Comms activity for the month was, predictably, centred around Valentine’s Day. There were special offers, ‘Free Read’ access and activity-based incentives flying in all directions in the weeks running up to the 14th, and the results did not disappoint! Uptakes of the special offer ranked in the top 5 most successful promotions of all time, whilst the ‘Free Read’ on Valentine’s Day evening saw an increase in basic members online, up a massive 180%, giving a big boost to basic and full member engagement alike.

Whilst Valentine’s Day is (more-or-less) a universal celebration, we also spent February tailoring our campaigns to some of our much smaller markets. We operated a special trial offer for members in New Zealand to mark Waitangi Day, the national holiday commemorating the signing of New Zealand’s founding document, and a similar trial for members in Wales to celebrate St David’s Day. These geo-niched promotions naturally didn’t reach the dizzy upgrade heights that the Valentine’s Day offer achieved, but served to convince targeted members that their site knows them well. This helps to raise the brand’s profile above the “one-size-fits-all” feel of those non-niched, bigger brand dating sites.

As well as running general upgrade-driving promotional activity, we’ve also been working hard to increase engagement across the platform, with profile completion/update and photo upload campaigns. There have also been further campaigns to promote specific application features, like the Who’s Near Me search facility.

All this worked alongside the usual backdrop of cross-sells, up-sells, testimonials and featured member emails. These have all been updated in terms of interactivity and design by our new Comms team designer, Ben, who joined us just after Valentine’s Day.

And so, once again, we look to the month ahead. All eyes are focused on Easter and the long weekend that accompanies it in certain territories. Have no fear! There will be a few stops on the way, with Mother’s Day in the UK and Ireland, plus St Patrick’s Day. Not to mention the continuation of engagement campaigns to keep the sites buzzing! Here’s to another month of successful comms!

The post February Comms Round-up appeared first on Global Personals.

Valentine’s Day at Global Personals and our B2B umbrella, WhiteLabelDating.com, always inspires a hive of activity and this year was no different. With planning dating back as far this time last year, the team have spent the last month frantically abuzz, busy preparing Valentine’s themed marketing campaigns, seasonal copy and design and ensuring that sites were ready to cope with the uplift in traffic.

The WhiteLabelDating.com Comms team were also busy at work, offering our members a fantastic discount offer to help them find love this Valentine’s Day, as well as offering members a chance to read their messages for free.

And our Valentine’s Day efforts were not in vain! ‘Free read’ activity increased the number of peak basic members online by an impressive 180%, going to show the real impact of quality communications. In addition, a number of people were drawn to our sites as they looked for opportunities to spend the next year being lucky in love, as we attracted 27% more basic members than on Valentine’s Day last year. What’s more, we also saw a 49% increase in revenue, proving that online dating remains a recession resilient industry.

Overall, a successful Valentine’s Day for the team here at Global HQ, and our members.

The post Valentine’s Day Success appeared first on Global Personals.

First stop, Las Vegas

The self-billed ‘Entertainment Capital of the World’ played host to three successive trade shows this January and despite unseasonal freezing temperatures, a warm welcome awaited the team at each event.

Affiliate Summit West

Affiliate Summit West (ASW) is a must attend event, regularly attracting over 5,000 affiliate marketers. The premiere affiliate trade show takes place twice a year.

This year, ASW was held at Caesars Palace Hotel and provided Global Personals’ Affiliate Manager Chris Georghiou and Acquisitions Manager Wacek Warszawa, plenty of networking opportunities for meeting some new faces and sourcing new business opportunities. The event played host to a diverse array of exhibitors and thousands of attendees from all levels of the industry, both from the US and Internationally.

The summit was exceptionally well-organised, with a really accessible and useful structure of seminars and networking events. Hotly discussed topics on the agenda included making the jump from affiliate to advertiser, publisher segmentation and the challenges facing affiliate marketers in 2013, as well as looking to what the future holds for the affiliate marketing industry.

