[sally]

When I was researching for my site I found one main problem was that sites attracted many more men than women. I therefore asked loads of women what puts them off sites and designed my site around my findings.

I checked a big competitor yesterday and last week they had 231 woman and 488 men join - so that goes with the norm ......

but I am getting 85% female membership because the site meets their needs and deals with their concerns.

So how do I get men to join?

Can some guys have a look at the new home page and tell me what would stop you joining (other than the Mrs won't let you ) or ideas to make it more man friendly.

http://www.country-couples.co.uk/index2.php

[Fuzzy]

Hey Sal, how are you ?

I have lots of ideas, but 99.9% of them prob not allowed xx

[sally]

I am ok today thank you.

I knew you would be first here, it says men in the thread title

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by sally

I am ok today thank you.

I knew you would be first here, it says men in the thread title

[JohnG]

I liked the thumbnail at the bottom that says Fuzzy is a woman. Yeah, I think we all knew that!

But to answer your question, I do like the new page: it's attractive and inviting but it still screams "Dating" rather than friendship. It is sophisticated and does give the impression that eveything is pretty genuine.

If I was looking for dating then I would certainly be tempted. On surfing the rest of the site I'm pleased to see that I'm not too old - and also there are some lovely looking woman pictured on there (and I'm not being patronising).

But for someone who is not looking for anything like that it means I'm not going to join, even though it could be fun.

The idea of having a forum where you can have a really good rant is attractive (as with A1) but I wouldn't want to pay £6.50 a month just for that

I'll sleep on it and maybe think of something that might attract men who aren't looking for a date. I suppose you could have a "Boys' Toys" section where we could debate cars and bikes and bore the women rigid - and those who are interested in dating could use it to impress them.....

Not sure about that.

Hope this is of some help.

[PremierPDS]

What do your members pay now Sal? Do both boys and girls pay?

[sally]

At the moment nobody pays while the membership grows, I doubt anyone would pay £6.50 to chat to a handful of people

When I do charge it will be £6.50 a month for everyone, male and female. Other sites do this girls join for free because they need to get women on the site but I am having the opposite problem


Thanks John, I shall put my thinking cap on about the non dating side and any more ideas would be gratefully received.

[PremierPDS]

I've often wondered Sal how these dating sites start off having no members and can only think they must buy member lists from other dating sites to get them off the mark- have you tried this? I know it's all money again but it'd pay off big time in the end I'm sure.

The reason I asked if anyone paid etc is because a lot of sites make the men pay but not the women. My friend used dating sites a lot a couple of years ago and noticed this- she met her 3rd and current husband on Loopylove 3 years ago now!

[sally]

You can pay about $200 to have 500 fake profiles made up but we have said everywhere on the site that all our members are genuine and we don't affiliate or fake profiles. The problem is it's a quick fix but new members that join can't actually communicate with those people.

Maybe I am being too honest and cutting my nose off to spite my face?

[Sam (Mr. Mu)]

Hi Sally, I'm interested in the fact that the thing that differentiates your site is the 'people who love the country' bit.

That leaves me wondering how many men start by thinking "I'd like to filter out all the lovely ladies in this county down to those who love the countryside so much they're registered on a 'country couples' dating site"?

The problem with creating a niche like this is that you whittle down your potential audience size before you even start (I did that with our Devon and Cornwall business networking podcast - something we're currently re-thinking). I suspect that men default to wanting more choice, not less. A bigger rather than a smaller playing field... if you know what I mean. I could be wrong...

I met my partner Clare on 'midsummerseve.co.uk' 5 years ago. It was free and it worked and the numbers of people weren't narrowed down. I think the challenge here is to make the benefit of not only paying but paying for your site with its country-lovin' filter totally irresistable. Right now, I can't get what that benefit is - or who the market is for that benefit.