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3. Where Do You Spend Your Money? Dating Apps, Matchmaking or... SEO?! - JD KLOSNER
4 Plays12 days ago
JD is a videographer and marketer with a background in running a small business in Florida. Now based in Colorado, he specializes in videography business capturing family stories. After years of using dating apps with little success, JD decided to take a different approach. He built datejd.com to share both his work and personal journey in one transparent, creative space.
Topics Covered:
Why traditional dating apps failed JD
The power of personal branding in dating
JD’s unique dating business card strategy
How humor and transparency filter the right matches
The viral potential of a standout dating profile
Transitioning from online swipes to real-life connections
JD’s plans to help others with creative dating marketing
Timestamps
00:30:00 – Who is JD?
01:33:00 – JD’s matchmaking experiences
03:00:00 – Why he built his own dating website
04:15:00 – The dating business card concept
05:40:00 – Reactions to handing out his card
07:30:00 – Parallels to Tinder’s "#1 Profile of 2022"
08:25:00 – Can you "SEO" your single status?
09:20:00 – How JD secured dates
09:37:00 – Women’s responses to his business card
11:00:00 – Men’s reactions to JD’s approach
13:00:00 – How humor filters compatibility
13:30:00 – What’s on JD’s website?
17:30:00 – His updated business card strategy
21:40:00 – Plans to promote others in dating
25:10:00 – How to connect with JD
Get in Touch with JD:
📧 Website: datejd.com
Get in Touch with Dallas Bluth:
📧 Email: dallas@blackboxdating.com
🌐 Website: blackboxdating.com
Recommended
Transcript
Boosting Confidence Through Dating Experiment
00:00:00
Speaker
So let me ask you, has doing this experiment made you more confident in approaching women, in communicating ways that you're looking for? Like like inside, in your state inside of yourself, has it impacted at all your confidence or other areas of yourself?
00:00:16
Speaker
I think it's actually...
Background in Videography and Marketing
00:00:24
Speaker
Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Black Box Dating here. um Met you at a local event here in Denver and you have taken it taken it upon yourself to promote the fact that you are single to like a whole new level. um let's But before we get into all of that, let's start with um who are you? What do you do? What's your what's your background?
00:00:50
Speaker
So I have a videography and marketing background. ran a small business in Florida doing that.
Transition from Apps to Events
00:00:56
Speaker
and out here in Colorado, I have a videography business capturing family stories for, you know, your parents or grandparents who live in a retirement home.
00:01:05
Speaker
Yep. Okay. So that, and then you are single, is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. and tell us a little bit about your backstory. Were using dating apps? You know, were you trying to meet women online? What, what sort of the, the backstory that led up to this, this new endeavor you've been doing?
00:01:23
Speaker
I think like most people, you know I spent years on the dating apps just swiping through people and i never had much luck. It wasn't really a big thing to me. I started doing in-person dating events.
00:01:36
Speaker
Really loved that. And then now that I'm doing in-person dating events ah even more, i was like, okay, I'm going to try something different.
Applying Marketing Strategies to Dating
00:01:45
Speaker
I called up a matchmaker just, you know, I'm like, because I think it was my sister who suggested, she's like, have you ever tried this? i heard I heard a coworker that was doing this and I call them up and they wanted $3,800 then another month and stuff like this. And I'm like,
00:02:05
Speaker
Whoa. You know, I my brain instantly went to marketing costs and i Googled it real fast, did some keyword analysis. And basically I went, hmm, singles in Denver.
00:02:17
Speaker
What's that keyword cost? And I'm like, I'll drink for that. I can do that. And just approached it with like a pay-per-click campaign mindset.
00:02:28
Speaker
Awesome. Okay. so So, I mean, I actually, um I've never used a matchmaking service, but I did investigate it one point. And I think the cheapest that it came down to for me was something like $500 or $600 per first blind date.
00:02:41
Speaker
per first blind date As in, I didn't even get to see a picture of the girl I was going on a date with. I just had to trust this person. And it was, I think it was $550 was if you bought the most. And that was, I think, $5,000 or $6,000 worth.
00:02:57
Speaker
And, you know, and then it went up from there for a first date. So you sort of like looked at that cost and said, hang on, I'm used to working with marketing budgets. I bet you I could actually get way more traction and way more,
00:03:10
Speaker
Um, good opportunities for the same budget or for less of a budget. So, um, okay. So,
Building a Personal Brand Online
00:03:17
Speaker
all right. So then you decided to build a website. Is that, is that right?
00:03:21
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I went ahead and, uh, you know, through a website together. Cause I'm like, if, if, I'm already signed up for all these apps. I already have all this very personal info about myself of hobbies and things like that. I'm like, why not just consolidate it into one place?
