While online dating sites can be a very effective method of meeting new people, there are a couple of significant shortcomings.
Firstly, it can often be quite hard to find people who live reasonably close to you. This occurs even on some of the big dating sites with huge membership bases.Then there is the cost. While paying a monthly fee to contact people online certainly works out a lot cheaper than going out to nightclubs and bars, it can still add up over time.
And that cost can seem even more excessive when there aren’t that many members in your local area.So here’s a suggested tactic that addresses both these barriers simultaneously: You can use completely free dating sites to meet people in your local area.
You do this by promoting them yourself.Okay, it will cost you a little bit to do. But it should work out less than the cost of membership to a paid dating site. Firstly, you find some completely free dating sites — preferably ones that are country-specific.
In Australia there is a totally free site called Oasis Active. There must be others like it in other countries. But if you can’t find one then there are sites like Plenty Of Fish, which are international.
Get a free web hosting account and build a page listing these sites.
Of course you should add some relevant content as well. And check that the host allows this kind of usage. Some of them don’t like it because they see it as a violation of the terms and conditions.
Then you just make up some very basic flyers advertising the page, clearly displaying the URL.
You don’t have to use clip art but it does help to make them more eye-catching. You can quickly create reasonably sized flyers by doing say, 4 of them to an A4 page using Microsoft Publisher or something like it. You can easily get them copied in black and white for around 1 cent each (maybe less!).Then you just leave these in little piles in local laundromats and cafes (being careful to ask where appropriate, of course).
Or you can simply put them individually into people’s letterboxes — particularly in unit and apartment blocks, since that’s where single people are more likely to live.
Everyone is online nowadays. So offline advertising of websites is worth doing.
If you do, say, 2000, you’ve only spent 20 dollars. Of course it will take you a while, particularly if you put the vast majority of them in letterboxes (which is recommended). But from a campaign of that size, you’re sure to get some sign-ups.
Even if it’s only one in 200 who joins one or more of the free sites listed, then there will still be 10 people on there who are in your area. Not bad, eh?
Okay, it’s quite involved — and kind of diabolical! But it can definitely save you some money in the long run. (You can even make some money if you join the pay per lead affiliate programs that some of these free dating sites offer.) And if you keep at this you can certainly greatly increase your chances of finding just the kind of person you’re looking for locally.