Despite being an online dating business relying on data pools and personalisation, in order to target one specific type of demographic eHarmony has turned its hand to a traditional technique.
The brand is currently testing a segmentation project, using its customer data to do the profiling, and off the back of the project it has worked out 10 key profiles to focus on. The brand is currently focusing its digital activities on three of those segments, with eHarmony having plans to test all 10 over the course of the year.
One of the surprises the brand found when looking at the segments the brand found was that it wasn't reaching its over 40 demographic based in regional areas with media such as TV, so they started letter box dropping in order to reach that demographic.
“[The over 40 demographic] was a surprise to me with that market,” Senior marketing manager at eHarmony, Lynsey Tomkinson says. “We had to say that we were not reaching them, so we needed to find a way to do that.”
Tomkinson told AdNews: “We ran a segmentation project last year with our media agency OMD to really hone in on our target markets.”
“So we have our core demo, and what we've realised is and with the emergence of other apps out there it our customer base is wider. Millennials make up almost half of those looking for love.”
With the business also commissioning research on the dating pool in Australia, it found some 4.3 million Australians are currently hoping to find love in 2016, with eHarmony expecting to gain a 40% uplift in its users off the back of these numbers.
The business has also inked a deal with a celebrity ambassador for the first time. Biggest Loser host Fiona Falkiner signed on with the brand, and Tomkinson says while the brand has searched for an ambassador before, it hasn't found a good fit until now.
“This time of the year is our biggest time, January is when we have the most singles on the site, if you are single its top of mind the new year has hit. Its thinking about your health and fitness, thinking about life priorities and dating falls really nicely into that,” Tomkinson explains.
“For us, Fiona was a really nice fit, she's 33, she's gorgeous, she is really positive and a great fit for our demographic.”
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