I would like some suggestions on marketing my dating site or my affiliate program. AdWords was bad when I tried it but that was when the site had no users. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I would love to shell out the money to get into a cpa but don't have the $$$ to join one yet.
Market the hell out of it and be as innovative as you can. Maybe try an ad in the local paper? Buy some cheap text links on related sites. Niche your site down a little if it isnt already. Is there anything specific about it, for example "Wow, a new dating site for dog lovers", "A dating site for the mtv generation". This could potentially increase conversions, depending on the demographics of your visitors and how they relate to the niche youre targetting. The more niche the idea the more people in related fields will talk about it. This can really help in a competitive market such as online dating. Ask everyone you know to sign up and create an account. Once people come across the site and see there are active users there they will be more inclined to sign up. Hope this helps
Dating ? Big, big, big players are out there with brands and marketing (cash) muscles Internationaly Niches ... Maybe the best option indeed
How about targeting underserved localities? Everyone targets the large city areas, but is there a market for a smalltown-oriented site?
In the dating market, niching is definitely the best idea right now. Unless you are really innovative and have a great idea that will rock the market, I suggest niching. To start out I would offer free signups, that is a great way to get initial users. After you have a few hundred in a local area (if that is your niche) go ahead and start charging for new customers, giving the originals free access for being loyal or whatever excuse you want. You may even want to start charging them, of course giving them notice. I did this pretty successfully for a city near where I used to live by using flyers. I should probably do it again... it's a good market if you do it properly.
Writing articles, blogging, going on forums are helpful. If you can afford it try placing advertisements in magazines that are targeted for your niche. You can also try advertising on your local newspaper. Little things can help to, placing flyers on bulliten boards, and passing out business cards. Writing press releases are good to. Here are some free sites that you can go to: Prweb.com Prfree.com Free-press-release.com Ereleases.com Internetnewsbureau.com/inbnewsletter Click2newsites.com Inewswire.com
For a dating site design part is more important, it need to be attractive, stylish, colorful and appealing, for marketing point of view you should check are you targeting to specific viewers? do you have planned for a specific niche and class of people?
add a video feature to the site or just enable the users to record videos like where they could share stories with others and stuff like that.
Try DirectMatches (see my signature). I think that it's the best way ANY business can network because you find targeted people who want to check it out. It's like Myspace for business.