Sex appeal through text appeal
On the Internet, English majors win!
When you are in a nightclub or bar, you don’t know much about the person whom you are considering for a conversation. I am an excellent dancer (I am a VIP at a Salsa club) and a computer genius, but I don’t wear computer logo apparel to a nightclub very often. I am essentially competing vs. every other guy who is there for her attention. He can be a drug addict, a smoker, a construction worker, a CEO, an accountant, a criminal…
To me, that’s highly inefficient. I’d much rather be with someone who ignores every other guy.
On the Internet, I have a very clear advantage. I can establish my unique value proposition with the girl and then take her to my favorite night club. Once there, she has sufficient information about me to be disinterested in just about everyone else. This is how English majors win. I am not one, but my creative writing abilities are good enough.
Think about the last time you read a dating profile.
Now think about the last 50 of them…100…200…
How many of them can you remember?
A picture and a headline are there to get your profile viewed. We accomplished that, but now we have to keep the reader’s interest. We now face the problem that is commonly referred to as differentiating yourself from the competition.
I don’t care how hot a girl is if I ultimately can’t connect with her mind.
Many profiles are very brief, disorganized, and, frankly, uninteresting. I refer to them as generic. I don’t date generic girls.
Differentiating yourself from competition is hard enough in the business world, but there we only have to deal with a world of competing companies, which is traditionally not that complicated. If you do not have a business with a global application, it’s pretty easy to out-innovate local competition. Exception - ubiquitous businesses like nail salons. What do such ubiquitous businesses do to survive? They have two options - innovate or compete on price.
In marketing, the last thing we want to do is to compete solely on price. That leads into price wars…
Huh?! What?! Wrong site!!!…Or is it?
When you create a personal profile, you are launching a marketing campaign where you are the product. As you can’t compete on price, unless you are looking for some sugar, you have to differentiate yourself using only text and imagery.
Writing style
This is a formal document. Using IM-speak “im lookin’ 4 u” will not get you far. Write as if you were writing a love letter. You are telling the other person a story. A story that is designed to captivate his attention. This story needs to be powerful, engaging, and full of the “wow” factor. Read back your profile and see if it inspires yourself to write to yourself.
Spelling
Firefox has a built-in spell checker! Use it. If you can’t spell, you will get fewer responses. It’s really that simple. You must spell correctly.
Grammar
There are grammar errors in this article. Those of you who can spot them will likely ignore them because the content is compelling enough. Those of you who can’t spot them won’t care too much.
The same applies to your profile. You should strive to make it as grammatically correct as you can, but don’t get obsessed about it. I simply have better things to do.
Headline
I already wrote an article on that. Your headline should sum up the key points of your profile. This is hard to do.
Opening statement
Think of this as a sub-title to your headline. “Dear luscious hottie,” could be a fun start.
Length
If you can sum yourself up in fewer than 500 characters, you are either a genius at writing succinctly or did not tell me enough about yourself.
When I am reading your profile, you got me drawn in and hooked on the line. Now I want to learn more about you and to check against my compatibility requirements.
Longer profiles may actually result in fewer responses, but that is misleading. Many times I would be reading a girl’s profile and see some things that make us less than an ideal match. By figuring that out very early, I’ve avoided wasting our time. In sales, we refer to this as pre-qualifying leads. My time is extremely valuable and I prefer not to go on dates that have zero chance of being ideal for me long-term.
The devil is in the details - share your passions
Don’t tell me “I like motorcycles”. Tell me “I ride a Yamaha R1. Can you keep up?!”.
The first statement is generic and tells me that you may have a mild interest in motorcycles and won’t run away if I ask you to hop on the back on my bike. The second statement is aggressive and tells me that you have an acute interest in riding sport bikes.
If I were a bike rider, I would be far more inclined to respond to the second statement.
Instead of “I like music, movies, tv” say “I just went to see DJ Tiesto as San Francisco Civic Auditorium. The show was cool, but the lack of lasers due to Tiesto’s request was a bummer. Have you seen Beowulf in IMAX 3D?! Seeing Angelina Jolie rise up from the water in 3D literally inches from my nose was…drool-worthy. What did you think about the season finale of Nip/Tuck?”
You want to engage the reader in a conversation. A classic marketing technique is to make the prospect think about how they would use the product instead of whether they need it. If I am starting to plan a date with you while reading your profile, you got me initially sold and to close the deal you have to give me a compelling reason to choose you from an ocean of competition.
Good sales people will not say “Call me if you have any questions”. They will say “We can meet on Thursday at 3pm-5pm or Friday 2pm. Which works better for you?”. If the prospect is engaged enough to consider this meeting, they will check the schedule and suggest a mutually acceptable time.
When I ask a girl out, I don’t give her the option to say “no”. I give her a list of choices. She always has that option, of course, but I do not explicitly present it.
Give me give me more, give me more…
Your profile is starting to look more interesting. Congratulations!
Go through it again and see if you left anything explained as one word and look for any potential stigmas.
“I am a nerd” has a stigma…”World-class computer expert” is better, don’t you think? I was a conference speaker at Microsoft, so I think I can claim that!
Rewrite anything that is generic, dull, or makes a reader say “huh?”.
What life accomplishments have you achieved so far that can make you unique? I doubt you’ll find too many computer experts who are competitive dancers, for example.
Close the deal
An effective action statement should take the reader over the top. You want her to really want you by the time she’s done reading.
“Well, luscious, if you are intrigued enough, I’d love to a cancel a few appointments to meet you this week”.
Why bother?!
I get a lot of first contact e-mail. I wrote a fairly edgy profile, so some of them are downright straightforward. Let’s just say I got more than one offer to participate in a sexy photoshoot. Some were even more explicit. 
In other instances, I wrote a profile that was more mainstream.
The girls who write me tell me that my profile told them that I was a very interesting person. It stood out in their minds. “You just grabbed my attention” was one compliment, for example. “Let’s meet tonight!” was another. I think you can see a pattern.
My profile effectively attracts wild, highly intelligent girls and filters out generic ones. Isn’t that what you want?
Argh! This is too much work!
You certainly got that right! I would argue that most people who aren’t in the advertising, marketing, or other creative writing industry can’t write a compelling profile. If you can, you may want to consider a career in that line of work.
Marketing communications experts charge hundreds of dollars per hour because just one page of text can make billions of dollars in revenues for their clients. I am not exaggerating. I bill at less than $200/hr so far.
Wouldn’t you rather go on a date than spend days on writing?
As I am an entrepreneur, I am addressing that problem with a professional online dating profile writing and editing service.
