Backdrop
This project was undertaken from our team based on the previous relationship with the client. The client was a social media platform who had over 100 million Daily Active Users. They were not charging any subscription and relied solely on advertisement revenue. We shared an idea from one of our team members which could potentially give them a new source of revenue while increasing the reach of the existing platform.
Strategy Proposed
The Client has lots of data on user interaction. Tiniest of the details including likes, dislikes, affinities etc. We hoped to leverage it to build new relationships between like-minded people. It could be dating, friendship, community, or something along those lines. The users could opt-in to find like-minded people and could filter them for location, gender and other factors. The platform could charge a fee for verification of identity of the user who chose to opt-in.
Outcome
The suggestion was implemented with the team excited and investors a little wary. No promotions or marketing was done since the investors did not want more resources to be spent on something unproven. About 3 months into the feature launch, 18 percent of existing users had opted-in and were generating a monthly revenue for the platform. 6 months into the launch, the number had increased to 33 percent. Something that surprised us was the fact that 54 percent of all new users in the 6 months opted-in by paying the subscription fee and it was completely organic customer acquisition. This was the economics of it. Coming to the impact side, platform’s average user rating rose from 3.9 to 4.6, users were extremely happy about the new feature which helped them find dates, friends and hobbyists. Many communities were built, many friendships made. The way people made use of this feature genuinely left us awestruck. Many also suggested that the platform should the feature only for dating or introduce a separate section for dating since they found it extremely helpful. Users complained that they usually ran into compatibility issues with partners they found on other dating platforms but this helped them find people who they could really build a life with. This just made our day.
