Positioning a Dating Agency in the Marketplace

• 1). Develop a marketing strategy based on successes and failures of existing dating agencies. Successful dating companies have emerged and survived in the relationship business for specific reasons. These include personality based matching guidelines, privacy protection built into their process and the ability to communicate before committing to meet. Other companies which have relied highly on pictures and posted profiles have emerged only to vanish quickly because they have not met the genuine needs of the community. Collect marketing data from current and former dating agency clients, their successes and failures with existing companies, to aid in determine the marketing strategy for a new dating agency.
  
  
• 2). Establish a unique dating agency brand. Attempts to be all things to all people will bring business failure. By targeting a specific audience and creating a specific brand identity, a new dating agency has a better opportunity finding customers and create business success. For example, determine if the dating agency would be a local company serving the population of your geographic region, or if your dating agency would be a an Internet-based nationwide organization. Which population demographic would the agency serve? Marketing and branding strategies must also take into account relationship variables between the metropolitan coasts and the Midwest and between rural and urban customers.
  
  
• 3). Test your marketing and brand identity on a target audience by employing small groups of individuals within the target demographic and approach them with the marketing and branding ideas. Specifically ask singles in the target demographic if they would feel safe and be able to connect to the brand image and matching process devised.
  
  
• 4). Accept the input from the target demographic and adjusts the marketing and branding strategy for the dating agency accordingly.
  
  

Write a Business Plan

• 1). Write a thorough business plan. A thorough marketing plan creates the demand to think through all the aspects of the proposed business, including financing, branding, marketing strategy, revenue streams and potential financial deficiencies. Brainstorm to identify the strengths, weaknesses, threats and objectives of the proposed company. Crafting the marketing and branding message is only the first step in building a successful company. A complete business plan will help verify the viability of the business.
  
  
• 2). Identify the revenue streams, costs, profit margins and all financial aspects of the new company. Before hiring any employees, draft the first advertising campaign, verify that the profit and loss of this new dating agency will support a sustainable company. Revenue streams can be developed from variable level subscriptions, such as a "basic package" and a "premium subscription," which features additional benefits for the subscribers.
  
  
• 3). In the business plan, project costs that are higher than anticipates for business projections. Base the plan on a slower than anticipated growth curve. Make allowance for mistakes and/or financial losses into the business plan. No business gets off the ground without encountering unexpected successes and failures. A business plan which makes no room for error or margin for unexpected events will Be more likely to fail than one that plans wisely.
  
  
• 4). Include projections in your business plan for one year, three-year and five-year growth curve. In every business, small decisions have long-term consequences. Effective planning takes into consideration both short and long-term impact of daily management decisions. For example, if the dating agency added a premium video recording feature to a subscription level, this feature would require additional equipment, staff to operate the equipment, Internet storage space and band width. As a business decision, the question must be asked if the ongoing costs of the video option, which would be a benefit to the subscribers and would create an increased revenue stream to support the increased costs.
  
  

Start Small

• 1). Launch the dating agency within a well-defined target audience. Each step of the process, no matter how well planned, will need to be fine tuned. The reputation of a new business, if tarnished, can rarely be restored. By launching a new business to a small identifiable target audience, the business has the opportunity to manage details, and unexpected obstacles with success.
  
  
• 2). Follow-up with new customers, those who've successfully used the new company and those who are unsuccessful at finding a meaningful dating relationship. Solicit objective and subjective responses from clients and customers as to how the business can be improved.
  
  
• 3). Respond to and apply the device received from clients and customers, especially if the trend emerges. A single complaint from a follow-up questionnaire can be a fluke. Two of the same responses could be a coincidence. Three or more similar responses should be addressed as a valid concern and handled accordingly.
  
  
• 4). Continue marketing research as the company grows. Any successful company experiences growth curves and must adapt to evolving market place dynamics.