What a fabulous subject and what a freaking awesome time to be marketing in this tsunami of digital opportunity! Forget about YouTube for a sec and just look at how internet-based video platforms along with mobile technology are completely changing the game folks.

In reality, the sky’s the limit. There’s no bounds to what you can do when it comes to marketing anything, let alone a dating site. Everything is evolving so fast! YouTube isn’t what it was just a year ago. Look at Vine! Look what happened to Instagram when they added video sharing capability. But here’s the key…

We’ve got to create a way to promote and sell your dating site indirectly. It can’t be just more “Hey look at me!” or “Holy smokes another dating site!” because those don’t work.

Designing a Themed Campaign

What’s the vision? What’s the story? What’s the moral? What’s the point? Don’t just wing it folks. Spend some time brainstorming and whiteboarding and storyboarding and sketching and…

• Let’s design a 6 month campaign around dating success stories using the site?
• Let’s design a 6 month campaign around how to create the best profile on the site?
• Comedic dating tips videos?
• Satirical thought-pieces that make you smile and “get back out there!”?
• Interviews/coaching sessions with ideal users having a rough time dating?
• Makeovers?
• Reenactments of “biggest dating fails”?

We could go on and on. You get the idea. Don’t be all over the board though. Find a suitable theme that fits your budget and roll with it for at least 6 months. If it doesn’t stick, try something else based on any user feedback you received.

Long or Short Videos?

Doesn’t matter! All that matters at the end of the day is what your specific audience responds to. In fact, whatever your campaign looks like it better be built upon a foundation of adaptability. Why? Because your audience will tell you what works and what doesn’t.

It’ll probably be some little sporadic stunt, or the last thing you’d expect. And, it’ll happen quickly. Suddenly people will start commenting on a certain aspect of a video. Then the views on that specific video will briefly skyrocket. Whatever it is, pay attention and seize upon it. Shift your campaign and pivot somehow to incorporate it.

If it was just a little thing and disappears as quickly as it appears, that’s fine. Listen, it’s all about experimentation and responding to feedback from users. Everything is moving too quickly to try and put your finger down on any one method or approach.

Budgeting

We’re in the age of indie here people. You can either a) offer really genuine and authentic and decently produced content on a shoestring budget or b) create high quality production content with all the bells and whistles. Then of course you have the grey area in between. Don’t worry about your budget itself, just worry about putting together creative, intuitive and entertaining videos with what you’ve got.

Hope that helps! Thanks for reading, now go study what people are doing to carve out their own slice of the digital video marketing pie on YouTube and create a way you can use that approach as a starting point for your channel. Enjoy!