Jin Pengwei, a young man from Chengdu, has a love type on Baihe.com, a general type with "excellent leadership". He labels himself: responsible, dignified, informal and protective. On June 19, this young man, who is extremely eloquent and eager to perform, stepped onto the stage of "If You Are the One", the most popular reality show in the country. Previously, in order to appear on this blind date show, 33-year-old Jin Pengwei prepared 100 imagined situations in advance. "I walked up with full confidence. Basically, the questions asked by the female guests could not escape the scope of these 100 questions. Including the questions that the host Meng Fei asked me on the spot, I was actually prepared for what Le Jia would ask me. , it should be said that it was completely under my control," Jin Pengwei recalled.
At the show, he was full of joy and sang to answer the questions of the female guests. Although he failed to win the girl he liked in the end, Jin Pengwei still showed his wit and kindness. He launched a fund-raising event on the stage. And established its own scholarship fund. On September 20, Jin Pengwei wrote in Baihe.com’s blog: “Since I appeared at 9:37 on the weekend after the show was broadcast, my phone has almost never been disconnected, and many people have sent me text messages on QQ. There are so many people adding me that it’s almost overwhelming! I have received a lot of dating emails, text messages and messages over the past three months, and now I solemnly announce: Jin Pengwei has confirmed the relationship and is no longer seeking marriage.”
There are many dating stars like Jin Pengwei who appeared on "If You Are the One" and became famous overnight on the Internet. The most typical example is Cai Min, known as "Mr. Penguin". This naive young man from Hunan received thousands of love letters on Lily.com within a week after appearing on the show. This number is not large. It is said that some program guests received tens of thousands of letters.
In fact, what deserves more attention is the increasingly popular marriage and love market behind dating stars. It is reported that since the beginning of this year, at least seven dating programs produced by major major TV stations have been "on the stars" every week, and this does not include dating programs run by "terrestrial" channels.
At the same time, dating reality shows have led to the explosion of major dating websites. "Baihe.com's traffic and revenue have more than doubled year-on-year, with the traffic and revenue growth driven by the program "If You Are the One" accounting for about 20%. In 2009, the overall scale of China's marriage and love market was nearly 3 billion, and this year it will be The growth rate is about 20%-30%," said Tian Fanjiang, CEO of Baihe.com. After becoming a partner with "If You Are the One", Lily.com auditioned guests for it in 5 cities across the country. To this end, a working group of more than 20 people was set up internally to review the application letters that came in like snowflakes from all over the country and conduct interviews with the director team.
"Lily.com conducted a survey a few years ago. At that time, less than 5% of the people were willing to choose the Internet as their first choice or important option for choosing a spouse. But by 2009, the survey number showed that it was 40%." Tian Fanjiang breathed a sigh of relief, "Our most difficult days are over." After four years of burning cash, Baihe.com finally achieved profitability at the end of last year. He admitted that in 2008, China's dating websites were generally experiencing a difficult time of being unable to make ends meet.
The hardest moment is over
"2005 was the budding period of dating websites. Several major domestic dating websites were launched at that time and received venture capital. From 2005 to 2007, everyone was making rapid progress, spending a lot of money to seize market share. In the past three years, , everyone passed with excitement. However, in 2008, we had to face a cruel reality. There were tens of millions of registered users, but where did the income come from? At that time, there was a financial crisis, and suddenly there was a sudden pressure and challenge. When things get big, this is the most difficult time," Tian Fanjiang said, "But things are often like this. Difficult periods are also periods of opportunity, because everyone can't stand it any longer, and they all charge, and the profit model has completely changed. What’s more, revenue grew rapidly, and the entire industry finally entered a stage of healthy development in 2009.”
In July 2009, Baihe.com bid farewell to the free era, while its main competitor Jiayuan started charging in early 2009. Currently, Baihe.com has 23 million registered users, of which paying users account for 10%, while membership fees account for 70% of its revenue. Other revenue comes from online advertising, offline dating conferences and marriage and love training. "Baihe.com's revenue growth this year will be more than 100%, with a revenue scale of nearly 100 million." Tian said.
Since 2003, imitating the successful models of European and American dating websites, Chinese dating websites have entered a period of rapid development. In 2005, there were approximately hundreds of domestic dating websites. However, they have experienced a storm, and 90% of them have closed down.
Battle of models
At present, there are three relatively successful models of Chinese dating websites: First, the localization of the soul matching model, the typical representative of which is Baihe.com. Before registering, users will first pass more than 100 professional psychological test questions to have a clear understanding of their marriage and love attributes, and know the range of suitable marriage and dating groups that match them. The second is to provide a search platform model, such as Jiayuan and Jiawo.com; the third is the traditional model of "search + appointment", such as the phone matchmaker of Zhenai.com, which helps members package themselves and asks questions and meetings that are inconvenient to directly ask the blind date. feedback from each other.