00:03:38
Speaker
And I'm already out there across, you know, four different businesses. And, you know, I got my LinkedIn. I really don't care if people know my last name. I mean, you could circle someone's face on your phone and do a reverse image search.
00:03:51
Speaker
So I just went for it. Right, right. Okay. And so you, okay, so the domain that you got is datejd.com. Is that right? Yeah, believe i got a six letter domain. but that's that That is pretty impressive, especially one that doesn't just look like a child played with, you know, an alphabet set, you know, on on the refrigerator with magnets. i yeah i yeah Maybe I'm dating myself a little bit. When when we were little, we had we had letters that you stuck on, you know, on there.
00:04:19
Speaker
Yeah. And you could maybe find some random arrangements. But you got dayjd.com. And i I remember you showed me your card. And I have to say, like, I didn't know at the time that you had a marketing background. But now it makes sense.
00:04:31
Speaker
Because like, you know how to boil it down. Like one side of the card says, literally, are you single? All caps, question mark. You turn it over. And the answer is datejd.com.
00:04:43
Speaker
Oh, do you have one? can you Can you bring it up for us? That's what i should have done. i Yeah. And when when you handed it to me, I mean, I almost laughed out loud. It's like, are you single? Because I have this i have this this sort of thought in my head where you know the problem is we can't identify the single people that are out there in public.
Humor and Transparency in Dating
00:05:03
Speaker
And if if there was some kind of like like like a badge or a flashing sign, I know there's, oh, I forgot what it's called, but uh, pair, I think is what it's called. You know, you're supposed to wear some ring and other people wearing the ring. i don't know how well that's working. Um, I have my doubts about it, but, um,
00:05:20
Speaker
if If there was some way to easily recognize that I'm single, and then when you flash the card that basically says, are you single? And then on the reverse is the solution, yo like date and then your name.
00:05:31
Speaker
you know it it it is so It is so like, I am tired of this baloney. I am tired of beating around the bush. I'm going to be as completely transparent as I can about this process.
00:05:43
Speaker
And I just got to say, like, bravo, like that is that is that must open up just having having that that mindset about it and that um no apologies, you know, about where you are and what you're looking for. Like, that is so amazing.
00:05:59
Speaker
Yeah, I've gotten some of the best feedback from it because nobody's offended by it. It's just a very polite thing. you know, it's it's very easy that someone to pick it up and they laugh and they go, oh no, sorry, I'm not single. You know, I've got a boyfriend. I got this, you know, but everyone, everyone wants to help though, too.
00:06:19
Speaker
Yeah. I have never had someone hand a card back to me. It doesn't matter what I do. If i pass this thing out and they say, no, I'm not single, but I am, it ends with, but I'm going to keep this. I'm going to pass it to my sister. I've got two friends I'm going to see next week. You know they I mean,
00:06:36
Speaker
My gosh, these cards are going to make it around Denver, that's for sure. That is awesome. And, you know, and and that's the thing is, I feel like sometimes guys are a little bit shy about what, you know, the maybe not the fact that they're single, but there may be they're maybe not that clear with the world about what it is that they're looking for, their preferences.
Sales Strategies and Dating
00:06:55
Speaker
um I learned a long time ago, I want everyone to know you know, when I'm single, that that I am single, that I am looking. And then all of my friends know exactly the type of woman that I'm looking for.
00:07:07
Speaker
So it's sort of like I have little salespeople out there, or maybe not salespeople, but little little opportunity people out there looking for the leads and like, you knowre going to extract them and send them back my way. It doesn't happen that often, but sometimes it does.
00:07:19
Speaker
And so you're really just kind of throwing the leads out there constantly ah You even said it yourself. You had to walk it back three separate times in that sentence. It comes back to using sales terms. You've got sales people, you've got leads. I'm like, there's tools built for this. There's CRMs, there's sales funnels, there's landing pages.
00:07:40
Speaker
And what's better than having a landing page that you can share with someone? what's What's awesome is I had a guest on just ah um just a little while ago who was actually the number one Tinder dating profile um of 2022.
00:07:54
Speaker
And he talked about it in very similar terms. He talked about it from a marketing background. And he was talking about how he drove traffic from, I believe it was Reddit, to his profile, to you know to increase it and to essentially essentially kind of like um you know ah like, what would be the word, like juice the algorithm into like pushing him up higher and higher because he's driving external traffic onto the platform.
00:08:20
Speaker
and And then he took it a step further and he basically, um his text messages and everything were essentially sales scripts that he worked out and he figured out the most efficient way to do it. And he obviously went off script when appropriate, like any good sales person.
