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Barbie Adler

      (Chicago)

Dianne Bennett

      (Los Angeles)

Janis Spindel

      (New York City)

Kailen Rosenberg

      (Minnesota)

Kelleher & Associates

      (Beverly Hills)

Leora Hoffman

      (Washington DC)

Lisa Ronis

       (New York City)

Matchmaking Institute

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Valenti International

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Zelda Fischer

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The Print Personal Ads Market

 

Summary - Market Characteristics

Printed personal ads found in newspapers and various magazines and tabloids USED TO account for a significant portion of the dating services market.  They’re cheap, and they do work in many cases, with success rates probably on a par with more costly dating services. An estimated 5% of a growing singles population uses voice personals. However, this segment of the dating services market, like most others, has been hurt by the growing popularity of dating websites online, and is on the decline.

Ten years ago, virtually every alternative weekly and high circulation daily, as well as scores of smaller papers, participated in what’s been called the “virtual bar scene”. No longer. Most papers don’t even cover their expenses in this area. The papers that still run personals do it mainly as a reader service, not a profit generator.

Management at Microvoice Applications, a firm that used to compete in the radio station datelines business, reports that the printed personal ads market for newspapers is down about 85% from six years ago, and that most papers are dumping their personals sections.

It wasn’t until 1989 that people began to link voice response with personal ads.  This is when MCI introduced an interactive service.  All 900 numbers call volume took off in the mid-1980s.  Around 1980 was the very beginning of passive 900 numbers.

Just how big this segment of the market is up for debate.  According to a 1992 article in the Detroit Free Press, some 1,300 weekly, monthly and daily publications then were running personal ads, with the total expected to jump to 2,000 by 1993. In 2002, there were 1,457  total morning and evening daily newspapers in the country.

Marketdata analysts tried to obtain information on how many U.S. newspapers now run print personals, versus 5-10 years ago, but were unsuccessful. We contacted the industry’s two main trade groups: The National Newspaper Association and the Newspaper Association of America (www.naa.org). Both said that they have never seen any statistics or research on this area. It is simply not tracked by anyone.

How Print Personals Operate

Compared to other dating services, where fees can run into the thousands, print ads are a bargain.  Many newspapers offer all or a portion of personal ads free.  But there’s usually  a catch:  Newspapers get singles coming and going by charging both advertisers and ad respondents as much as $1.98 per minute to tap into sophisticated, 900 number voice mail systems to collect or place their responses.

Typically, a consumer places a free classified ad, is assigned a voice mailbox number, records a greeting and then, by dialing a 900 number, pays anywhere from $0.99 to $1.99 a minute to listen to his or her “mail” - responses to the ads.  And the people who phone the 900 number to leave such mail also pay the .99 to $1.99 charge.  Ads run for two weeks on average before being replaced by the next crop.  About 85% percent of users are repeat customers.

Research shows that the average call length for a 900 number is about 5.5 minutes—making it an expenditure worth about $10-12 per person.

Based on interviews Marketdata performed with the leading voice response service bureaus, there are three entities that share this 900 number revenue:

  • the long distance phone company (AT&T, MCI, Sprint, etc.)

  • the newspaper

  • the voicemail system provider

After the phone company takes its cut, it seems as if the average newspaper gets 60-80% of the call revenue, and the service bureaus get 20-40%.  The newspaper’s share will vary, depending on the size of the market they serve, the length of the contract, and the market served.

Unlike other classified ads, the ad and voice greeting for personals is generally free for the advertiser to place—there is usually no charge to print the personal, just to respond to it.  Most newspapers offer free once-a-week message retrieval, and you pay if you want to retrieve your messages more often.  In a minority of cases, the advertiser might pay for an ad if the magazine handles the process in-house.

Fifty or 60 responses from a one-time ad in a major Sunday newspaper is common, and some ads generate as many as 200 replies. (Assuming that the person responds to half of those 50 responses they get, for only one minute apiece, that would mean total the total amount spent by one person would be about $50.)

The problem with personal ads today, say industry insiders, is that there isn’t enough opportunity to adequately describe oneself in just 30 words, which is the limit of most voicemail systems.  Also, people who advertise in the personals just don’t tell the truth (about their height, weight, marital status, etc.). They lie to get more response. Responders waste a lot of time calling and meeting unsuitable matches. Furthermore, there’s no screening process—people responding have to do it themselves, which is very time consuming. And, you can’t put a photo of yourself on a voicemail system.

 

 

Dating Industry Research Provided by Marketdata Enterprises
 

Information in The Dating Channel comes from the market research performed by Marketdata Enterprises, Inc. (Tampa, FL), which is one of the leading analysts of ALL segments of the dating services market since 1998—online vs. offline services. Its latest study is entitled: The U.S. Dating Services Market: A Consumer Guide (July 2005). This 57–page report can be purchased from Marketdata. Visit MarketdataEnterprises.com or call 813-931-3900 for details.
 
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