Marketing Tips: Free or Paid Membership for your website?
February 7, 2008 – 12:42 am, by Uliana @ SkalfaMany people when buying a dating software think about its promotion and the different ways to earn money, of course. The common question I used to hear from customers was about membership. Should it be for free at the beginning? Isn’t it better to set a paid membership from the start? If the membership is for free, how should I earn? And so on.
There are tons of dating websites already, but as we can see they choose different business models. Let’s take a look at the most popular scenarios to understand how it works.
FREE START. Most dating web-sites start with free membership. Why? Profile database. The goal is to get as many people on the website as possible within a short period of time. The other point why it is reasonable – you put your new website online and people are joining and having fun for free while you have time to test the software, check hosting facilities, improve design, adjust admin settings, add necessary features, fix bugs if appeared. Once you are done with preparation you are ready for big promotion and to start earning money.
100% FREE. The example can be www.plentyoffish.com, which is completely free for everyone, no hidden fees and paid upgrades. The website earns on advertising. This is one model. With the right advertising strategy it can become a very profitable business.
JOIN FREE. Another way you can choose is partially free dating service. I call it “Join Free”, because usually joining (with some rare exceptions) is the only free service on such kind of websites. This is made to attract people at the beginning and shows the benefits of paid membership when they are already inside.
There can be combinations of the schemes mentioned above or some slightly modified examples, but basically the idea is like that. Which way to choose, you decide considering your target audience, promotion experience, knowledge of advertising tactics and professional preferences. Just make sure to take into consideration your clients’ perspective (think of client’s needs!).
Also, look at the article on the www.freedating-sites.com. I like the text, because the author gives some words of advice from the user’s point of view, which is very important to know before you make a decision about your marketing strategy.
So, which strategy do you choose for your website?
10 Responses to “Marketing Tips: Free or Paid Membership for your website?”
I’d like to share my personal experience. The 100% free option is not easy, the number of web pages and visitors needed to cover expenses is really huge.
I choosed a Free Start during a full year, after the first thousand of high quality profiles a community was created and we had something valuable to offer. The next step was a Join Free model, this allows the community to continue growing and start to earn some money. Just three advices:
1) the free users must receive enough services to want to use and enjoy the website, but not to contact off-line between theirselves.
2) the paying users must receive the full services, they pay for the ability to contact to any profile they want, but they must receive a lot of free other candies.
3) don’t compete on price: a moderated dating site has a real value (the free sites are full of rude people that break the ambient), offer long periods to fair price.
This has worked for me: quality profiles and very good support to users. I must point that mi site is a niche one, that means few competitors but too small market, for this reason the add-financed model would not work.
thanks.
Note: Can somebody, using the Join Free model, to share its paying/free user ratio? (If not publicly we can talk by e-mail)
By GentComTu on Feb 7, 2008
I think Margaret Collins is an idiot, as well, she is pretty rude. Yes, we all live in this society where we judge one another. But i think she is wrong, i know i do not have tons of people yet on my “free” dating site, but they are not ugly people. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. There are just as many scammers and phishers on paid sites as there are on free dating sites. I just wonder what Margaret’s true intentions are. Does she have a paid dating site and is afraid of the free dating sites? Does she have some kind of affiliation with the paid sites? Margie titles her blog as pro’s and cons but just talks crap on the free sites. She’s an idiot, and people should not waste their money on online dating services. Paid sites, free sites, they are all the same, but free sites you dont lose your hard earned money. Where is your proof Margie???
By uoyevol on Feb 8, 2008
GentComTu, thank you for sharing your experience with us. It should help those who are thinking now about the right model for their website.
uoyevol, I cannot say if Margie is right or wrong, but I can say for sure that many people (users) might think like her when choosing the dating/social community for themselves. I wouldn’t be so mad as there is still some truth in her words as well… However, it’s of course, not true for ALL websites. It really depends on how your organize the moderation process and website features.
I provided the link to Mergie’s article just because we need to see things from all sides, not only from the side of website owner.
You are welcome to share your free website experience here. It will be very useful for all of us.
By Uliana @ Skalfa on Feb 8, 2008
GentComTu,
I really like your advice #1, it’s necessary to remember that you charge for value that users get on your site, not for disclosing contact information.
Pay-per-contact times are long gone for good. Internet has enough places for people to chat free but real value is offered by a surprisingly small amount of sites.
By Emil @ Skalfa on Feb 8, 2008
I run a series of niche dating sites which include subscriptions for messaging etc, but I was curious to know if a free dating site would work too, so I started http://www.lovecup.com. It was quiet to begin with but the activity is increasing now that it is becoming registered in the directories and known on search engines. I check each profile and remove scammers and fakes. I run it with the same level of integrity as I do with the non-free sites.
It’s nonsense to suggest that you get a better looking person on non-free sites. Check my free site and you’ll see a mixture of faces and ages. Besides, who’s judging who? I see Margaret Collins has no picture of herself on her blog. Maybe she should put one up and we can decide if she’s hot or not!
By redspan on Feb 8, 2008
Uliana, sorry for showing my frustration with her blog article. it just bothered me that it seemed so one sided. You are right that there are many free sites that are as she explains, but you also must admit that scammers, spammers, and “ugly people” also exist on paid sites.
i am really not angry, just bored.
By uoyevol on Feb 9, 2008
Hi,
We operate a FREE site in the UK, this is for, as is the popularist saying “liberated couples” .. we have operated a FREE Couples Swingers site now for many year but this latest version is by far the most successful. The key to a FREE site is for it to be VERY WELL moderated, be selective on who you allow to join and keep on top of the site daily. We could easily make money from the site by allowing singles to join BUT this is not in our ethos and not why we started the site all those years ago. How do we make money or cover the costs of running the site… This is a very difficult one (without taking into account our time to maintain the site) the site costs us around $4,000 a year … We look at this is investment and not a cash cow. We aim to have quality members and REAL members … we have a voice verification system so any couple wish to join must call us thus proving they are a couple and not some single person pretending to be something they are not. We are fast getting a reputation for being exclusive - we reject 60% of profiles submitted - and this is a reputation we enjoy. We are slowly moving to a site that is by perosnal recommendation only. Of course there are many affiliate banner programs you can join but find a balance between good banner images/themes and dont go over board. We earn very little from affiliate programs but this is only because we are lazy and do not work them as much as we could. An area that we have succeeded in greatly is in organising external meet and mingle events/parties - this serves 2 things … firstly it can generate income to cover the cost of running the site - but secondly it enforces the idea of community from being virtual to actual. People LOVE to meet each other - since orgainsing events the feeling of community within the site has grown massivley and indeed has the quality of its members. An event we held at Christmas was sold out by 2nd week in November.
So - will we ever make money out of our site - who knows … it was not the driving force in its creation - I lke the idea of going up against the larger commercial sites in the UK - we offer everything they and do not charge a penny - now thats my BUZZ and my pay-off.
However becuase of the strong foundations we are building, as and when or indeed if we need to switch from a FREE site to a pay site we know it will be a successful transition because we have built a QUALITY membership base …
A site is only as good as its members - forget the functionality that is almost secondary - quality members equals quality site … and I think as long as you have that at the front of any thinking then you can not go wrong ….
By scallywags on Feb 10, 2008
Redspan, nice point
By Emil @ Skalfa on Feb 11, 2008
Guys, do you want to continue this interesting discussion in ideas exchange forum?
By Emil @ Skalfa on Feb 18, 2008