Strategies for Generating Leads in the Dating Niche
These are health, love, and money. If you aren’t sure which niche to choose, you can’t go wrong with one of these. Of the three, love, dating, ‘amore’, call it what you will, is one that we can all relate to.
This niche has always been huge and as our world becomes busier and more depersonalized than ever, the online dating market is only going to get bigger.
According to Statistics online dating revenue in the USA increased from $390 million in 2017 to $674 million in 2021. The projection for 2022 is $707 million with forecasts as far out as 2024 predicting an eye-popping $755 million in the US alone.
In terms of USA dating traffic, there were an estimated 44.2 million Americans who used an online dating service in 2020. This is forecast to increase to 53.3 million by 2025.
You can easily tap into this huge market by putting the right services in front of the people who are crying out for them.
There are many excellent affiliate programs out there for online dating, but no matter what program you choose, you are going to need to drive traffic to your landing pages.
How are you going to generate this traffic and get those leads?
In this blog post we will walk you through the very best methods proven to generate leads in 2022 and beyond. By the end of this short read, you’ll be armed with the latest tips and tricks to generate leads that are hungry to sign up for your affiliate offers.
What is a Lead Generation Strategy?
There are two main concepts involved in effective lead generation for an online dating service. These are lead capture and lead magnets. Let’s look at these in more detail.
Lead Magnets
A lead magnet is what draws a potential client to your website or landing page. This can be a free gift, discount, free trial, or just an awesome pitch that makes them salivate thinking about how great your dating program is.
The gift can be right there on your dating landing pages, downloadable instantly in exchange for an email address or some other piece of actionable information. Here are some great dating landing page examples.
Lead Capture
This is a way to ‘capture’ essential information from a potential customer or client. By essential we mean contact details at a very minimum. Once you have the consent of someone to keep their contact information, you can then continue to offer them deals on your awesome service.
In the dating niche, you will be looking to find other relevant details such as their dating preferences, age, interests, etc.
What is Mainstream vs Casual Dating? How Does it Affect Your Strategy?
Mainstream dating refers to those looking for a life partner or long-term relationship. Casual dating is for shorter encounters. Depending upon Which group your affiliate program is directed towards makes a big difference in your lead generation strategy.
Mainstream Dating
In the mainstream dating vertical, your potential leads will be more open to sharing detailed information about themselves such as religion, hobbies, age, income, etc. They are likely to pay for a high-quality dating service that will match them up with their ideal partner.
These users don’t want to waste time on a lot of short-term dating. They are willing to take the time to find exactly the right one. This requires more trust and relationship building. Email sequences, social media profiles, and other trust-building social proof methods work really well for this.
Casual Dating
Casual daters want to meet as many compatible, attractive people as they can. They want to repeat the experience over and over. They are less likely to pay for a high ticket five-star experience. They will, however, return again and again to repeat the great experience they had the first time.
These leads tend to convert more quickly and are likely to sign up on impulse to adult website memberships.
An adult landing page will differ considerably from a mainstream landing page for a dating site, so you will need to keep this in mind. An adult landing page can be racier with lead magnets that include discounted or limited free membership in contrast to the compatibility questionnaires, astrology profiles, etc that you might find on a mainstream dating site.
Both models work really well, but each requires a different tone, lead magnets, landing pages, etc.
How to Get Traffic to Your Dating Site
You may be asking yourself how the heck do I advertise my dating site for free? Here are eight of the best niche dating site tips and methods to explode your lead generation. None of them involve paying thousands of dollars in advertising to giant tech companies.
- Start a Podcast or YouTube Channel
If you are deep into the online dating space this can be very worthwhile. It may take a while to gain traction, but your hard work can pay huge dividends (and affiliate commissions) in the end.
If you already have a channel, it’s as easy as adding your affiliate links into your video descriptions and drawing attention to them once in a while.
- Optimize Your Website (use CTAs)
Websites are easier than ever to set up. Just about every good website building platform has a selection of free dating website templates.
Think Wix, Weebly, or WordPress. Make sure it looks as professional as possible and then optimize it with Calls to Action. The stats show that CTAs make all the difference when drawing in leads. Something as simple as asking someone to click on a link to sign up to a program can be what turns your static web page into a lead generation machine.
- Deals and Discounts
Affiliate program managers are there to help you. Develop a good relationship with yours and make sure you stay on top of all the great deals and discounts that you can pass on to new leads and to your existing audience.
Ask them about any free dating templates they can provide or other promotional materials they might have.
- Good SEO
For more detail on SEO techniques used in the dating niche check out our detailed post on the subject here. Good SEO is standard and absolutely crucial to every blog or website looking to generate leads. Dating site SEO is no different. It’s also not as hard as you think.
- Publish High-Quality Content
Seek out your competitors. Snoop on their websites. Then beat the pants off them with your information-rich content.
Engaging material is not only fun to write, but it can generate leads long after it is published on your website. The key thing is to make the content truly valuable to your readers. No fluff, just all good actionable content related to your niche.
- Social Media
Create some buzz around your personal brand on Instagram, Pinterest, or wherever you feel most comfortable.
If social media is already your thing then affiliate marketing is made for you. Keep generating the same great content you always have. Make sure to refer to your affiliate links now and again in the most organic, non-spammy way possible.
If you aren’t on social media, then maybe now is the time to try. You never know, maybe there’s a great new influencer inside you waiting to come out.
- Start a Newsletter
Make sure you include CTAs and that they are filled with great content. Then send them out regularly. You can do A/B testing on content, subject lines, and more to see what works to generate the most leads.
This analysis can be addictive and a lot of fun when you see how a small tweak in content or in a headline can transform your open and read rates, as well as your conversions.
- Downloadable Digital Assets
If you have the knack for writing then you can easily create how-to guides or other digital assets. If you don’t have the time to do this yourself you can outsource it to someone else or buy white label products. Just make sure these are high quality before you put them on your landing pages.
Key Takeaways
The American and worldwide markets for online dating are huge and set to grow even more.
You can easily tap into this as long as you understand the fundamentals of good lead generation.
There are many ways to do this, depending upon your exact niche. The methods are simple, low cost, and effective.
In 2022 you need to consider optimized SEO-friendly websites, engaging social media, compelling lead magnets, and consistently high-quality blog posts, to name a few.
The Bottom Line
All of these techniques are highly effective, but none of them will work unless you have an awesome program to work with. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them fall in love. Unless it’s very special water!
That’s where Candy Offers comes in. If you are looking for dating SEO services or website promotion we can totally help you out.
You can check out all the great advantages we offer right here.
Still got questions? Let us know. Just maybe we are a match made in heaven.