Today’s guest post is by Eddy Ankrett. Sixteen years ago, Eddy set up Elite Introductions – an offline dating service with a strong focus on personal contact with members. Today, Eddy is Chairman of Dateline PLC, one of the UK’s most established dating companies, which offers online and offline with a personal offline home interview. Eddy is also a Director at White Label Dating.
Having experienced on – and offline dating for close to two decades, I’m constantly surprised to see how little the two industries seem to be prepared to learn from each other. They both have significant strengths – volume and accessibility in the case of online, and valuable personal contact and security offline.
Of course, each also has limitations and weaknesses. The percentage of daters who register with online sites but leave before committing to paid membership can be as high as 70%. With offline, retaining members is far easier, but profit is often be limited by the sheer resource needed to manage a high volume of clients.
The volume of online daters means that the industry remains healthily profitable, but the situation could be vastly improved for agencies and members. After all, it is vital to remember that our dating services exist to bring single people together in happy, well-matched relationships.
To me, the solution is simple and very obvious. The reluctance to give members what they so clearly want – the best of both worlds – must end. It is time to embrace the links between on- and offline dating, combining the ease of use and cost efficiency of internet dating with the verification, personal profile help, and security of an offline consultant.
There is certainly profit to be made from the high numbers of online daters, as well as from the fewer (but far higher spending) offline singles. However, some simple changes within the industry could easily make a hugely positive impact on our businesses’ bottom lines and our members’ satisfaction with the services we provide.
