Do You Try Before You Sell?

Have you ever tried to sell something you knew nothing or very little about? Could you sell your local hospital the latest Ultrasonic Cleaning System? Sure, we’re all familiar with dating sites, most of us have profiles on one social community or another, but the question that begs answering is do you know enough about the sites you promote and the people who consume them to sell with maximum efficiency?

What I suggest is simple, yet hugely effective: Become intensely familiar with a dating site and its members before making any attempts at promotion. You will be amazed at how differently you decide to monetize your sites when you understand the motivations of your target audience and the many facets of the product they desire.

Currently, I hold memberships to amateurmatch.com, fling.com, adultfriendfinder.com, iwantu.com, adultdatelink.com, alt.com and camazon.com. Most reputable sponsors will give dating affiliates a free membership if they explain why they want it; although on the few occasions I’ve had to pay, the expense was more than justified.

A week of immersing myself in a new dating community is usually enough time for me to complete my research. It breaks down into three distinct phases : assessment of the site, social interaction with the paying members and interviews with select members.

Assessing A Dating Site From An Affiliate’s Point-Of-View

What I want to determine here is how the site compares overall to the competition, the usual number of members online (is it bustling or a ghost town?), how intuitive it is for first-time users, what I like and dislike, and whether anything is uniquely remarkable or missing in terms of features. Modern dating sites are thriving social communities. Any dating site we consider must have all of the expected features and, more importantly, be rife with social interaction.

Interacting in a Dating Community

On the most basic level, we want to determine what they like and dislike about the site. You can listen to them in chatrooms or groups and even initiate conversations yourself by asking their opinion on the site: how it compares to others, what they’d like to see introduced. However, on a far more intimate level, we must understand them as people and discern their needs and desires related to the site in question; it is far easier to sell to a person we know because we understand what they want and how to approach them without putting them off. What I find helps is reading blog entries and their discussions in groups as well as spending hours interacting in chatrooms.

Interviewing Members of a Dating Community

In this, the final stage of marketing research, I will approach members for an interview. I attempt to conduct interviews with each key-demographic of the community: gender, age and general interests. I want to get an overall impression of the collective as well as each type of member. Most people are willing to help if you’re just honest with them, telling them you promote dating sites for a living and would just like to ask a few questions to help you do a better job. I tend to stick with the same questions:

• What do you like about the site?
• What don’t you like?
• Have you joined any similar sites? If so, how does this one compare?
• How did you find out about this site?
• What made you decide to join?
• How long will you keep up your membership?
• What could convince you to stay longer?
• Have you had success in finding a partner?
• Does the site meet all of your requirements? If not, where is it lacking?
• When you see promotions, what do you like and what do you hate?
• Do you have any favorite free sites (review sites, blogs, etc) where you might see this site advertised?

As marketers we would of course love to ask a thousand questions. After all, the better we understand our target audience, the better we form our promotional efforts and the more our incomes soar. However, it’s important to stick with just a few questions, keeping the interviewee in a happy and open manner.

Monetize With Intelligence

A week spent researching your chosen dating site and it’s users will have a positive impact on how you decide to monetize your site. You’ll know what unique selling propositions to push, the advertising techniques to avoid, where to place your ads, how to talk to your prospects, and numerous other pieces of information that you would never have possessed without research.