Friend Finder Networks

From 0 to 26 million

Friend Finder is a pioneer in the online dating industry and runs the world’s largest adult dating network. They own numerous successful dating brands in the craziest niches you can think of, but a strong brand for the young adults was missing.
Friend Finder wanted to start a completely new love and dating brand for young adults through social media. Much easier said than done!

Without a good marketing strategy, you’re not going to sell a whole lot. As we explained in MDW’s case.

Now, we can’t be happier with the pace our company is growing at. We are building valuable relationships, are doing valuable work & are helping many to reach their online goals.

Which social media platforms should you focus on, what content are you going to create, how are you going to let people fall in love with the brand so they start following and engage with you? And maybe even more importantly, how are you going to drive them towards action/sales?

Now, we have helped Friend Finder to create a brand that young adults absolutely love! In +- 1 year’s time, we managed to generate over 26 million views, 172K subscribers, and 39K app sign-ups. All organically, without putting a cent in advertisements.

A new brand; Daily Steam, is born! But how did we do it?

We believe in giving A LOT before we start asking. There are numerous other brands, companies, people, etc of which people can choose to follow and buy from. So to get people to follow you and eventually drive them to action/sales you have to provide people with (free) value and they will come running to you instead of having to chase them.

You can provide value for your audience by giving them information or entertainment and actually you should always be looking to do both: Infotainment.

In our experience, people buy from you when they perceive you as; an expert, trustworthy, and/or cool. With merely promoting your products and services through social media, the chances are there that you would probably not be perceived as any of the above.

Since advertising can be a real pain in the ass when you are promoting services regarding love, dating & sex, we decided to create our own platform on YouTube where we would upload entertaining video formats.

We used the power of influencers, split testing, and the (not for long) organic growth possibilities of YouTube. We consistently provided value in the form of information and entertainment, working with influencers and not trying to sell anything for the first couple of months. We made ourselves being perceived as; cool, trustworthy, and experts.

Since people loved our content and the value we provided, YouTube started rewarding us with a massive awareness push. Long story short: 26 million views, 172K subscribers, and 39K app sign-ups in 1 year’s time. A new brand was born!

Problem Pros & Cons RESULTS BEHIND THE SCENES

Building a Brand

Pros

By building a following you gain control & leverage over your audience, you don’t have to invest money in advertisement every time you want to tell/show something new. You’re just 1 click away to reach your potential customers.
By building a solid brand & following you stay one step ahead of your competitors who now need to try twice as hard to ‘steal’ your customers.
By building a following you can stay top of mind with those who follow you.
By building a following your brand claims a position of authority and credibility. Which makes it much easier to sell/attract new customers.
Since we have a good understanding of what works and what doesn’t work on social media (content & marketing-wise) you’ll have a better chance at making good decisions, which means spending less money on trial and error + more likely to get better results quickly.
We have all the gear you need to start creating content. This means less / no upfront costs to invest in gear and less risk.