How Marketing Can Help You Date Smarter

“You’re too rational, you seem emotionless.”

If you’re surprised by these reproaches because you hear them more between a conversation between a woman and a man, with her shouting these things at him, here’s the reverse situation.

How did we get here?

Youth Park is beautiful in October. It’s neither too cold nor too hot, and people are walking around the alleys.

“Do you know that now I’ve put my job on the Bumble?” I say to the man I’m with. “I’ve made sure I won’t have many more matches!” We laugh tearfully.

Bumble, the dating app I’ve been on for five months, is testing and keeps changing buttons, rewards, nudges. One consequence is that I do not know who is giving me matches. Or maybe I don’t have so many since I realized I’ve applied the principles of marketing and behavioral economics… in dating.

Whose reproaches are the above?

Ultra-Learning or Immersive Learning

I recently started reading a book about ultra-learning. It’s about how the author, Scott Young, and others have learned things from computer science to oriental languages quickly. Because I need to know many areas in my job as a Behaviour Designer and Growth Hacker, from psychology to economics, from copywriting to marketing, from business to UX and sales, I need to learn quickly and efficiently.

The man I’m with is a former data. I mean, we met through Bumble; We’ve discussed everything but relationships. About everything meaning… physics. Being a physicist, I bombarded him with questions and that made our conversation very rich.

Not just him, but others I’ve met before, have had and still need to take time, shorter or longer, to learn about themselves. Here I’m referring to what they want from a relationship. Just sitting and reflecting on it won’t reveal much.

We know the confusion after a breakup when you don’t know who you are anymore and you have to take time to get to know yourself, build your self-esteem, accept yourself for who you are, and move on.

Many of us have gone through this.

There comes a time, though, when you feel you’re ready to meet other people and going out on dates. Everyone is different and has their way of approaching things. An introvert might never do what I’m going to suggest, and an extrovert might have some much more advanced ideas reading this article.

“If you want to find out what you want from a relationship or even what you’re looking for, try immersive learning for, say, three months.”

My walking partner seems to think. We already had have a laugh about how I ended up using marketing and gamification in dating. Now he is not surprised.

“For three months you go out with all the women who say yes, whether it’s live or on Meet or Zoom. You note experiences and notice patterns. At least you have some data about yourself that you can’t find out otherwise.”

The Diamond Package in Relationships

In marketing, we have different techniques to promote services or products. They base some on intuition (and they don’t always work); they base others on science. I work with the latter approach.

We are influenced by how products are presented to us and how subscription packages are promoted. I think everyone has at least once accessed a free version or trial of a service. Just to see how it works and get used to the service. Later (the marketer thinks), they love it so much that they will pay more money for the paid version or upgrade to a premium version.

To do that, the customer needs to hear about you and be curious enough to enter the website or app. Then they navigate to your page and, either from the first interaction or later, access your services or products. In most cases, it will start with lower prices.

The same is true in dating.

The potential partner must stop at your picture (Awareness). Then read your profile (Acquisition). Then be convinced enough to want to talk to you, to give you a match (Activation). After that, believe that this conversation is worth more and will take the next steps and meet you (Retention).

From here we get into the Revenue area if he wants to “buy” as well. In our case, we are referring to more romantic encounters, which are part of the basic package. Let’s call it Standard.

That’s where a different story begins. In marketing, Referrals follow, but that’s not the case here (although my physicist friend told me that girls have practiced this method as well). At this stage, we’re talking about the Professional Package, followed by the Diamond Package.

Obviously, from case to case, these “packages” differ. At each point in the interaction, there is a dynamic. Each “dance”, as couples’ therapists call it, or each dynamic, plays out at certain levels.

My friend is now looking at me with great interest. You’re probably do that too.

What do I mean by that?

What dating “Packages” might look like

If we go through the area of Awareness, Acquisition, and Activation before we get to the conversation and romantic encounter, the Packages area follows. These also have their charms: appreciating a well-crafted profile, choosing your opening question, thinking about how you keep the conversation going, and so on.

The Standard Package is the basic stuff that makes a conversation happen. What music you listen to, what movies you watch, how you spend your free time, how you look/smell, what kind of physical activities we have in common, what foods we like, and so on.

This Standard Pack may contain distinct elements from person to person. For some, it may be what I have written above. For others, it’s about the material area, such as whether you have a big salary, a house, a car, or other assets. For others, it’s about spirituality, work, sex, or other personal quirks.

To me, as it says in the description, it’s about having a sense of humor, being able to have intelligent conversations, and knowing what we want to do in life (okay, I didn’t write that one, but my Standard package is more atypical).

Now, that’s where the hard part comes from, just like convincing a customer to upgrade is damn hard. Because if one party doesn’t seem to meet the unwritten “conditions”, all hell breaks loose. And even if Bumble tries to offer “re-targeting” by showing you profiles of people you’ve matched, it’s hard to take the bait again.

But if you’re still past this pack- and for some, it may mean one conversation, one date, five dates, ten dates- then move on to the next. Welcome, Professional Package! Here the dance is already more subtle. If at first, we danced awkwardly, stomping our feet, pretending not to see what’s wrong, here we’re faking it with artistry. We see a farther horizon and pursue certain goals.

