Online match-making is on course to get a makeover. Falling ad revenues, which constitutes a negligible, yet significant portion of the revenues for these websites has forced these companies to have a relook at their strategies and plan for the future.
The primary revenue for most of the online matrimony websites is user subscription. ForShaadi.com, part of People Interactive, close to 70 percent of their revenues is from user subscriptions, which is in the range of Rs 2,201 for three months. At Jeevansathi.com, users pay Rs 1,400 for a two month subscription and Rs 4,800 for lifetime membership (till a match is fixed, that is).
But thanks to the low internet penetration in India, the companies have been pushing their offline presence up in the past few years. That strategy has paid off to a great extent. Info Edge, the parent company of JeevanSathi invested in 15 pilot centers around Mumbai and Delhi, out of which 10, the company claims, have already broken even. Shaadi.com currently has an upper hand in the offline market with close to 100 centers currently which the company plans to double in the next three years. 25% of Shaadi.com’s revenues comes from the offline centers alone.
So where do these online matrimony sites go from here? Online advertising to gain new subscriptions is something that these companies have always invested in. Bharatmatrimony alone constituted for 8% of all online campaigns during the June-August period while Shaadi constituted 4% of the campaigns. While this has helped the companies through the past years, this clearly alone is not going to pay.
The next clear step to penetrate into the Indian market is vernacularization of the website content. This will help users from deeper pockets of the country to better utilize the site’s services. According to Gourav Rakshit from Shaadi, “We will introduce more local languages on our website. Right now, we are only using English and are in the process of filing intellectual property rights for the software that we are using for the local language service that we are going to offer soon“.
Besides, the companies have already moved into focusing on more core technologies that can give the companies an edge over competition. One of the biggest concerns for the customers has been privacy when dealing with potential matches. Focusing on this aspect, Shaadi has been working on enabling a ‘SecureTalk‘ service that will let customers to talk to the potential matches without revealing their actual numbers. Jeevansathi.com is apparently working on a similar tool.
I see this as a great move that can not only serve the user needs better, but can also help the companies create opportunity to monetize. According to Vivek Khare from JeevanSathi.com, “We will soon introduce a service that will allow our paid users to call any listed profile without revealing their phone numbers. This service is aimed at ensuring privacy“. But it need not necessarily stop there. A next strategic move could be to introduce the technology for the masses supported by ads. It could especially work very well for companies like Info Edge that also own other properties like Naukri that cater to the requirements of the same target group.
Do you see these newer strategies necessarily convert into cash for the companies? Please let us know in the comments.
