When you make your mind to build a dating app, you better be prepared to confront existing market leaders, like, Tinder, OkCupid, Coffee Meets Bagel, Badoo, etc. Your advantage would be to learn what they have to distinguish their strongest points. Your potential audience analysis would also be important to see what your target users are expecting to get, as you know how critical it is to meet their needs.
Well, let’s have a look at amazing features which those dating monsters already provide their users with. That is their secret of success. We are sure you can learn a lot from their experience. Thus, let’s get down to business.
Bitmoji
Tinder turned to be the first dating service to integrate Bitmoji by means of Snap Kit. Such platform example proves that every successful dating app should better have such feature as well. This is how it looks.
As you can see, Snapchat designed a separate service by means of which other programs are happy to add such functionality into their characteristics. Described service is called Snap Kit and users can log in to different platforms through Snapchat.
The key purpose of such a feature is to encourage users to make the first step nice and smooth. The audience gets involved in a kind of a game, and it’s fun. Some people hesitate a lot before making the first move, and such a cute game might inspire users to act.
In case you are thinking of providing your audience with the same fun possibility, take into account that users have to link their dating app accounts to Snapchat profiles. Snap Kit claims to guarantee proper safety and security.
We Met
At first sight, that might sound a little bit bizarre for online dating service to focus on real-world datings. However, let us tell you how Hinge transferred it in its real advantage. They called such feature “We met”.
Such functionality serves to be a reliable instrument to increase app efficiency by providing advice to its users. Sometimes while chatting online everything is amazing, but after the first real date people break up. That is a typical issue which every people relations service is struggling to solve. Mentioned feature shall help those who are serious about looking for their sole-mates.
When users share their phone numbers, Hinge inquires if they had a date. If yes, the service gathers data by asking how well it went. Such information is applied to enhance the matching algorithm to recommend users someone who they, hopefully, will really like.
Do you think you could find a way to create something similar for your audience to enjoy?
Comments on profile
Why not let your users leave their comments specifically on profile’s images or bio, for instance? Coffee Meets Bagel took such opportunity to update their interface making it clearer and easier to navigate. When using the mentioned dating service, people can comment on particular profile pieces right away, and they enjoy such a possibility.
Comments are great means for users to stick out in a crowd, to make themselves noticeable.
Coffee Meets Bagel gross income is over $25 mln. Profile commenting could be one of the key features to contribute to that figure. Last November CMB earned 30% over their income in 2017.
Do you still have any doubts on described functionality efficiency? You don’t have to offer your audience exactly the same option. Those are actual experiences of great market leaders to give you few ideas on how to be different from them and, at the same time, popular among users. Be creative and you’ll find your own solution.
Stay incognito
OkCupid found the solution for those who feel a little bit shy but still would like to date to meet their better-halves. There is an option for users to be invisible while on site. Remember one important thing: when the audience would like to “Like” others and message them, then they have to leave incognito mode.
One of such feature possibilities is to hide their profile from some undesirable app members. Users can easily stay invisible or turn visible any time they want, as they have full control over the given process.
Your users would prefer to feel safe when applying your dating platform, thus, you can show them some care, if you consider safety issue.
Top Picks
Coming back to Tinder experience they have another great feature to consider.
Given parameter shall assist in locating the most suitable match for a specific user. Every member can receive a curated list and users don’t really have to sort it out manually. The app designed algorithm comes to the rescue to choose from the list people who match specific user’s interests (as per information from the profile) and swiping preferences.
In fact, such feature originally appeared at Coffee Meets Bagel service. It’s a great tool to help the audience save their time and efforts. The most important in here is for users to be sincere while filling in their profile info, as that data on hobbies, education, job, etc. is used to find the most preferable matches.
Such functionality could be turned into a win-win situation. We are already convinced of its pros for users, and as to developers, there is an option to provide additional Top Picks for some additional payment. Thus, it turns to be a reliable monetization method.
Users would definitely appreciate a nice touch of your if you give them as a present one free Top Pick a day. Your audience would be happy with such a complement of the house.
The way to make more money with such functionality is to make it a part of the premium package, therefore, you’ll get more paid users. However, be careful and don’t go too far, otherwise, users might consider you to be greedy. We are sure you’ll find the middle way in here when your audience is happy and you are satisfied as well.
Turn is Yours
And it’s about Hinge again. They also try to assist their audience in making the first step. Such dating service simply takes a decision on it and gives notifications to specific users when it’s their turn to take actions.
Hinge conducted research and the results have proved that every fourth user was giving up conversations without any intention to do so – they were simply forgetting to send messages. “Your Turn” feature was designed to remind users on dialogues they haven’t responded to.
That solution is the way out to prevent another huge dating apps trouble when after a great beginning the communication simply stops.
When developing a dating service, think through approaches to maintain communication between users. They’ll need some assistance on that.
Match Questions
OkCupid tries really hard to help their users enjoy their dating experience online. Their approach of asking questions serves to get the most suitable matches for their audience.
Mentioned feature differs OkCupid from other similar dating platforms. Match Questions section serves to ask numerous question on various topics: food, religion, hobbies, lifestyle, culture, politics, music, individual preferences, and everything else.
Users decide by themselves how many questions to reply, and they have to understand that by answering more questions they provide more info about themselves, thus, there are more chances to find the real perfect match.
Users shall also understand that when answering only a couple of questions, most likely they won’t be able to find their soulmates, as the service doesn’t have enough information to find the right person.
If you decide to come up with something similar, try to make it clear for the audience to realize the responsibility, to be honest, devoting such process sufficient time. In such a way that’ll work much better for everyone, including you!
Hopefully, our article appeared to be valuable and inspiring for you. Can’t wait to start drafting? We are sure, you got a lot of ideas to design a really popular and successful dating platform. Good luck to you!
