The French Market Leaders

                

      Dating websites have been in existence for over a decade. Visionary entrepreneurs such as Marc Simoncini - founder of Meetic and Meetic Affinity – developed this phenomenon, that has revolutionized the social act of dating, and finding true love. For year, the online dating market has grown, and today it is the second most popular way to find that special someone.

Did you know that dating websites are the only social network for which users are willing to pay a registration and monthly fee?? And we are talking here about pretty high registration fees – between 5 to 50 euros per month! Also, marketers in this field have well understood that most people are not seeking real love or marriage on this kind of sites, but rather short-term relationships. That is why the biggest (most profitable) dating websites are the ones that aren't promising  their customers more than a few entertaining dates. And three of them are trusting the French market, sharing about 70% of it: Meetic, EasyFlirt and AdopteUnMec.

It is important to notice that the number of subscribers alone is not sufficient to evaluate the size of a website, the price of subscription must obviously be taken into account. Moreover, while all the websites claim they have 6M subscribers for instance, it is the number of accounts created but definitely not the number of active/paying subscribers.

Meetic: 15€ to 35€ per month depending on the type of account
EasyFlirt: 18€ to 40€ per month depending on the type of account, free for women
      AdopteUnMec: 30€ per month – free for women

What is interesting on a marketing point of view with these three websites is that they are targeting approximately the same audience but have truly distinct positionings. And here are the elements on which they manage to differentiate:

•  First, on the customer insight created by their communication strategies, they all manage to convey the image they want: while EasyFlirt is seen as the easy-to-use, efficient and open-to-everyone network, AdopteUnMec is the fun, young and girl-power dating website – with its recurrent use of humour and sarcasm in their ads and on the website. Meetic, which has been existing for more than a decade, seem play the uncontested leadership card, and it is seen as a serious and therefore efficient website.

• Each of these three websites also propose different products:
•   EasyFlirt is a very complete website on that has a wide range of features such as webcam chat or “Speedflirt” to facilitate dating. Moreover, when subscribing to EasyFlirt, users can chose their sexual orientation, which is not the case for AdopteUnMec. 
•  AdopteUnMec proposes a pretty simple – no innovative features – but well-done product. The element of differentiation? Girls are in power! Only them can chose to get in touch with a guy. And it is well-designed, so that the whole thing looks like a game. 
• Meetic doesn't seem so different than EasyFlirt on a product point of view. Indeed, it has approximately the same features. But in fact, Meetic's product is stronger, the search engine is extremely efficient and the customer basis is the most extensive on the market. Again, Meetic is simply the leader.
• Sources: meetic.fr; easyflirt.fr, adoptunmec.fr