In today’s “Smooth Landing,” I want to reference an article I ran across in Entrepreneur Magazine about eFlirt Expert and it’s founder Laurie Davis, a former Fortune 500 marketing consultant. I found the article charming, powerful, and uniquely appropriate for Valentine’s Day week! It is a story about how a marketing expert turns her skills to the dating scene with a website that advises love-seekers on how to impress the persons of their desire!
Laurie’s entrepreneurial genius came to her when one of her marketing clients got burned in the Bernie Madoff financial scandal. She realized that online dating was exactly the same thing as a personal branding campaign. Our ‘personal brand’ must be aligned with what we want, how we represent ourselves, and to whom.
She said, “The skills I had built up about key messages and target audiences and e-mail conversion rates were perfect for this.”
Since Laurie Davis was a teenager, she had been intrigued by online communications. To her parents’ dismay, she grew up in chat rooms and on Instant Messenger. Then, 10 years ago, she wrote her first online dating profile. Through trial and error, she learned what to always do as well as what to never do. No advice existed, so she learned through experience. Then, she encouraged her friends to join various dating sites. Since she was a first adopter, she quickly became their virtual lifejacket in the sea of online dating and developed a passion for helping singles with the online written word. She began facilitating matches and makeovers since she uploaded her first profile in 2000. So, in the spring of 2009, she bought a domain and template website from Go Daddy and set up a credit card account for the business. “I came up with the concept, and in 48 hours I published the site and was ready to go!”
Now, she fuses her personal experience with her professional background in marketing to help singles date online and transition their digital selves offline for meaningful in-person experiences. She assists men and women of all sexual orientations and ages by strategizing their 2.0 life to create dating opportunities and make the ultimate virtual first impression. People who want to make a better virtual first impression are usually Internet-savvy–about 40 percent of the client base finds eFlirt Expert through Davis’s social media campaigns.
So what is the basic strategy? It is simple: “Online dating is marketing your single-dom” as denoted on her website. They help singles establish the ultimate virtual first impression and transition their digital selves to meaningful, in-person dating experiences. By considering a dater’s target demographic, key messages and how best to attract an ideal match, they help you get to that elusive first date and beyond.
eFlirt Expert has become the ultimate dating lifeline for singles. Not only will a certified eFlirter help perfect your digital image, they also make sure you do your best offline, too. Their services are all one-on-one experiences – she nailed it; because let’s face it – our dating life is personal!
So, did it work? Yes, her revenue grew 459 percent in the first three quarters of 2010, even before the holiday season kicked off. She offers unlimited dating advice by e-mail ($49 per month); wing woman ($149 for two hours); profile from scratch ($149). What a concept!
It is interesting and inspiring to watch how a young woman’s passion for online technology, along with the quest to find the ‘right person’ in her own dating life, aligned with her business savvy to build a compelling, relevant, and perfectly-timed business venture! The power of alignment at work!
Check her website out and see.