterprises estimates

Dating Websites

There is no question that the dating websites represent the fastest-growing segment of this industry, and that they have hurt many of the other competing introduction services in the process. However, even off-line competitors say that they have actually help increase the size of the pie for the entire market—bringing dating services into the mainstream. Many singles today start out using these low-priced websites and eventually migrate to higher-priced services with more personal service. Many soon realize just how much work it is to surf the Internet and how photos and information about potential mates can be unreliable.

The online personals business as been dominated for the last two years by Match.com, which is owned by InterActiveCorp, and the Personals division of Yahoo Inc. Lately, Spark Networks (formerly MatchNet), claims to have been quickly gaining ground. Those three companies as well as a few second-tier players and numerous smaller competitors, are expected to have generated a total of more than $300 million in revenue in 2004, according to Jupiter Research.

“Still years behind the United States, in Europe, online personals are expected to be the biggest category for paid content for the foreseeable future” stated Joe Shapira, MatchNet’s chairman and chief executive officer. Latin America and Australia are also seen as future growth markets.

Analysts say that online dating content is one of the few types of content that people are actually willing to pay for, so much so that companies are actually raising their prices.

Singles Advertisements

For women, factors that increase the number of responses, include: a) physical attractiveness (e.g. being younger and lighter and mentioning a preference for sports, b) providing positive or neutral self descriptions, especially intelligence, and c) mentioning or alluding to sex.  For both men and women, writing an ad with originality or flair increased the number of respondents, as did seemingly trivial traits like possessing red or salt and pepper hair.

The popular press reveals variations on the singles ad such as catalogue formats (McFadden 1982), some of which provide American men with foreign brides (Krichm, 1989, and Money, 1981); print/telephone hybrids in which readers respond to print ads by leaving messages on centralized phone/mail systems; and singles ads in the form of fliers (Stolper, 1989) or faxes (People Weekly, 1989 and Dullea, 1989), which avoid using a commercial intermediary altogether.

This used to be a profitable business. According to Bayless (1988), “New York magazine’s personal classified ads have been pulling in about $30,000 to $35,000 per issue since 1985.” However, that has changed. Today, most newspapers are cutting back their personals sections and barely cover their costs, offering them more as a reader service.

Video Dating

Singles Events

As the number of singles has grown, so has the number of singles religious groups, dinner clubs, social groups, public service groups and even single conventions. In many ways, most of these events represent a midpoint between formal and informal “marriage market intermediaries” (MMI’s).  Like formal MMI’s, these events promise easy access to eligible others, and often some screening based on interest, religion, or perhaps the subjective judgment of the sponsor (Norman 1984).  But like informal MMI’s, singles events usually follow traditional social forms such as parties.  This allows them to be perceived as less deviant than more formal MMI’s and hence escape some of the “desperate losers” stereotype.

The first strategy is to avoid the use of the word “singles” and instead use euphemisms like “young adults’ or “young professional”.  The second strategy is to provide a “cover story”, such as a lecture, that the singles can use to create a veneer of casual ambiguity.

Electronic/Phone Communication Networks

One innovation in MMI’s was the development of electronic communication networks, such as computer based networks and telephone party lines.

The first are bulletin board systems, which are nothing more than computer accessed singles ads in which singles leave messages on computer bulletin boards and often wait days for a response.

Phone-based singles ads, that are the aural equivalent of computerized bulletin boards, also exist.  These systems allow singles to leave short taped messages or hear the messages left by others.  While the amount of information one can transmit in a 30 second message is quite limited, the cost of using the system is correspondingly small.  One Washington, DC service for example, charges only $2.50 per call, which is 1/1000 of the price of the deluxe membership in the now defunct Successful Singles International.

Matchmakers

In the 1970s, computer dating and then video dating were the best known MMI’s.  While they are still popular, a general move from high-tech to high-touch has brought the matchmaker into vogue.

A review of the popular press provides the following composite picture of matchmaking…  The matchmakers tend to be independent female entrepreneurs who entered the business because they enjoy the work and the profession requires no formal training and little start-up capital.  As a result, many matchmaking operations are short-lived ventures, although a few have branched out to become national chains.  Most matchmakers rely on intuition based on their personal experience in making matches, and only a few boast of even vague academic qualifications. 

These businesses usually have between 100 and 2,000 clients in any one location, but matchmakers often qualify those numbers by saying that not all members will be active at any given time.  While the high prices charges by the best known matchmakers were noted above, the market has become sufficiently crowded that some agencies are trying to compete on price, in some cases charging under $100 for a year’s membership.  Many matchmakers are now offering a variety of membership plans; the most expensive often come with money back guarantees.

The clientele of these services tend to be urban professionals; a demographic group believed to be early adopters of new social and commercial trends.

Small matchmakers have two things going for them, though.  First, they’re generally more highly targeted, focusing on professionals, for instance, or Jewish singles.  “If you get specialized service which only has people like yourself in it, then how many people it has matters less.”

Social support and the quality of your relationship with the matchmaker is the best predictor of how satisfied with the service customers will be. The more mainstream you are, the more one will benefit from a larger service.  The more idiosyncratic you are, the more you’ll benefit from a niche service.

Neophyte matchmakers often end up inviting their friends and acquaintances in for free and slashing prices for their first paying customers, just to build up a client base.  Says one matchmaker: “I rarely advertise.  You have to hear about me through a referral or through me finding you”.