WSJ – June 2 - Glamour magazine approached Match.com and within weeks they were readying the launch of Glamour Matchmaker, a dating service featuring men selected by the magazine's staff from the sea of singles on Match.com. 70% of visitors to Glamour.com are single or divorced. When Glamour approached Match.com's business development team, the dating site's executives saw an avenue to legions of affluent, single women with men on their minds, says Match general manager Mandy Ginsberg. Under a two-year deal, Glamour will take an undisclosed percentage of the revenue from customers who sign up for a Match.com account through the magazine's site. FULL ARTICLE @ WSJ
Mark Brooks: There's no question of Match.com's pre-eminence as the top (paid) dating site. Now what? Who would you do business with if you were a major magazine, or a major radio or media service of any kind? Is this game over? How can the little dating site compete at this stage? Lets take this into the comments…
“When women log onto Glamour Matchmaker page, they’ll find selected candidates organized by personality types created by Glamour staff, like foxy_bohemian and adventure_seeker.”
My bet is that more than 70% of those women who will log onto Glamour Matchmaker page:
were dissatisfied past customers of Match or Chemistry
or
are dissatisfied actual customers of Match or Chemistry
Because:
Match is a 15 years old well-known and obsolete site performing mostly as a “Matching based on Self-Reported Data / Bidirectional Recommendation Engine”
Chemistry is a 5 years old well-known and obsolete site performing as a “Compatibility Matching Algorithm”
Match and Chemistry had been losing traffic since January 2009 and continue, 17 months losing traffic.
The last innovation at match was “Chemistry” during 2005, 5 long years ago, then its executives are more worried in attracting, converting and retaining subscribers with automatic renewal of their subscriptions and other credit-card billing trickery, than offering a good compatibility matching method.
“When women log onto Glamour Matchmaker page, they’ll find selected candidates organized by personality types created by Glamour staff, like foxy_bohemian and adventure_seeker.”
My bet is that more than 70% of those women who will log onto Glamour Matchmaker page:
were dissatisfied past customers of Match or Chemistry
or
are dissatisfied actual customers of Match or Chemistry
Because:
Match is a 15 years old well-known and obsolete site performing mostly as a “Matching based on Self-Reported Data / Bidirectional Recommendation Engine”
Chemistry is a 5 years old well-known and obsolete site performing as a “Compatibility Matching Algorithm”
Match and Chemistry had been losing traffic since January 2009 and continue, 17 months losing traffic.
The last innovation at match was “Chemistry” during 2005, 5 long years ago, then its executives are more worried in attracting, converting and retaining subscribers with automatic renewal of their subscriptions and other credit-card billing trickery, than offering a good compatibility matching method.
Match and Chemistry deliver a plentiful supply of single, available and motivated singles, to their users. Thats the most important thing that users want. Choice. Search. Then guidance.
Match and Chemistry deliver a plentiful supply of single, available and motivated singles, to their users. Thats the most important thing that users want. Choice. Search. Then guidance.
Forgive me if I’m stating the obvious Mark, but the major magazines, radio stations and media outlets have already gone the White Label approach, in the UK at least – Conde Nast is the last one who for some reason have chosen Match for this particular title in what appears to be a worldwide deal.
But Bauer Magazines, Bauer Radio, IPC, Natmags, Dennis Publishing, Future Publishing and lots of smaller media agencies have all gone the white label route – with the best white label platform of course 😉
That way they get to promote their brand, not Match’s – and are able to build a closer relationship to their customers, not Match’s customers.
Forgive me if I’m stating the obvious Mark, but the major magazines, radio stations and media outlets have already gone the White Label approach, in the UK at least – Conde Nast is the last one who for some reason have chosen Match for this particular title in what appears to be a worldwide deal.
But Bauer Magazines, Bauer Radio, IPC, Natmags, Dennis Publishing, Future Publishing and lots of smaller media agencies have all gone the white label route – with the best white label platform of course 😉
That way they get to promote their brand, not Match’s – and are able to build a closer relationship to their customers, not Match’s customers.
Mark, there was an excellent presentation on the subject of the three business models open to media owners considering running a online dating service at i-date in Miami earlier this year.
Dating business models are evolving. Enlightened media owners are seeking ways to monetise as well as provide additional brand value to their audiences, whilst importantly creating sustainable value themselves in their own business.
Larger media owners have something that is highly valuable to B2C dating brands – people and lots of them. Many media owners have tried the historical ‘tenancy deal’ model by working with an established B2C brand (in effect ‘renting out’ their audience to the highest bidder) but have realised over time that this model is not necessarily in their best interests.