The goals are changing. We’re in the zone of ”Could this partner be my spouse for a longer period, preferably a lifetime?”. ”Would I be able to rely on him or her?”. ”Could I be vulnerable around him or her?”

We pursue more sensitive and deeper things. What his lifestyle is, what he does on weekends, how he sees his job, who are his friends, what values has, and so on.

For everyone, it may look different and may have shorter or longer periods. For some, it may start after two weeks, for others, after two months, and so on. For me, it starts after a week or even sooner, but it takes a while and includes many ingredients.

Here’s a sore point in our experience. If in this subtle dance we find out that it is not worth investing more effort and energy (maybe even money, if you are a man), then everything can deteriorate quickly.

Diamond Package in Dating

If, however, we end up going further, then comes the third package, Diamond. This is where we get quite vulnerable. We look for many nuances, we offer things we’ve only offered to those who know us well enough, we show our face as we are when no one sees us. We enter the zone of empathy, intimate desires, fears that paralyze us. In a nutshell, vulnerability.

Often, it’s a long way to this point of partner interaction. So far, we have a segment of “customers” that starts at the top of the funnel, from dating apps, and ends at the bottom, where there are 2–3 people left.

“So, your ex didn’t make it to Diamond!” my friend says. We look at each other with tears in our eyes, trying to hold back under our surgical masks.

“You’re emotionless, too organized and structured, but I think you have some sensitivity because you write poetry and poets are different.” These reproaches were said to me by my ex, in one form or another, whom I saw for a month.

For the Diamond package, you have to be patient. It’s not like buying your latest generation of the phone with your own money as soon as it comes out, but it wants you to have the same feelings as someone who worked for that money.

It’s exactly like working your ass off for that money, so you can finally buy it and appreciate it differently. This package comes with confidence. If you cannot cultivate confidence from the start, you’ll never get into a zone of vulnerability.

This is exactly what happened in my former relationship. This is exactly what happens in many relationships: without trust, there is nothing.

What keeps us in dating apps?

Need.

We have a need. In any start-up, when you want to start a business, you ask yourself how big the problem is in society, how often it is encountered, whether it is a fundamental need, and so on. Then you build the solution. Well, that would be preferable. Often people have a solution and then look for a problem for it. It’s absurd, but that’s often the way it is.

Well, we (single people) have a need. And a fundamental one. I’ll put it in terms closer to what I mean, a stable partnership. The first need is for sex, on Maslow’s scale, but that’s what Tinder was invented for. As long as we don’t solve this need, either through real-life dating or (serious) dating apps or (parental) arrangements, we’ll keep using these means.

Here, Bumble or OkCupid (I don’t use it yet, but have heard positive feedback). There are others, too, from country to country.

Why, after hundreds of conversations, missed dates, and disappointments, do we still use them?

Here comes my theory.

We’re passing some couples by. My physicist friend understands perfectly what I’m saying. He hadn’t thought so, but now it makes sense. Fortunately, or unfortunately for me, I get constant feedback that what I’m saying makes sense. I ask him why he stays in Bumble if he’s tired of stiff conversations that go nowhere. Mind you, he’s not the type to go out on romantic dates often!

“Maybe you’ll meet someone, eventually.”

I’d say hope keeps us going, but it’s more about our primal need. Loneliness kills you.

Using dating apps is like a game (besides the dopamine you get before you open them). You know there are new people out there. You know, you might have an interesting conversation going. Even if they don’t bring you “customers” in the Standard package, you know there’s a wide funnel for that.

That’s why you keep going. You only have one Diamond Package to offer, and it’s been used so few times in your life! There are others after Diamond, but for the sake of conversation, I’ll stop at this one.

How does that translate into gamification?

Well, by constantly swiping you become like the Mario character, but without the obstacles. You’re hoping you’ll eventually hit a few coins somewhere. Sometimes you discover them, and that translates into match and conversation, other times it’s just a trick. Out of those pennies, which seemed like a small amount, the more you explore the conversation and interaction, the more you realize there may be more golden goodies out there.

Your heart starts pounding and anticipation is at an all-time high.

You’re already imagining, without confirmation, that these pennies are part of a chest. And this chest, this treasure, may contain many gold coins. What joy on Mario! How long you’ve waited! How hard you’ve worked for it! Just let your friends hear who you’re meeting. What a wonderful partner!

Often, as sad experience has shown us, opening the chest does not bring you more coins. Just some worthless tin. You expect rubies, crystals, and other diamonds, but when there, it’s just dust. Sometimes snakes are grabbing your hand and you want to get the hell out of there. Or other shady animals.

So, frustrated, Mario closes the lid.

Other times, Mario wades through tin cans and worthless things. We find him back in the game, six months later.

Rarely does Mario get to enjoy many golden coins, like a gambler who bets for years and one day his luck changes.

—

“What do you think? Do I have high standards, or is this just my style of being, no pretense?”

“That’s you, and that’s your target audience, getting smaller and smaller,” my friend replies, laughing. “You already know that, and I understand it can’t be any other way.”

We walk at the same pace through the park. We’ve already made up our minds where we stand in our personal lives. We ride different trains at different paces.

Youth Park is beautiful in October. Colorful, with yellow, like Bumble.

It gives us a lot of optimism.