Dateline
Dating is our core business so it's not enough for us to spend money and to get more back than we put in; we need total visibility of all aspects of our performance, which WhiteLabelDating.com will now provide us with.
Background
Dating is Dateline's core business and having spent 43 years bringing people together, it entered the online fray in 1996 with the launch of its first dating website, www.dateline.co.uk, keen to exploit the fast emerging phenomenon of online dating.
However it quickly began to realise that not only was there a need to continually upgrade and improve the service to generate more business but also that although its expertise lay in dating, the Web was a completely different landscape. It required a very different skill set – a technical expertise that they did not have within the organisation.
Two years ago, Dateline approached WhiteLabelDating.com to discuss a strategic partnership between the two brands where WhiteLabelDating.com would assume the running of Dateline's website and would also give Dateline’s users access to its existing dating database.
The Challenge
The challenge for WhiteLabelDating.com was clear - to improve the functionality of the website, to keep the website up to date and competitive in the cut-throat online dating arena and most importantly, provide users with an optimum dating experience to drive increased conversion and longer memberships.
Tina Wallace, Commercial Director at Dateline said: "When we started competing online, we found it difficult to keep ahead in terms of functionality and development. Our expertise is in offline dating so our partnership with WhiteLabelDating.com gives us a ready-made database for our members to match through plus we get access to its dating platform and all the functionality that goes with it."
Dateline carried out a competitive assessment of the online dating landscape before partnering with WhiteLabelDating.com and according to Wallace, the key USP that led to Dateline sealing the deal with WhiteLabelDating.com was its passion for online dating.
"They have the staff to make it happen and because of their expertise, they are totally committed to making it work."
Dateline is the longest established UK dating brand, which originally offered a unique computerised matching service and now offers a range of online, offline and personalised dating services.
The Solution
WhiteLabelDating.com's full service approach means that it offers brand partners everything from hosting to payment processing and customer management combined with round-the-clock dedicated account management and transparent reporting.
WhiteLabelDating.com coordinated the integration of Dateline's database and worked with the existing management team to ensure a smooth transfer to the new website.
The migration to the new dating platform led to a massive increase in conversion and Dateline doubled the number of members on the service. The site continues to exceed expectations according to Tina Wallace and is in line with business forecasts.
Business Success
Dateline has become such an important partner of WhiteLabelDating.com that it has been a key stakeholder in the development of a new dating platform that is now being rolled out to give all partners greater visibility of both the commercial and site performance of their services.
Through its close partnership with WhiteLabelDating.com, Dateline has now made the Web a key part of its business. To capitalise on this it’s started to use it to grow the offline side of its business further by exploiting its online membership base as a key upsell channel for its wider services.
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