#1 Define your competitive advantage
When creating your competitive advantage, you need to define it in the first few seconds when a visitor clicks on your website. Your competitive advantage is the reason why the visitor should sign up for your service, when there are so many services to choose from. The answer should be what attracts that visitor. In the case of a brokerage business, the first competitive advantage a visitor thinks of is cost. How much will this service cost? Can he or she pay the cost? Is a membership worth the cost? Next, the visitor might be wondering if this service is for him and if he will find a match. Finally, the visitor might be thinking about privacy and whether the information they enter to register is secure. The different types of matchmaking services on the market today range from requiring a potential client to pay the full matchmaker fee upfront. Some charge per introduction, which means that once a client hires the matchmaker, the matchmaker finds a suitable match, and the client then pays for that single match. Some matchmakers charge a flat fee for one night and have the client show up multiple times for 15 minutes each. Finally, there are matchmakers who confirm that the man and woman have seen photos and biographies before agreeing to pay up and go on a date. Find which method works best for you. Make that your competitive advantage.
#2 Identify your market
Before you plan your matchmaking business, you need to identify who you want as clients. Do you want young clients who are just starting a career who may have a small budget? Are you going to target customers in a specific niche, such as a particular religion or race? Are you looking for clients in a geographic location where the culture is not well known? Or are you going after another market of matchmakers and lowering their rates? This is critical before launching your matchmaking business. You need to sit down and identify who your market is.
#3 Plan your member acquisition
How do you plan to get members to sign up for your service? Will you run paid advertising using Google AdWords, will you run a newspaper or magazine ad? Will you organically market your service through word of mouth? Many matchmaking services start with paid advertising and set a monthly budget. Others strictly use word of mouth and member referrals, offering free introductions instead of having members refer other members to sign up. Member acquisition planning is critical to your success.
#4 Create a marketing budget
You need to create a marketing budget. If you’re running paid ads, you need to find out what percentage of unique visitors to your site will convert and sign up. In addition, it is necessary to calculate what each client is worth. For example, if each customer is worth $25 and you convert 1% of your registered visitors, you can afford to spend $0.25 per click and rest. In fact, you can use a dedicated credit card as your source of advertising funds. Pick a 3-month time frame and set aside, say, $1,500 a month, for a total of $4,500. At the end of 3 months by taking customer fees and paying off your credit card balance, see how much it actually cost you to start your business. You might be surprised that you made money, and then you can increase your monthly budget accordingly. Create your marketing budget carefully and be disciplined.
#5 Building the technology
Technology has changed a lot in the last 3 years. Matchmakers may have a member registration system that captures the data on your hard drive, which is the easiest and least expensive to set up. Others spend up to $50,000 to create a custom registration system that is accessed virtually on their secure Internet site. By logging into their private database with a username and password, a matchmaker can access members and contact them. The latest trend is to rent a matchmaking app. What that means is that a programmer could have built a comprehensive matchmaking app that can be leased for anywhere from $25/month to $100/month and give the matchmaker access to the technology. Member data is stored in secure storage and is the sole property of the matchmaker. The matchmaker can cancel the lease of the matchmaking app and download the member’s data and import that member’s data elsewhere. The matchmaking app tends to be more comprehensive compared to capturing data on a hard drive and even creating a custom logging system, simply because every time an upgrade is needed with a custom logging system, it costs fees from hourly schedule. When leasing a matchmaking app, whenever there is an update, the creator just pushes a few buttons and the matchmaking app gets updated and that is included in the monthly lease. In fact, by leasing a matchmaking app, the creator will customize and brand the app with logos, colors, fonts, etc. specific. for each matchmaker when they first register, so it seems like it was a custom registration system.
#6 Prepare your communication messages
This is one of the most important segments of creating a matchmaking business. Every page on your website, your business cards, and any press you create should have the same communication message. Failure to comply with this principle will cause confusion and lack of confidence for the visitor. It is recommended that once all your communication messages displayed on all your platforms are complete, you print them out and make a technique book so that you can review all your communication messages.
#7 Pre-Test, Test, Beta Test, Launch
This is critical to the success of launching a new matchmaking business. No matter how articulate it is, there will be bugs, typos, programming issues, and it should be vetted before it goes live. Therefore, it is suggested that you first pre-test your business with friends and family. Then try it again with a new group of close friends. Then run a beta test, which is just running a paid ad for 7 days to see the results, or find a group of friends who aren’t necessarily interested in your matchmaking business and ask them to do you a favor by testing the system to you. Once those three tests are complete and you’re satisfied, you’re ready to launch. Keep in mind that you will constantly be modifying new products and services to perfect your business.
