A Lesson From the Online Dating Industry

I was browsing some website for whatever reason when I came across a banner ad for Match.com that really impressed me. I have seen ads like this before but they have been few and far between.

The ad was obviously animated, so use your imagination a bit.

So what is it? It’s a girl supposedly using Match.com to either find a mate or to talk to someone she has just met. You can tell by her occassional grin and the cancerlicious glow coming from what is probably a computer screen. So why is this good?

Match Knows its Audience

The first thing you notice is pretty obvious – the person in the ad is a girl. But what kind of girl? Is it a supermodel? She might be. But does she look like a supermodel? Is she wearing pounds of makeup with a thousand dollar hair do and a designer dress? No. She is attractive, but she looks like a regular person. Someone who might actually use the dating system (or at least the guy registering at Match.com after seeing this ad hopes).

The online dating world has been suspicious since the beginning. Promises of beautiful women at the other side of the intertubes just waiting on you have long been considered fake. Dating sites such as PlentyofFish.com excel at displaying *actual people* in their dating pool and others such as Match and eHarmony are following. Now as I said the girl up there in that ad is almost certainly a model, but she’s not portrayed as one.

eHarmony has been doing the same thing with their aggressive TV ads showing ordinary people who may or may not have actually met through the website.

What is the moral of the story? Know your audience. If you are serving people who want to meet real lifemates then don’t throw them a bunch of A-list supermodels and try to convince them that they may actually wind up with someone like that.

I am personally very impressed with the online dating industry. They seem to have their heads on right. They’re incorporating old media very well. They are adhering to their audience very well. They are even branching out into other new media (mobile technology) extremely well.

Take a lesson from Match.com and others. Know your audience.