Love and PR: A Compatible Match
Perceived as a niche player, eHarmony’s objective was to break into the top five dating sites and be included in industry roundups alongside Match.com and Yahoo! Personals. With a steady growth in copy-cat competition, eHarmony wanted to launch PR campaigns to drive new membership and increase quality exposure in national consumer, business and broadcast media. Kulesa Faul began by brokering relationships with industry analysts at Nielsen/NetRatings, Jupiter and comScore, and arranging a CEO press tour with influential business reporters on both coasts.
Results: Kulesa Faul worked closely with the eHarmony marketing team to brand Dr. Neil Clark Warren as “The Nation’s Relationship Expert” – national broadcast appearances during this time included CNNfn, CNBC Power Lunch, NBC Nightline, PBS National Nightly Business Report, CNN Headline News and CNN Saturday Night. A large media blitz around Valentine’s Day resulted in over 50 press clips, 17 broadcast mentions and 12 radio appearances. Kulesa Faul leveraged company news, including the first industry patent, to garner coverage in Newsweek, Businessweek, Reuters, AP, USA TODAY, Forbes, Reader’s Digest, Time and The Wall Street Journal. eHarmony ultimately cracked the top 3 and top 5 category list of sites, and unseated the largest competitor dating sites in new subscriber sales and growth for 2004, as reported by independent analyst data, while eHarmony membership grew from 2 to 5 million in one year.
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