20 Ideas @ Idate: Legal Issues to Avoid, Reputation Management, Branding, Acquisition Strategy, Revenue Building, Retention, & Alumni Relations THE 4th ANNUAL IDEA SESSION: Revenue Generation Models for the Online dating Industry Mitchell Davis – www.ExpertClick.com January 20, 2011 1 Advice from the Government – The Rockefeller Report Not-to-do things: • • • • • • • • • Use Data-Pass to get them signed up at other sites. Even if to another one of your sites, to ensure you still have their credit card in hand, when you offer “the free trial.” The send pre-bill notification in pre-mail benefits email. Make the obligation sound like a benefit. Segue from what looks like a “congratulations” to what is really an offer. Use a “Continue” button when they don’t have to. Use a “Yes” button instead of a “enroll” or “sign-up” to be misleading. Keep the language about data-pass buried. Trail and price is buried – 30 days free, then auto renewal. Legal Issues Issue to Avoid 2 Dating services are local. • TheKnot.com – Wedding Site, has created lots of local sites. • Google lets you set your profile to search any market. You can tag every registration with an IP address to know where they are. • IP Tagging lets you show local themes and local contacts at entry. • Uncle Sam just spent $14.5 Billion on the 2010 Census to tell you: * * * * * How many singles are in the market How old they are What race they are How much they spend on rent How the population has changed Branding and Market Segmentation 3 “Dating Sites are: Buyer’s Guides” – Russell Perkins, InfocommerceGroup.com Industrial Buyer’s Guides – Directories – are like dating sites in that they provide database for information retrieval. • Here are some best practices to create real strategies of engagement in those high value sites: • Monitor log-ins. • Monitor response to queries. • Monitor keywords used, and number of e-mails deleted and members blocked. • Then have actual people do outreach to find out what works and how to write it -- then automate the marketing advice to be sent to members based on their search and success ratios. • • • • Few log-ins should get different e-mail than often log-ins. Those with poor response should get more advice. Those with poor profile viewing times -- and we all know about eye-tracking -- can be told that photos in wedding dresses or with children can alter response. Retention Retentionion 4 Choosing the best revenue customers You should know: • Acquisition cost by each variable. • Additional revenue for each variable. • Ad revenue and click through for each profile type. • “Testers or Investors” – Are you members like – It’s Just Lunch where their “shoppers,” may renew forever, at $1,000 a year. -- Vin DiCarlo’s definition. • Expired members who actually will come back ? Then figure out how to bypass non-revenue clients and focus on repeat buyers Acquisition Strategy 5 Choose where your value position is: Initial Cost vs. Duration of Renewal I?Ieand Tn'l:1rE FIJI Sendai Ferscral It's Just lu1d1 Sugar Daddy. ?eathr?iends D'aig's Ust p- Duratian of Membership Get a Dot.TV domain like your domain for a viral video channel -use YouTube.com • Build a viral video channel and scroll your URL and offer across the bottom. • Do all your “Customer Training” there. • Pump in a 5 second ad in the middle saying full members do not see the scroll. • Buy premier video position at YouTube. • Buy ads in FaceBook on phrases like “Dumped Again.” • Buy your ads on problem words – the way people search. • I use www.ExpertClick.TV for my channel. Acquisition Strategy 7 *Open • Get your best and most active customers to sell for you. the gates • Zuckerberg’s epiphany was the to Social “dating status” button – why doesn’t Match.com have a Media! portable widget? *Allow Facebook members have portable badges so they can show their status on other sites. Share! • Build badges or widgets – your members will pick Here’s the automated badge from my www.Daybook.com up your HTML and put that HTML on other web pages. • Search Engines send inbound links from every one of the sites – raising your SEO Rank. • Your members become evangelists for you, attracting their friends. Acquisition Strategy 8 Anne Holland’s Two Sites: SubscriptionSiteInsider.com “subscriptions” – You live for Renewals – right? WhichTestWon.com – you test everything? Right? --- at least the subjects ? 9 Sell ads in your Taxonomy • Match shows a Tag Cloud so you can find people who have used “Vegetarian,” “Backgammon,” or “Musicals” in their profiles. • At ExpertClick.com we sell leader board ads that run in the topic silos when a keyword is searched. • Sell each silo in each market: “Backgammon in Portland” $29 a month upgrade – this is sticky sale too, for it is an “exclusive.” • Have a standard system to make up the banner ad from their profile information – you can find them at www.Fiverr.com. • One e-mail on this to my experts earned $4,000 in 24 hours. Revenue Building 10 Sample of leader board for my “Social Media Expert” Randal Craig in our topic taxonomy, on social media: 11 Let your talent create their own “White Label Sites” • Members create their own private clubs on your platform and stick around to get all the benefits from your mother ship. • They have more ideas than you do. Sure, “Vegetarian Pet Lovers”, and so forth, but as Darwin proved you just have to let natural selection happen – and when they buy-in they have become their own “band-leader.” • Your clients have better ideas that you do, if you just let them add content. The ExpertClick.com topic list has grown from 12,000 to 18,000 in the last ten years by members adding phrases. Let your clients build out a “taxonomy you own.” • They know more than we do about what they want. As Tip O’Neil said, “All Politics is Local” and your members can build micro-sites better and faster than we can. • They know what they want and will build it instantly for you free -- if you give them the tools. Retention 12 Don’t Lose your Lucky Handle. • Sticky – the hard way. People try to get their “lucky handle” and spend lots of time on their profiles, then drop out seasonally. ---- If they know they can always come back and keep the handle why should they always pay? • Don’t make that too obvious. How many really great “handles” do you have in limbo because the members are dead or will never come back? Ping that member to let them know their handle is going to be lost if they don’t come back and re-active – even if only to the “Private Voyeur Membership” where you can see others, but others can’t see them. • Look at the number of people parked on Twitter