00:08:33
Speaker
And okay, so yeah, you're yet you're another guy taking a similar approach, but yours is more grassroots, right? um Yours is more on your own. So, okay. So tell us, so there is like, is there literally like search engine optimization to your, to your single status as a man? Is that really where you are? Yeah.
00:08:53
Speaker
i'm I'm really getting there right now and I haven't gotten too clinical and commercial with it, but I definitely am targeting keywords and things like that. okay I think it's going to get a little more aggressive.
00:09:08
Speaker
Honestly, it's becoming easier with AI and I'm like, wow, you know, I'll pump out about 30, 40 AI fluff blog posts just to drop SEO traffic.
00:09:19
Speaker
Okay. All right. so So I have to ask, okay, so you, you, I'm assuming you are going on dates, right? This is happening yeah either, either from your website or from a singles event or, you know, maybe dating platforms. so Okay. So does this topic come up when you're on a date?
00:09:36
Speaker
Well, the people I'm going on a date with met me because I handed them a business card or found me on my website. So it's definitely, I mean, And is everybody laughing about it on the date? I mean, are women, so I should say, do women, are they is it a positive response from them? i I would say it's a positive response because I can't not laugh about it when I talk about it because it is a funny endeavor.
Dating Events and Marketing Experience
00:10:00
Speaker
Like um I'm not taking myself too seriously.
00:10:03
Speaker
And I think anybody that's actually single and actually trying to date and not just complaining in a closed friends group, they realize that you have to put yourself out there.
00:10:15
Speaker
And I'm just that much more out there than they are. yeah But it's like, if you bother to show up, get ready, do your hair, pick out an outfit and show up to this event. Yeah.
00:10:26
Speaker
you're going go walk up to random people and say hi, and all you're missing is handing them business card. And anybody that's in the industry that does any sort of networking, it's just second nature, you know? And I mean, because I do a lot of networking events for my small business, it actually has become sort of a crutch because I'm so used to handing out a business card.
00:10:46
Speaker
The fact that when I go to a dating event, I don't have like, here's my number. I'm padding my pockets for a business card and I look like a crazy person. Okay. So you, you have these out at singles. events I mean, that has to piss off a lot of other guys. They're talking and everything.
00:11:02
Speaker
And you have a business card for your relationship status. There must be other guys there. Some of them are probably pissed. Some of them are like, okay, can I do that? You know, they're starting to think how they can market themselves a little better.
Confidence, Humor, and Attraction
00:11:15
Speaker
um Do you, i mean, it, We all know like humor, you know, humor and confidence. Those are like the two biggest qualities that women respond to, you know, the best. and And you're bringing them both there. You're being confident by putting it right out there. I mean, you're trying to rank yourself on Google, you know, like that is definitely like, like you've got balls if that's how you're trying to work your dating life.
00:11:36
Speaker
um And then you take that and then you add to it the fact that after you've told the story, you're laughing about it, you're smiling about it and letting go of it. Yeah. I mean, that that shows kind of those two basic qualities, you know, that a woman's looking for, like right away. That is that is so cool.
00:11:52
Speaker
i think, um you know, and on the flip side of that, I have gotten a little bit of negative feedback. But mean, mean, three people that I can think of out of the 50, 60 people I've talked to since I met you.
00:12:05
Speaker
And i would say it comes down to more cultural norms or like very just just very closed off people. They're not extroverts at all. Just the introverted mindset. like So for the first woman, just...
00:12:22
Speaker
just I think she moved over from Japan like four or five months ago. So it's like cultural differences. Right. Right. They would never do something like that. Right. you know I mean, I can't get around that or anything like that, but you know you're not interested in it. Well, yeah. And you're not going to, you're not going to them all. And the thing is you, you know, you want to filter out a certain number of people.
00:12:45
Speaker
And by taking this approach, you can see already, cause it's your personality. um You know, it's like, you can already see When you hand them the card, when you bring it out, you can see how much your personality on that card is resonating with them.
00:12:59
Speaker
And it's it almost acts as a preemptive filter before before you bother to ask her out, before you bother to go on a date. You can already tell whether or not it's worth your time. Yeah, exactly. And i I treat it like that.
00:13:13
Speaker
If you don't find it funny, well, then we're not going to get along for the next 10 minutes. You know, if we're definitely not going to go on a date. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. we'll We'll save some time and money here and just not do it.
