Does Lavalife Prime fill a Niche?

Lavalife Prime was launched in June 2007 and had an advertising budget of less than $1 million. It started as a free service where singles of the age 45 and older could come to meet other singles online. Agneta Owen, a marketing consultant for Lavalife Corp. expected it to attract 25,000 members by June 2008. They almost doubled their goal. This means Lavalife had planned to spend $40 per member ($1,000,000 / 25,000 expected members) and ended up spending only $20 per member in advertising dollars. Recently Lavalife Prime started to charge it's members (see Story) so it will be interesting to see where membership levels drop too. On average paid dating sites can expect 10 to 20 percent of its free members convert to the paid service.

The over 50 crowd is a valuable market. This age group are usually at the height of their income level and make up roughly a third of the population in North America. Does Lavalife Prime offer what older singles are looking for? We will have to wait and see. This segment of the market already has a number of successful dedicated sites. Lavalife Prime would have to compete with these as well as the established dating services like Match.com and eHarmony. Prime hopes with their spin on the dating service experience and their sprinkling of social networking features, that they will come out on top. The relative unique feature of Lavalife Prime seems to be the section "My Life Experiences" in the profile. It contains the members pictures and videos of different memories or experiences they may of had through out their life. This is then presented in a picture time line.

We expect to do a full review soon of Lavalife Prime.

Update: Check out the new Lavalife Prime Review.