Love's online business: dating sites are reborn

Content: Dating sites are getting back to life in a more private, safe and efficient way

Marriage is an important business in China. Unfortunately, this big business in the past in addition to guerrilla-style shops, only a few internet companies in the marriage business, and most do not make money-until the marriage market 020 model.

"The Spring festival CCTV advertising total exposure of about 10 million times, there are 1000 calls to join the entity shop," Beijing Lily Online Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter called Lily) Chief executive Fanjiang told Global entrepreneurs, although its ads are many young people in the network proposed "forced" controversy, but Since the lily net has physical store, within a year of marriage in the spring breath in the physical store was spread open. "Maybe you're resisting now, but when it comes to looking for someone, you still think about Lily," said Tian firmly.

By April 2014, Lily's physical stores had opened 120 stores in more than 70 cities nationwide. Another dating industry dominate, the U.S.-listed Century Jiayuan International Limited (NASDAQ: DATE, Next century Jiayuan) since May 2013 to promote the offline service shop, also rapidly expanded to more than 40.

In the 2013 fourth quarterly financial statements, the net operating income was 133.1 million yuan, and the personalized matching service (that is, the offline matchmaking service) contributed to RMB 19.7 million. This is a 111.8% increase from a year earlier, and the share of total income has risen from 8.4% to 14.8% in the same period of time, and one-to-one matchmaking business is gradually becoming one of the main ways of future income growth for the century Jiayuan.

Offline Rebirth

Why do you do offline? Century Jia Yuan CEO Wulin Light told the "Global Entrepreneur", expand offline service shop to consider is the crowd focus, "the Internet grinding information gap, the Teahouse moved to the line on the microblog, so that people (with people) distance shortened." But the site can not gather active degree, the Internet is an isolated individual, and century Jiayuan do is the business between people, 1 million people a day to do online can not do a good job of meeting, matching. ”

Wulin just professional managers, March 2012 joined the century Jiayuan, with the company's founder of the Dragon Girl (Gong) together as the joint CEO nine months after the official helm of the century good margin. Wu is the background of electronic Engineering in the Department of Electronic Engineering and Information Science of China University of Science and Technology, since 1996, the Internet, as a pre-sales engineer, research and development engineers, has been in the Sohu Network operation and maintenance department, and in the Air Network (U.S. NASDAQ Code: KONG) has nine years vice president and mobile gaming Division general manager, Overseas Agent Game Department general manager's resume.

Wu, with multiple reflections and changes to the Internet industry, entered the century, and Wu became a top CEO in charge of the matchmaker business.

Before that, the founder of Little Dragon Woman's first job is in 2003 founded century good margin. "Dragon female three generations to do this (marriage industry), she completed the use of the Internet to the traditional industry subversion, indeed subversive, but not killed." It is better to cooperate than to die. "Wulin Light summed up their achievements in the century, one is to improve the development of wireless mobile phone, activation installed more than 26 million; the second is to focus on the line, and constantly find a profitable growth point.

Lily's line is much longer than it has been for eight years since 2006. For the first touch of Lily from the line to the line of reason, Fanjiang frankly is met the bottleneck of network payment. Before 2006, China's network payment was not developed, UnionPay and the major banks of the online banking business, third-party payment tools, such as Alipay payment methods did not rise.

At that time, the popular message generation toll channel gradually blocked, although customers are interested in online payment, but the payment is very troublesome, the decision online free. But there is no online revenue, how to maintain operations? Lily found that the user gradually has several needs: the first user to call customer service asked Lily can help send a message, girls meet the object of fear in the active contact, need to go-between; the second type of user work is busy, lack of time to find objects; The third is to doubt the online illusory data.

So, for privacy, security, efficiency, pull strings of consideration, Lily's offline entity shop emerged.

According to the 2012 China Demographic and Social Statistics Yearbook, in 2011 the number of single Chinese population aged 18-55 was 198 million, with 113 million male users, 57.2% women and 85 million female users, and the Chinese single population already occupied 14.5% of the total population, Large.

According to the "China online marriage Industry Report 2013-2014" published by Iris Consulting Group, the paper shows that combined with the growth trend of China's single marriageable group and its future purchase intention and economic affordability of matchmaking service, Conservative estimate 2013 China's overall love and marriage dating market size reached 15.44 billion yuan, although the impact of the slowdown in the growth of the population, the market growth showed a relatively smooth trend, to 2015 market size conservative forecast will still reach 16.33 billion yuan.

