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Need Advice! Dating Site in the Spanish Market

by fazthegreat
19 replies
Hi Guys,
I need an advice from the marketing gurus here regarding my website I launched about 4 months ago. My plan was to offer 6 months of unlimited membership free to members so I can build up the database. I used adwords, POF and Facebook to promote the website and got a great response. Once I had 3000 members I decided to offer paid memberships for new registrations. I waited for a few weeks and did not get a single paid membership. Members could send 6 messages a day and can search for other members. Lot of features like unlimited messages, chat, who viewed me were part of the top (Gold) membership. I found it really surprising that no one wanted to upgrade.

Finally I decided about about a week ago to change the free membership so the members cannot contact other members at all. Since then I've had over 800 signups but none wants to pay! It's mind boggling! I was first charging 14.99 for the top membership and now I'm offering it for $8.99, I am even offering the silver membership for ONLY $3.99 and I still cannot get anyone to pay! On top I have made all plans "ONE TIME PAYMENT", so members are not scared of the subscription mode.

I am familiar with the dating niche in the US and people would pay if they were seriously looking to meet other people but I have no clue what is up with the Spanish Market, Currently I'm only offering Paypal with the option to pay with credit cards. One of my thoughts was that may be some people in Latin America are scared to use credit cards online or some don't even have one but I would think if that was the case they would have contacted me, as they do for any other little thing.

I would really appreciate if you can share some tips with me. I would have kept the website free but adsense earnings are not much and it would take me ages to make any money I've already invested about 8K in the project.
#advice #dating #market #site #spanish
  • Profile picture of the author TheFranchiseMarketer
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    I think I know exactly what the problem is fazthegreat. The spanish market is a very unpopular market in regards to internet marketing. The reason why no one is making a purchase just yet is not just because your website is fairly new and does not have a powerful reputation but also because spanish people in general are a bit iffy about making an online purchase. I think that really all you need is a stronger reputation for your website. Just give it a year or two and I am sure people will begin to learn to trust your site.
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    • Profile picture of the author fazthegreat
      Originally Posted by TheFranchiseMarketer View Post

      I think I know exactly what the problem is fazthegreat. The spanish market is a very unpopular market in regards to internet marketing. The reason why no one is making a purchase just yet is not just because your website is fairly new and does not have a powerful reputation but also because spanish people in general are a bit iffy about making an online purchase. I think that really all you need is a stronger reputation for your website. Just give it a year or two and I am sure people will begin to learn to trust your site.
      Thanks for your reply. I do believe in the trust issue and I'm looking into providing other options of payment e.g western union, not sure if that will work for a payment of only $8.99 but I'm still researching.
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  • Profile picture of the author jeremy49
    Hi Fazthegreat
    Have you thought about interviewing a few customers and finding out why they are not paying for membership and what they would pay for?
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    • Profile picture of the author fazthegreat
      Originally Posted by jeremy49 View Post

      Hi Fazthegreat
      Have you thought about interviewing a few customers and finding out why they are not paying for membership and what they would pay for?
      I actually have been thinking about this and when some users want to unregister they send us an email and I do ask them the reason for leaving, couple have said that there are free websites out there they can communicate on, I have done enough research and each and every website charges for communication, I had only found one site which offers everything for free but I'm targeting a certain age range whereas that website is for all age people so I would think that they should find my website more attractive...anyways I do agree I need find a way to get more feedback from the members...

      Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author fazthegreat
    Anyone else has any input?
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    • Profile picture of the author johnben1444
      Originally Posted by fazthegreat View Post

      Anyone else has any input?
      The recession in Spain could be a factor you know.

      How about the people's way of life? Are they adaptive to the internet?

      The payment methods on your site and spain, do they tally?

      If you want to know the truth, U.S still remains the bigger part of online business.

      If you can do spanish why not world wide? I guess, that's the last thing you haven't experimented with and i hope you are already thinking that way.
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      • Profile picture of the author fazthegreat
        Originally Posted by johnben1444 View Post

        The recession in Spain could be a factor you know.

        How about the people's way of life? Are they adaptive to the internet?

        The payment methods on your site and spain, do they tally?

        If you want to know the truth, U.S still remains the bigger part of online business.

        If you can do spanish why not world wide? I guess, that's the last thing you haven't experimented with and i hope you are already thinking that way.
        Thanks for your reply, I am already targetting the Spanish market worldwide. Most of my members are from Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and then some from United States, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile and even countries like Italy, Australia, Canada. Not depending on these countries much yet as there are not that many members from these but the first 9 I mentioned has a good amount of members.
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        • Profile picture of the author johnben1444
          Originally Posted by fazthegreat View Post

          Thanks for your reply, I am already targetting the Spanish market worldwide. Most of my members are from Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and then some from United States, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile and even countries like Italy, Australia, Canada. Not depending on these countries much yet as there are not that many members from these but the first 9 I mentioned has a good amount of members.
          If that's the case then it boils down to the quality of your traffic and how engaging/activity of your members.

