Cupid, a company who running subscription-based dating website withers while other free dating services are booming. Seen from the news, Cupid faces dropping number of new users and profit, while the competition and marketing cost are increasing. The most important reason is its membership fee, which push users to other free websites.

I recommend Cupid to use differentiation strategy in conjunction with focus strategy in low cost. Cupid is a big company which have price-sensitive customers in industry. Under this circumstance, as other dating websites are free, like Tinder, focus strategy in lower cost is really urgent and important, removing the subscription fee can attract more new users quickly and keeping market position of Cupid.

Differentiation strategy is very important but not that urgent which need long-time plan, because PoD is the essential part in differentiating Cupid from rivals then getting into consumers’ mind. Cupid has developed its own location-based dating app –Tangle, which is free and can facilitate users as dating on smartphones. But for fee- basing features of Tangle, I think Cupid can offer a free probation period to appeal more users. In addition, if Cupid can cooperate with some dating program and provide more interesting meeting activities or opportunities according to the preferences of different customer segments, it will gain more benefits, including both profit and fume, which can’t be imitated by rivals.

Reference:

http://www.economist.com/news/business-and-finance/21619901-while-some-dating-services-are-thriving-others-fall-limp-tough-love