At present, the number of official registered members of Lily more than 70 million, century Jiayuan official public this number more than 100 million, this is a O2O data gold mine.

Breakthrough

The development of the offline shop is not smooth sailing. From the end of 2006 to do 2008, Lily to achieve the first real store profit. "Before is to sell one to compensate one." A service that only sells less than 1000 dollars finds it impossible to cover costs. I don't know how to manage or motivate a team. Pricing, how to determine the price system? After repeated research, pricing factors take into account the number of times, time, success rate, but also include different packaging, split way, each containing the quantity and price, has done the most complex pricing system has more than 50 criteria.

Now Lily Line under the price of each member according to their own conditions, according to single, divorced childless, divorced children's conditions, and further to the other's requirements, etc., to form a set of standardized system.

The most complex is the complex service. Lily began to do standardized management. Matchmaking is not one-way, nor is it a matter of human transaction-Fanjiang's team studies marital problems, combines statistical calculations and psychological motivations, and carries out analysis of more than 30 personality traits. The analysis report tells the customer: what kind of person you are and what kind of person you are.

More diligent is the standardization of the service system. For example, how many data does the first call get to the user? How to build a complete file? How often do matchmaking and customers contact one another and so on. The years of perfection have finally made it possible for the 2000 matchmaker in the Lily line to operate in a similar way, they cannot be as identical as industrialized production, but the prescribed practice is the most scientific.

As of April 2014, Lily through the franchisee system rapid expansion, in more than 70 cities in the country quickly opened 120 stores.

Fanjiang analysis, do not do the national Direct battalion of the reason is different geographical customs, the concept of customs vary greatly, at this point, a model can not be mechanically. On a rental, outsiders may not rent a lot less than the locals rent well, the price is paid higher. The experience of Lily is that the experience of the natives is incomparable and should be localized according to the experience of the local people.

Even the same is the first-tier cities, the proportion of floating population in Beijing and Shanghai, there are very big differences. Fanjiang also remember that the Beijing entity shop contract as a sample in Shanghai entity store signed, by some customers to revise a mess: a year is 365 days or natural day calculation? 10 recommended appointments in the service are completed in a few months? Recommend a few members each time and so on. "The people of the North are looking at all the lines, not necessarily fully fulfilling," said the Southerner, who had been particularly detailed in the terms of the Shanghai customer clause. ”

Lily's online and offline business income ratio tends to 1:1, Lily's franchisee input cost of 500,000 to 1 million, the development of High-quality franchise stores one year income can reach millions of. Century Jia Edge of the company's more than 600 employees, the line department staff also increased to 200 people, Au forecast 2014, Century Jiayuan line under the store revenue account will be increased by one times than 2013, to 30% or so. According to statistics, Century good edge line services under the average customer price in the first-tier city for more than 20,000, the national average of about 10,000, to reach the online service of 50 times times to 100 times times.

Love and marriage industry O2O Development, online business and offline business are also different and related.

The advantage of the line is simple, worry, difficulty in the user for information to pay the concept is not strong: contact me will collect money? Accustomed to the free mode of users to develop online payment habits, conversion rate of not more than 20%. In addition, the service cost of dozens of dollars per month is relatively low, and it is difficult to improve the space, do more than 500 yuan business is extremely difficult, but the cost of marketing more and more high, the cost of developing a new user may not cover their service income.

The users of the marriage market are mobile and not fully cumulative. In fact, the average active user in two years is the most valuable. If China marries 20 million people a year, then about 20 million of the market's new users will be activated. Target users have such restrictions, the vertical type of the internet industry must do a full range of services to optimize competitiveness.

In addition, the Asian region's offline markets are stronger than those in Europe and the United States. Asians like interpersonal communication, but also need to communicate with people.

Physical Store

Rose, peony, tulip, this is the century Jia Yuan meeting room name. 4 to 6 square meters of small rooms are decorated into pastoral style, European style, the wall has a beach view of oil painting, or a successful member photo with a white-framed photo wall, purple veil behind the glass door was pulled, like into the home is warm decorate.