We’d like to thank the organisers for putting together such a fantastic event. See you in August for ASW’s New York summit!

iDate Vegas

Following on from ASW was iDate Vegas, held at Harrah’s Casino. Representatives from both Global Personals and WhiteLabelDating.com were in attendance, with around 400 delegates spanning the online dating and matchmaking industries. This was a great opportunity to meet up with new and existing partners, interact with suppliers and network with other dating industry representatives.

iDate Vegas played host to a comprehensive and diverse bill of speakers, who spoke on a vast array of topics. Highlights included an insightful session from Google’s Tom Simon and his team, who delved into the fast-growth of consumer multi-screen adoption and the impact of this on the dating sector; an interview with eHarmony’s founder, Dr. Neil Clark Warren, who shared his reasoning for buying back stock, making a lot of personnel changes and resuming control of the consumer dating giant.

Next stop… Miami

After seven long days (and nights) in Vegas, the team took an overnight flight across the USA to a warmer and sunnier Miami for the first Online Dating Summit  in the USA.

Online Dating Summit Miami

Online Dating Summit Miami (ODS) was held at the Westin Diplomat Hotel on Miami beach. Any thoughts of relaxing in the sun were soon banished, as we embarked on a whirlwind 48 hours of topical seminars, meetings and speed-networking.

Whilst the overall attendance level was less than the organisers had hoped for, the universally agreed consensus from all attendees was that the conference adhered to ‘quality over quantity’. The high-quality of senior representatives who attended the conference, alongside the informative content and new business opportunities, led many to comment that this was among the best dating conferences they’d been to. It was great to see that the event attracted CEOs from the world’s leading dating companies, the majority of whom contributed largely to the panel discussions, giving valuable insights into exactly what makes their businesses tick.

WhiteLabelDating.com Senior Partner Manager Gary Taylor, moderated the much-talked about Mobile panel, which included representatives from Match.com, POF, Meet Moi and eHarmony. Operations Director, Matthew Pitt, had a busy few days at ODS, speaking on a number of panels including:

• The background and evolution of the Australian dating market
• Using a White Label site versus building your own
• Dealing with scammers and chargebacks
• Online dating in the United Kingdom

Matthew also moderated the CEO panel session, ‘Online Dating State of the Nation’, which some commented was the highlight of the show, featuring Markus Frind of POF, Liz Wasserman of Mate1, Mark Semaan of RedHotPie, Alex Harrington of MeetMoi, Dave Heysen of Oasis and Cliff Lerner of SNAP Interactive.

Credit should also go to David Evans at Online Dating Insider, for an exceptional keynote highlighting some interesting points about online dating’s transition from the original forays of a 1966 start-up to a multi-billion dollar industry.

Watch this space for our full key insights report, coming soon.

It’s been a hectic but highly productive month and planning is already in the process for our next round of events in March and April. Keep an eye on the blog for more details!

The post January Event Round-up appeared first on Global Personals.

There are two types of relationships that we strive for here at Global Personals. One is obvious: it’s the relationship our members strike up between themselves when they join one of our sites and make contact with their Mr/Miss Right. The other is a bit more hidden away and not always obvious: it’s the relationship we have with our partners, which over the years has grown and strengthened. Our partners have grown with us, learned with us and shared in our success.

The account management team and the marketing team have built some very close and strong relationships with our partners and many of our releases, new features and ideas have been generated from workshops and forums with them. I can’t think of any other dating business where the relationship between the partner and the business is so strong and where the partners have such a dedicated and personal relationship which allows them to take full advantage of what the platform has to offer.

There is one other thing that shines through when we meet our partners at the various events we hold – they smile and are proud to be a part of our business! They love it as much as we do. What more could you ask for?

The post It's All About Relationships! appeared first on Global Personals.

A key topic that is really buzzing around my head as a Marketing conundrum (and that will undoubtedly play out in the next few years) is will we really be divided into Digital Natives and Digital immigrants and do businesses need to look at all aspects of their offer to service these deemed to be very different customer groups?

