Online Dating Applications – Maximising Your Brand’s Online Potential
Ross Williams, co-founder and chairman of WhiteLabelDating.com, examines how brands and individuals can enhance their online presence whilst introducing new revenue steams.
In the current media climate, having a competitive and engaging multi-platform presence is hugely important to a brand. With Microsoft gifting Facebook $15bn for a measly 1.6% stake, Google clinching YouTube for $1.6bn and AOL acquiring Bebo for $850m, it is clear that the ability to reach mass and various audiences through online communities is at the forefront of everyone’s mind.
Since 2006, the number of online communities such as social networking sites has been exploding, yet marketers and advertisers are only now realising ways to monetise this trend.
You need look no further than Google’s acquisition of YouTube for an example of this. Few people would deny that YouTube is a hugely important acquisition and a tremendous asset for any brand, yet even fewer people would be able to tell you how to make money from it. Although it is an enviable problem, white label applications provide a simple and tangible way for organisations, large or small, to benefit from the current boom in online spending without the headache.
An online community can encourage consumer loyalty and add value for your existing customers, reach out to new or languishing customers on a new platform whilst generating additional revenue through subscriptions and advertising.
What is it?
White label contracting has been common practise within the online industry for years as companies have come to realise that providing additional online services makes websites more enjoyable for customers. However, organisations do not always have the necessary expertise to set these services up for themselves. A white label service provider enable clients to acquire a fully supported product and apply the company branding to that product so that they can market it as their own. A good example of this is the thousands of websites that use Google’s search technology, applying it to their own sites.
White label social networking and dating sites work the same way.
How does it work?
Motives for setting up white label applications vary depending upon the community they serve. In most cases a strong brand with a well-defined audience, such as Maxim’s new online magazine portal, will wish to enhance its range of online services to differentiate itself from a competitor whilst adding value to its online offering. Alternatively, a smaller online community with a niche interest, such as your local book club website, will wish to generate extra revenue and encourage users to stay on the site longer whilst offering its members a place to share information. All of these factors ensure that a site will retain and then increase its traffic, thus adding to its value.
In both cases, it is unlikely that either party will have much expertise in running a social network or an online dating site. With a white label service provider everything is taken care of, including: website design, advertising revenue opportunities, anti-fraud security measures, hosting infrastructure, member subscription management and mobile technology opportunities.
A white label service provider can seamlessly integrate a social network or online dating site into an original branded portal or community. The speed of turnaround depends upon the requirements, although an experienced partner can have a site that corresponds perfectly to the editorial tone and branding of their existing site up and running within half an hour.
Subscribers to a site are connected to the member database of the white label provider, creating an instant influx of hundreds of thousands of online users and an immediate, risk-free source of revenue.
Case Study
WhiteLabelDating.com (WLD) recently approached a well known media owner, having identified a lack of dating and social networking services across its high profile online portfolio.
The company was immediately convinced of the exciting business opportunities offered by white label applications and in January 2008 WLD was tasked with launching the first of the media owner’s branded online dating sites, a unique dating service for a magazine’s online platform.
The challenge was to launch effective revenue generating brand extensions while ensuring that the online dating and social networking services corresponded perfectly with the media owner’s existing brand platforms, thereby meeting the high expectations of the brand’s established audiences.
The site was hugely successful and WLD went on to launch the media owner’s second online dating site for another popular online magazine platform in April 2008.
Both sites instantly generated very healthy revenues and have matched or exceeded expectations in terms of user take-up, having generated well over £15,000 in additional revenue from its online dating services in the five months since partnering with WLD.