• Users awareness of large B2C dating brands has evolved over time
– Users wishing to join a major B2C dating brand nowadays go direct
– Why? Because beyond the splash page the service and people/profiles
viewable are the same so there is no actual USP of joining via the media site
– As Fernando rightly points out, many users might also have tried the B2C
dating brand previously and decided it isn’t for them
• For theses reasons the conversion rates from such tenancy deals in 2010 are not nearly as high as they historically used to be
• Consequently at the end of the term the B2C dating provider is often unwilling to renew or pay the original tenancy rate to get less return. As a result the media owner who has usually budgeted the same amount into next years forecasts is left in an uncomfortable position – find a new partner or settle for less revenue
• Perhaps most crucially of all more media owners are realising that they are in effect building someone else’s business and not their own – as the B2C provider owns the user data – so after say two years they could be left with nothing to show for their hard work and endeavours.
As a result many large media brands are moving away from tenancy deals in favour of developing their own branded service.
Whilst this model doesn’t suit every media brand, for those that it does… the business case and benefits are highly attractive.
Mark, there was an excellent presentation on the subject of the three business models open to media owners considering running a online dating service at i-date in Miami earlier this year.
Dating business models are evolving. Enlightened media owners are seeking ways to monetise as well as provide additional brand value to their audiences, whilst importantly creating sustainable value themselves in their own business.
Larger media owners have something that is highly valuable to B2C dating brands – people and lots of them. Many media owners have tried the historical ‘tenancy deal’ model by working with an established B2C brand (in effect ‘renting out’ their audience to the highest bidder) but have realised over time that this model is not necessarily in their best interests.
• Users awareness of large B2C dating brands has evolved over time
– Users wishing to join a major B2C dating brand nowadays go direct
– Why? Because beyond the splash page the service and people/profiles
viewable are the same so there is no actual USP of joining via the media site
– As Fernando rightly points out, many users might also have tried the B2C
dating brand previously and decided it isn’t for them
• For theses reasons the conversion rates from such tenancy deals in 2010 are not nearly as high as they historically used to be
• Consequently at the end of the term the B2C dating provider is often unwilling to renew or pay the original tenancy rate to get less return. As a result the media owner who has usually budgeted the same amount into next years forecasts is left in an uncomfortable position – find a new partner or settle for less revenue
• Perhaps most crucially of all more media owners are realising that they are in effect building someone else’s business and not their own – as the B2C provider owns the user data – so after say two years they could be left with nothing to show for their hard work and endeavours.
As a result many large media brands are moving away from tenancy deals in favour of developing their own branded service.
Whilst this model doesn’t suit every media brand, for those that it does… the business case and benefits are highly attractive.
Bang on Matt – as usual, very relevant and concise – this is absolutely relevant to media owners and I think more and more are seeing this.
Sadly I’m still not allowed to attend iDate so I missed this presentation but good to see others are spreading the word,
Ross
Bang on Matt – as usual, very relevant and concise – this is absolutely relevant to media owners and I think more and more are seeing this.
Sadly I’m still not allowed to attend iDate so I missed this presentation but good to see others are spreading the word,
Ross
So, Glamour is getting into the Affiliate Marketing business? Isn’t that pretty much what this means?
I agree that it’s difficult for smaller sites to compete, but it’s still not impossible. If PlentyofFish is the Walmart of online dating, Match has become the Target or KMart. POF offers cheap dating and a large selection of what many people consider worthless ‘merchandise’ – and Match offers a slightly higher quality for a higher fee. But there will always be room for Macy’s and smaller boutique-type businesses.
Those who offer either upscale dating or cater to specific niches and treat them well will develop even more of a following after Match finishes doing all of its mergers and Joint Venture deals. Sites like JDate and Over35Match.com will continue to thrive as long as they offer things the ‘big guns’ don’t.
So, Glamour is getting into the Affiliate Marketing business? Isn’t that pretty much what this means?
I agree that it’s difficult for smaller sites to compete, but it’s still not impossible. If PlentyofFish is the Walmart of online dating, Match has become the Target or KMart. POF offers cheap dating and a large selection of what many people consider worthless ‘merchandise’ – and Match offers a slightly higher quality for a higher fee. But there will always be room for Macy’s and smaller boutique-type businesses.
Those who offer either upscale dating or cater to specific niches and treat them well will develop even more of a following after Match finishes doing all of its mergers and Joint Venture deals. Sites like JDate and Over35Match.com will continue to thrive as long as they offer things the ‘big guns’ don’t.