This divide obviously is usually delineated by age. But to me the boundaries between these two groups are blurring more and more each day. The recent launch of our Over 50′s or mature dating network is a fine illustration of a customer that is totally engaged in the whole on line dating experience, they respond better and in a more engaged way to emails, promotions, free activity on our sites, active bloggers and diary writers. They are open to meeting new people everyday for both traditional dating but general companionship and are very open minded about life’s possibilities.

I think this customer universe will only go on to be more and more active on line and start leading and building real long term online and off line branded communities!! A little thought for a Tuesday morning ……..!!

The post The Shift In The Consumer Universe appeared first on Global Personals.

With the rumour mills going into overdrive about Google launching it’s very own social network, it got me to thinking about the future of the web and where we might be in years to come.

I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with people where they believe that Facebook is the future of the internet, the one site that all people will continue to use for years and years to come and it never fails to amaze me.

Web Where The Default Is Social

Now for many, my views may be impossible to comprehend, especially with Zuckerberg himself unveiling measures at this year’s F8 Developers Conference stating “We are building toward a web where the default is social”. I think it’s safe to say that Zuckerberg sees Facebook as being at the forefront of that movement.

Now don’t get me wrong, by opening up the platform and releasing the API (including the realtime search API), they’ve managed to remain agile and have avoided the same pitfalls as MySpace. I am good friends with a number of the guys over at Facebook and have great respect for everything that they do – my issue isn’t with them, it’s with people who wear blinkers and convince themselves that the only thing they need to bother with is Facebook to remain “social”.

Social Media Isn’t A Destination

Social Media isn’t a destination… it’s not a site that you arrive at, create a page and occasionally update. Whilst most traditional businesses like to plan their linear route from A to B, that approach simply won’t work in the social web. Through the process of listening, talking and learning, more often than not, you’ll find that your destination changes as consumer behaviours and trends shift. The real skill comes in being flexible to adapt and transition.

Whilst planning and strategy is critical – never forget that relationship building comes first and foremost and isn’t something that you can ROI. These relationships will become the future of your business as word of mouth becomes more powerful than ever before.

Power Of The People Will Prevail

So whilst I agree with Zuckerberg that the social web will become THE web, I think it’s important to recognise that no one platform can state that they’ll dominate this space and become the go-to destination, after all, the power of the people will prevail. The future of the web lays in their hands, not ours.

Flexibility of platform providers will enable them to meet changing consumer needs. Which platform(s) that will be in years to come, only time will tell.

*wipes brow and steps off of soapbox*…. right I’ll be off to get a coffee now, would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

The post Facebook Under Threat! appeared first on Global Personals.

Luckily web 2.0 shook everything up, injected fun and gave a voice to the people. The growing use of social media meant that communities could be built and no matter what your interest, there was somebody out there who had something to say on the matter.

Whilst social media is no longer a new phenomenon, it is interesting to see the impact that it’s having on the way that people communicate, their expectations and the changes it’s making to non-social media related sites. Good dating sites are a prime example of this – FlirtFix.com for example was built to try and bridge the gap between social networking and dating.

It’s no longer enough for people to write their profile and hope to receive emails, the real time web means that people want to express themselves, share how they’re feeling and look for different things on a regular basis. Simple features can help with this and allow them to engage with one another on a higher level – whether that’s through status updates, video profiles, real time activity feeds, instant chat etc.

In these changing times, it’s exciting for us to be looking at the emerging shape of the web and ensuring that we’re future proofing our platforms, delivering the very best experiences – merging the gap between social networks and online dating. There’s a fine balance to be struck and we’re excited to be working on something which is so central to so many people’s lives.

Over the coming months, I’ll be sharing our insights, marketing thoughts and trends. However, one-way conversations are never fun! I’d love to hear from you with your ideas, thoughts and feedback. Don’t be afraid to use the comments, it’s good to talk and I promise I don’t bite… Well most of the time anyway

The post Dating just got personal! appeared first on Global Personals.