Match.com Mobile
Background:
As the leading provider of Internet dating services with over 15 million subscribers, Match.com wanted to enable customers to chat on the go and to attract new audiences. Enpocket provided an end-to-end dating solution allowing Match.com Mobile subscribers to search profiles, view photos and chat using their mobile phones. The solution encompassed the development and distribution of the branded mobile dating application, and marketing services to promote uptake.
Objectives:
- Mobilize Match.com across the major US mobile operators and beyond
- Use pictures and MMS to increase usage
- Increase revenues with monthly subscription fees
- Drive uptake with timely mobile marketing promotions
Solution:
To build on its leadership position in a crowded online dating services market, Match.com looked to the mobile channel to differentiate itself and continue its innovative quest to help people make more matches in an alternative medium. Powered by Enpocket’s Content & Community Engine, Match.com Mobile allows users to create profiles, upload photos, search for users by multiple search parameters including geography, and ultimately chat with like-minded individuals. The Enpocket Engine was used to build the Match.com Mobile WAP application, creating customized menus that take on Match.com’s look and feel to ensure consistency across media. In addition, the Enpocket Engine's database serves information requests to/from Match.com Mobile subscribers.
Match.com Mobile allows users to:
- Create a profile
- Transfer an online profile to the mobile service
- Define preferences
- Upload photos
- Search profiles using multiple search parameters
- Turn on location-based features for chat in your area
- Receive Match alerts of matching profiles with pictures
Enpocket has launched Match.com Mobile services on Cingular, and Sprint-Nextel, and there are plans for further launches of the service on more carriers in the US and beyond. The service is accessed through each operators’ mobile internet portal or consumers can sign up from the dedicated website www.matchmobile.com. All users of the mobile service feed into the same database no matter which network they are on, creating a greater network effect every time the service launches on a new operator. When new Match.com Mobile services are launched, Enpocket also provides integrated mobile marketing to generate consumer awareness. As an example Enpocket launched a Valentine’s Day sweepstakes campaign around the Match.com Mobile Sprint launch.
Throughout February 2005, Sprint customers were invited to enter a sweepstakes promotion, through text messaging, for the chance to win a cruise holiday and exclusive runners-up prizes that included the crystal covered Sprint PCS Vision Picture Phone PM-A740 by Samsung. All entrants were also offered a free one-month trial to Match.com Mobile by SMS. By simply clicking on the embedded link within an SMS, subscribers were sent directly to the Match.com Mobile registration page.
Results:
With Enpocket powering Match.com Mobile, subscribers are able to quickly and safely find others with similar interests - making friends, sharing photos and chatting all through the mobile phone wherever and whenever they want. Working with Enpocket, Match.com Mobile has built one of the most sophisticated mobile applications available on the market today and used mobile marketing to drive uptake and ongoing usage.
- Rapid growth of subscriber base with each carrier launch
- Deployment of the application on Sprint-Nextel and Cingular
- Direct correlation between marketing and increased registrations
- A head start on the competition