Handles or URLS – you’ve got real estate to sell. Put in a “Snap-Names” process where people can request handles about to expire, then let the delinquent member know in “very real terms” that if he doesn’t get back on the bus, he will lose his seat. • Offer a “rate-guarantee” for standing order, with a term that forces them to lose their special rate if they cancel. Retention 13 When’s the “Annual Convention” • The convention is the money maker for many subscription and association groups. • The money is from sponsors and exhibitors -- all the vendors that you find acceptable -- those who want to reach your demographic. You walk away with the lion’s share. Your cost to promote is nothing because you already have them on the list. Remember you own the list! The money is not in registration fees – it is in the sponsors paying to reach your members. • Great resource on the big money from Sponsorship is Lesa Ulkman from IEG Group in Chicago. They have their annual event in March. See their site at: www.Sponsorship.com Revenue Building 14 Don’t drop out -- you might not get back in. • Meeting Professional International has a 50% limit of non-Meeting Planners, so if you let your membership lapse we'll be accepting other nonmeeting planners and when you want to renew you'll have to wait. • Don’t get locked out. Keep your membership active, or we’ll let other guys in, and you may never – get back in --- renew now. 15 E-mail: Subject Line is what counts! Here are some things to put in the subject field to grab them, make sure they see the “relationship” and get them to take action: • Your look Marvelous – Check your photo now. • Credit card ending with 3424 on file, just click reply to renew. • May I call you on << their phone number>>? • Is << Address >> the best place for postal update? Engage them – make sure they know you have their info and they need to respond or ….. this will escalate to beyond their e-mail and push their privacy window open! Best one we did was: • May I call you? – with their cell phone number in the subject. The folks at www.LyrisHQ.com say the easy way to A/B test is test subject lines -- you quickly know success and how to improve. Retention – and motivation to keep the profile going 16 Send a $7 web cam to get the $100 upgrade. Amazon.com Camera for $6.40 • How may of you have an upgrade level where they pay more for a membership when they can video chat? • With my www.SpeakerBank.com system, pay-per-minute professional chat, I get the upgrade when I send them the $7 dollar camera – direct from Amazon with a little note saying how marvelous they will look on the web cam. • That $ 7 video cam pays off with a $100 upgrade. If you give them a click-to-contact widget that only plays the video and has a “I’m live now” button you will own them. • Or offer a free low-cost simple camera to expires – or soon top's if they don’t have a photo… • Or offer a coupon to “Glamour Shots” studios. Revenue Building 17 ?Cartoonbank.com ?072 ?56 Internet, nobody knows you?re a dog. 18 Bump the losers and the fraud at entry • Match the stated location and IP sign-up • Flag every multiple registration from the same IP • Share unique IP addresses with other services to ensure the bad boys don’t pollute your system • Let others know when you drop a member • WomenSavers.com lists e-mails and handles of deadbeats, abusers, and child support cheats. 19 Allow Validation… with certification badges – but own them – and make social links back to member profile on your site. Michelle Pyan with http://www.cichecked.com/ is close -- but no cigar. It is a great system that allows your members to create badge to validate identity. Out of the box – “ok,” but the next level she needs to take it to is: 1) White Label it. 2) Have the landing page be the profile of the talent, not her site. Why #1 ? Then you customer can never cancel your service without loosing the validation widget. Why #2 ? Every time they use it anywhere it leads back to your site. 20 Validate the legitimacy of others with technical communication tools. • Here’s a high tech, brand new way -- a company called Affectiva.com is validating expressions and smiles so statistical information can be provided. Sort of like Lie Detector for video chat. New York Times on Jan 2nd says they are testing with a dating service to find trigger words that are appealing or off-putting, based on facial response. • Women get hundreds of e-mails, and don’t have time to weed them. If you scored e-mails on spelling, grammar, and unique content, your Member messaging would improve. • Guys seeing their e-mail has a score of zero could respond and re-write for the ones they really want to meet. Retention 21 Alumni Relations • Things change, people leave, but if you deftly change your communications from Sales to Informative, those expired members may continue to welcome your e-mail. Yes, I’ve had ten-year expired members lurking on my list who have re-activated. • Don’t give up, just change what you send. In a US Post Office sense, change from 3rd Class Junk Mail selling to 2nd Class education magazines that they will learn from. Reactivation 22 Be a bloodhound. • Never let go. • Follow the lead of Bernard C. Harris – the Alumni Directory company that tracks down University alumni. • The Alumni office knows staying touch creates value in future donations. • I know the value of an ExpertClick member is $3,000 over a typical 7 year span after they have renewed once. I’ll put lots of effort into tracking them down. • Your multi-year alumni know you and will buy when they are ready. Reactivation 23 Can Spam is forever – but… • Many opt-outs are mistakes, so keep them on the roster by: – Get a second e-mail in the system, for if they opt-out of #1 you can reach them at #2. – Make sure you have a postal address. Send them a renewal offer. For 44 cents you may get them back. – Pick up the phone and call. – And with social media taking over how our customers contact each other – are you selling there? I’ve made renewals with personal contact at both Facebook and LinkedIN. – If you allow them to connect to Facebook, and Twitter you’ll have direct pipeline back to them. Reactivation 24 Mitchell P. Davis • www.ExpertClick®.com • www.SpeakerBank®.com • www.Daybook.com Broadcast Interview Source, Inc. Washington, D.C. – (202) 333-5000 – WashingtonDC@ExpertClick.com Yearbook of Experts® Since 1984 Presentation is © 2011, Broadcast Interview Source, Inc. “dog cartoon” on slide 18 is © CartoonBank.com and use licensed for this PowerPoint only. Distribution or reproduction after IDATE 2011 event is prohibited. 25