"Currently, the development of dating websites in a more professional direction is an effective way to raise the threshold of competition. The first model improves matching efficiency through professional tools, but because the Chinese market is far less aware of psychological counseling and personality matching than European and American countries, so Cultivating the market requires a lot of time and energy; the second model can quickly gain popularity, but due to the low threshold, it faces security issues and the challenge of being impacted by established SNS websites such as Tencent and Kaixin; the third model continues It has the advantages of traditional matchmakers, but relying too much on artificial intelligence will easily weaken the value of the Internet," said an industry insider.
Tian Fanjiang said that the originators of foreign dating websites are “Match.com” and “eHarmony”. The Match.com model mainly involves entering search criteria and then meeting offline. The eHarmony model focuses on the fusion of personalities and provides members with compatible personalities based on the answers to 540 psychological test questions, greatly increasing the success rate. Figures show that 542 members in the United States get married through eHarmony every day. In addition to soul matching, Baihe.com has also pioneered the "Love Consultant" service to help members "understand their true selves" and "clarify their lovers' images", from selecting potential partners to coaching on dating skills to estimating the possibilities in marriage. We provide a package of services for any problems encountered.
"The advantage of soul matching is that on ordinary websites, a user may need to meet 100 people to find a partner, but on Baihe.com, he may only meet 10 people, which reduces the user's time cost." In Tian Fanjiang's view, this model actually helps Find users who are truly valuable to you. Those who pass the half-hour mate selection test have real intentions to choose a mate. At the same time, these users with a certain economic level, education, and social status are the most valuable user group from a business perspective.
New profit point
In fact, the huge market of single netizens has led to the endless emergence of dating websites. Gong Haiyan (Weibo), founder of Century Jiayuan.com, once pointed out that China is accelerating the process of urbanization. When many young people enter a modern metropolis from rural areas or small towns, they have no parents or relatives to help them find suitable partners. Because of competition, they are not willing to inquire about other people's privacy. This gives dating websites a very broad market space.
However, the acceptance of dating websites by users is not unrelated to their previous market preparation. The "Research on China's Online Advertising Market in August 2008" released by Nielsen shows that in August 2008 alone, Century Jiayuan invested 51 million yuan in online advertising, ranking second in online advertising ahead of Yili. Previously, Jiayuan paid 9 million yuan to acquire the operating rights of MSN’s dating channel, while Marry.com paid 8 million yuan to cooperate with Sohu as a dating website.
However, compared with hot gold mining fields such as SP and online games, dating websites are obviously not myths about making quick money. In 1998, when China Dating Center (the predecessor of Zhenai.com) was founded, Chinese dating websites have been going on for twelve years. Obviously, the primary issue facing dating websites is how to earn real money. The current profit model mainly includes: membership fees, wireless value-added services, offline activities and online advertising.
In this situation, dating websites are exploring new ways to make money. Such as promoting SNS services and increasing interactivity. Mu Yan, vice president of Baihe.com, believes that users can also rely on the huge registered user base to carry out wireless value-added services and online advertising services. According to his opinion, compared with portal websites, SNS websites have more directional characteristics and will be very attractive to advertisers.
At the same time, how to further integrate with e-commerce in the future has become a key issue that Tian Fanjiang is considering, such as the introduction of product placement and how to cleverly do brand advertising on some virtual gifts.
The expansion of the wedding market will undoubtedly become the focus of the extension of the industrial chain. For example, some dating websites have begun to launch third-party wedding intermediary platforms, bringing all traditional offline industries related to marriage services online. Matchmaking has allowed more wedding industry companies to place advertisements on the matchmaking platforms, and at the same time provide members with better discount services. Marriage and love websites will benefit in the form of shares.
In addition to these online services, dating websites have also begun to transform offline. For example, Baihe.com launched a “dating specialty store” in Beijing’s CBD and deployed more than 30 professional matchmakers, service managers and love consultants. To ensure that every user gets attention, offline activities are limited to less than 100 people.
However, offline services are not an easy task. The problem is that the basis of human services is talents, and it takes 3-6 months to train a love counselor. "Every year Baihe.com works hard to train love and marriage counselors. They help VIP customers understand who they are looking for and help them search and filter." , helping him with identity authentication, two-way communication, arranging appointments, marriage guidance, and even teaching users how to use the website," Tian Fanjiang said.
Although dating websites have begun to make profits, competition will undoubtedly become more intense in the future. In the past four or five years of being free, Tian Fanjiang called it "completed a preliminary market research" and answered many people's doubts about choosing a spouse online. "The charging model ultimately falls into 'blocking communication'. For example, if you want to read the other party's reply, you have to pay a certain fee. Nowadays, charging for reading letters has become a consistent strategy for major websites." Tian said.
"What we are doing is to extend the industrial chain, such as the subsequent business after a successful blind date, from weddings, marriage and family training, etc." However, this is just Tian Fanjiang's idea, because this business is extremely complex and should not be Standardization, but for dating websites, this is undoubtedly an opportunity.
Editor in charge: Qiang