Dozens of meeting rooms along the wall around the century Jia Yuan Beijing VIP Service Center of the entity store. Century Jia Edge Line business department head Au told "Global Entrepreneur", under the normal shop standard for an area of more than 300 square meters, configured at least 20 staff, the flagship store is the standard area of 500 square meters above the configuration of at least 50 staff: Sales matchmaker, Service matchmaker and resource matchmaker, to help members match, Meeting and Matchmaking. The sales matchmaker is responsible for the early communication of the members, helping to choose the different types of services; The resource matchmaker matches the members of different conditions, develops the offline members in various activities, and the service Matchmaker undertakes the deep communication of the members and arranges the matching service.

Sales Matchmaker Huang More than 20 years old, wearing a black frame glasses, into the meeting room has been smiling, but quite a bit heroic when talking. The lovely girl with a doll face has been working for two years at Jiayuan and has 5 years of experience as a sales consultant. She divides clients into 4 types, which can be categorized by a few phone calls to customers, "most of whom have proprietary companies, or executives, tigers and owls."

Tiger-Type customers are more powerful and decisive, usually say: Please introduce your service within 2 minutes to impress me. In the face of this type of customer, Huang will emphasize two points: first, century Jia Yuan has the largest number of real members, and line online resource library completely through; second, matchmaker has professional experience, service through large data analysis and matching, fast and secure.

Owl-type customers, pay attention to details, speaking less, in the communication needs of the interaction between the issues. "They don't want to listen to simple introductions, I usually ask him if he has a registration on the Internet, and he communicates with other members," Most of the clients in the financial field are owl-type, because they are very meticulous in dealing with finance, data, and job requirements, and they are particularly sensitive about numbers and are particularly cautious when introducing services. "

Pigeon-type customers are shown to be insecure, to show what to guarantee, what to offer, and to keep assuring in the long service process; Peacock customers like impulsive consumption, love performance.

After the telephone communication, if the customer enters the entity shop, Huang as the sales matchmaker, must first and the customer communication. "I'll talk to them about why I'm single, How I am, and what I want to communicate with you directly today," he said. Do I need to give the promise to introduce the service mode or sign the contract? Spare two hours of valuable time, hope he does not go empty. "Usually the matchmaker and its members meet each other in 2-3 hours," Huang said.

Huang is a very adept, 20 to 30 times a month to meet members, at least 3 single members signed. On the number of her client calls, now if 10 of the calls are based on new registered members of the information is unfamiliar to exhale, there are 10 pass is two follow-up, there will be 15 phone calls is the customer actively inbound-"because the line store to ensure the authenticity of members, speed, high efficiency, save time costs, more and more telephone active consultation." ”

Her other skill is that when communicating with a female client, she usually "pulls the wound". First of all, the customer "good shape, not as long as 36 years old, although you are strong, but very feminine", painted the blueprint before creating a sense of urgency. The way to ' pull a wound ' is to say that it's not just about marital issues, but about kids, age and time. ”

Age is indeed a big problem in dating, and Fanjiang agrees: "If a girl is 30 years old before the child, may be 28 years old to get married, before marriage to talk about two years of love to understand it, so that the projection to 26 years old, but also to do an unsuccessful preparation, it is 24 years old to have a marriage, the object is still a temporary find, So you're 22 years old and ready to go. ”

To treat customers, Lily also did not give customers the opportunity to hesitate. Into the lily in Beijing Guanghua Road on the entity shop, the face of the warm and tense atmosphere, in the reception room, corridor, and even the bathroom, hanging a picture of love movie poster.

Lily's emotional advisor, Yu Yu, has a psychological background and has been a journalist for 3 years in an academic magazine and has worked in the marriage industry for 7 years this May. When asked about the reason for a career change, she said it was because of love for the marriage industry: "In Zhougi years, in fact, love and marriage industry is not well-known, but I think help people find objects should be very interesting, want to change Careers", Yu Yu remember just to Lily interview, there is a strange staff from the corridor, the initiative to greet her smile, This kind of enthusiastic appeal let her decide to stay in the lily physical store, "here treats the stranger all has been very sincere, we also especially hoped can help the customer, the customer will feel, but is willing to accept the service". Dating sites are in another form-offline entity stores quickly cover the market and become an example of the development of the Internet domain O2O (online to Offline, on-line off-line/offline).