Ask HN: Given $50k, how would you market a dating site?

#1

Post by daeken » Sat, Feb 05, 2011, 6:32 PM UTC

Let's try a thought experiment. You're given $50k to market a new dating site and solve the chicken-and-egg problem. How would you spend the money? This seems like a solvable problem, but as it stands the answer tends to be "ads everywhere and hope that it reaches critical mass". Let's do better.

Edit: Post ideas separately so that they can be voted on independently, please.

Re: Ask HN: Given $50k, how would you market a dating site?

#2

Post by daeken » Sat, Feb 05, 2011, 6:33 PM UTC

Give users $10 off their first date, for the first 5000 dates.

Re: Ask HN: Given $50k, how would you market a dating site?

#3

Post by daeken » Sat, Feb 05, 2011, 6:33 PM UTC

Hold a contest for $50k to the first users to get married.

Re: Ask HN: Given $50k, how would you market a dating site?

#4

Post by ericb » Sat, Feb 05, 2011, 6:42 PM UTC

daeken wrote: post #3

Hold a contest for $50k to the first users to get married.

A bold PR stunt like this might be a good gamble and get you the best return on the money.

Re: Ask HN: Given $50k, how would you market a dating site?

#5

Post by maxklein » Sat, Feb 05, 2011, 6:43 PM UTC

Facebook Ads targeting people who are 'single', then offer those people free 'pro' upgrade if they refer 3 more of their facebook friends who are single (via a facebook share link).

Re: Ask HN: Given $50k, how would you market a dating site?

#6

Post by adw » Sat, Feb 05, 2011, 6:43 PM UTC

What makes a dating site work is having people who are going to chime with each other; you don't need mass-market hegemony. So, what you want is demographic similarity but little social intermixing – people drawn from similar, geographically close but socially-separate communities.

In other words you need a niche. I'd hit up – maybe even sponsor – something like book groups. (Pick a major metro and blanket it; that buys you the geographic proximity). Then, once you're rolling, use the success to knock over the surrounding geographies.

Re: Ask HN: Given $50k, how would you market a dating site?

#7

Post by marketer » Sat, Feb 05, 2011, 6:47 PM UTC

Make it a concierge service. Manually match people and set them up on dates (maybe even pay for the dates). It's a lot more work but it's the only way to create incentives to join an empty dating site.

Re: Ask HN: Given $50k, how would you market a dating site?

#8

Post by daeken » Sat, Feb 05, 2011, 6:47 PM UTC

Mystery tickets raffled off to users to go on dates based on compatibility. (Credit goes to my mom for that one)

Re: Ask HN: Given $50k, how would you market a dating site?

#9

Post by ericb » Sat, Feb 05, 2011, 6:48 PM UTC

ericb wrote: post #4

daeken wrote: post #3

Hold a contest for $50k to the first users to get married.

A bold PR stunt like this might be a good gamble and get you the best return on the money.

Do 10k and a PR blitz with that idea, then a month later follow up with a contest where every referral of a new member is an entry in a drawing for a 10k prize. Then a month after that, another 10k contest for putting up the most pics (with a facebook import feature).

Edit: and start in NYC or one of the biggest cities in the world. A single sign-up in a high density city, is much more valuable as a search result because the population density is a multiplier for how many searches that new profile will be a result for.

Re: Ask HN: Given $50k, how would you market a dating site?

#10

Post by mattgratt » Sat, Feb 05, 2011, 6:49 PM UTC

Get a ridiculous prize for the affiliate that does the most volume for you (like Epic's playboy mansion parties), and spend all of your time and money trying to convince large affiliate marketers to drop whoever they're pushing currently and push your site instead.