          Don't expect people to buy anything from forums that have little to no active members, the same applies for the dating niche, however, am no expert in the field just some logical.
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          • Profile picture of the author fazthegreat
            Originally Posted by johnben1444 View Post

            If that's the case then it boils down to the quality of your traffic and how engaging/activity of your members.

            Don't expect people to buy anything from forums that have little to no active members, the same applies for the dating niche, however, am no expert in the field just some logical.
            I have members actively communicating, i even have members telling me that they found someone and want to leave the site, also 5000 members within 4 months I believe shows that members are interested in the product. I dont expect people to pay on a dating site that has no traffic :-) it has constant traffic and active members now.
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    • Profile picture of the author buysellbrowse
      Originally Posted by fazthegreat View Post

      Anyone else has any input?
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      • Profile picture of the author luku
        Hi Fazthegreat,

        You should definitely introduce a more friendly payment - the mobile payment. I know from my own experience that Paypal and generally web payments do not work well for Spanish / LATAM markets. Go for mobile payments where people can pay with the phone. For LATAM, Premium SMS works great and most countries have decent pricepoints. You can either do one-time payments or subscription. It's fast and easy and most of all - popular in the region.

        Check out Fortumo, they have solutions you might find interesting: Mobile Payments in 80 Countries | Fortumo.com (i am not affiliated).

        I am generally familiar with the topic of mobile payments so if anyone needs advice, i am happy to help.

        Best,
        Lukasz
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        • Profile picture of the author fazthegreat
          Originally Posted by luku View Post

          Hi Fazthegreat,

          You should definitely introduce a more friendly payment - the mobile payment. I know from my own experience that Paypal and generally web payments do not work well for Spanish / LATAM markets. Go for mobile payments where people can pay with the phone. For LATAM, Premium SMS works great and most countries have decent pricepoints. You can either do one-time payments or subscription. It's fast and easy and most of all - popular in the region.

          Check out Fortumo, they have solutions you might find interesting: Mobile Payments in 80 Countries | Fortumo.com (i am not affiliated).

          I am generally familiar with the topic of mobile payments so if anyone needs advice, i am happy to help.

          Best,
          Lukasz
          Thanks for your input, I'll look into this also.
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      • Profile picture of the author fazthegreat
        Originally Posted by buysellbrowse View Post

        haha funny!
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        • Profile picture of the author Paleruby
          It's hard to butt heads with sites like "Plenty Of Fish" who are free and have 1000's of members.
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  • Profile picture of the author PinkStar
    Without knowing anything about your site my suggestions would be to add advertisement that only guests and free members see and use that as another reason to upgrade. That way you'll still make money.
    Add a new feature such as a chatroom and make it for paid members only. Since it's for paid members a resource hog can be justified.
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    • Profile picture of the author fazthegreat
      Originally Posted by PinkStar View Post

      Without knowing anything about your site my suggestions would be to add advertisement that only guests and free members see and use that as another reason to upgrade. That way you'll still make money.
      Add a new feature such as a chatroom and make it for paid members only. Since it's for paid members a resource hog can be justified.
      Thanks for your reply, I already have adsense running on free accounts (which at this point is all accounts), I'm making 10-15 dollars a day with 8,000 to 10,000 page views a day. I am offering one on one chat with members with paid accounts (with the popularity of skype and other applications, don't think this is attractive enough anymore, they all want to exchange whatsapp and skype info and chat off site). As for a public chat room, I had setup a public chatroom initially but I took if off because the site didn't have enough traffic. Now if I offer that for paid members. There is no paid members so if anyone joins they will complain about no traffic in the room. I believe once I have enough paid accounts, then this will be a good bait to get future members to pay.
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  • Profile picture of the author jrigdon73
    You're up against a lot of free sites, so why would someone pay to be on yours? You may want to think of another way to monetize your site.
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    • Profile picture of the author fazthegreat
      Originally Posted by jrigdon73 View Post

      You're up against a lot of free sites, so why would someone pay to be on yours? You may want to think of another way to monetize your site.
      Good point! I have done enough research on all competitor websites to see what they offer. There is not one site that allows people to communicate (send messages, chat) with free accounts. So I don't think that is the issue here.
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  • Profile picture of the author datingworld
    Do you have a good number of members from both genders; male and female?
    Both genders need to have a good number of presence on a dating site to create interest for the opposite gender.
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