00:13:24
Speaker
So, OK, so tell me. All right. So the website, um what what's on the website? What do you actually put? Like, is it just like, you know, it's just a picture of you? What's what's what's on this website? ah So right now, basically, I made an Instagram account for it. And so it's date.jd. And so I have that up there. I just got you know a good clean headshot of myself. Nothing crazy. I haven't fully made it like a fun dating profile yet. I'm going to throw some more photos up this week.
00:13:53
Speaker
But that and then a a bio about myself. And I think the thing I'm really proud of is I have an events calendar. on a separate page and it's tied to a separate Google calendar.
00:14:06
Speaker
And so every time I sign up for a dating event, I add it to that Google calendar so it live updates to the site. okay And you can basically- So you're inviting women to stalk you. Is that basically what you're saying?
00:14:18
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah, every guy every guy's worst nightmare, right? Yeah, is that women come and stalk you at a dating event. It's like, oh my God, it's JD from DateJD. Yeah. I've never gotten that feedback yet, but that that would be cynical, right? It's coming. Yeah. Well, I mean, if you're putting hundreds of dollars into search engine optimization, it's bound to happen, right? It's bound happen.
00:14:40
Speaker
So, okay. So there, right. So there's a calendar there. So women, his is there, can women sign up for a date with
Compatibility and Feedback Mechanisms
00:14:46
Speaker
you on, on said calendar? Can they book a time to have a date with JD?
00:14:51
Speaker
Can they pick, you know, I want coffee, I want drinks, I want, I want dinner at the steakhouse, you know, I mean, how, you know, how, how involved is this going to get? um I mean, honestly, you know, those are those are great, funny ideas. And I mean, if I have time, I would love to implement all of them just because I think it makes it more of a conversation piece.
00:15:10
Speaker
Yeah. Big thing I've got right now is I've just got a like a Google form questionnaire and it's just got some questions that, you know, it's like, hey, are you chocolate or vanilla?
00:15:21
Speaker
And it kind scores you on that. and But you, okay, i I'm cheating a little bit here because I took a sneak peek at it and everything, but you call it either the date or your compatibility quiz, I think, right? Yeah. So, I mean, you're you're basically saying, hey, take this quiz to see whether or not you and I should be dating.
00:15:40
Speaker
You know, and that that in itself is fun and gamifying it that way. You know, it's like even just the questions that you're picking to ask them, you know, that will already tell them whether or not, you know, you're at all on the same page.
00:15:53
Speaker
that is That is so cool, yeah. um I'm looking forward to the, um oh, shoot, what was it the yeah was it? Was it the Pokemons, you know, where they like you go on the scavenger hunt around the city and you're looking for it? you know I don't know what your web development skills are, but if you could build the mobile app where you can chase JD around Denver virtually, you know, I mean, that that increase that creates that whole anticipation before the date, you know, it's like,
00:16:17
Speaker
You're still on a date with one woman, but three hours before there's another woman running around the city, collecting all the necessary tokens so that when she arrives at the date with you, you know, she's qualified to be on the date.
00:16:29
Speaker
I don't know if I'll go that extreme. I think it's, it's ah funny enough that even though I'm posting these events and that I'm going to, and basically I'm trying to help just cross promote all of these other, you know, local Denver dating groups,
00:16:45
Speaker
And even then, i think the the crowd isn't there. you know For everyone that you talk about that's single and this and that, the fact that there'll be 35 people out there on a Friday night, and it's just like, well, yeah you know where is everyone? I think that's what gets to them.
00:17:00
Speaker
so so let me ask you has has doing this experiment made you more confident in approaching women in you know um in communicating ways that you're looking for like like inside in your state inside of yourself has it has it has it impacted at all your confidence or other areas of yourself uh i think it's actually helped and hurt at the same time okay uh because the The business card and all that is a funny opener.
Challenges of a Scripted Approach
00:17:32
Speaker
i made I made some different ones too recently. So instead of it just saying, are you single on the back? Each one is a different funny pickup line. And that was all unique and everything. And I just sat down and hammered out about 25 different versions.
00:17:48
Speaker
yeah I mean, so it's been it's a good icebreaker. But at the same time, it puts me into this script. because all of the interactions go the same way. Where I talk, I get to know them,
00:18:01
Speaker
And then I say, hey, you know I've got this funny thing I wanted to share with you. you know I've got a whole site if you want to learn about me. you know And it just kind of pigeonholes me into this script. OK, gotcha. Yeah, you're not just a person. You're a person attached to a thing.
00:18:18
Speaker
and they're yeah And you have to kind of break back out of that again in order to have in order to build the rapport that you you know that you're hoping for. yeah Yeah, that could be an issue. Cool.
00:18:29
Speaker
um ahead Last thing um is i also, when we were together, you mentioned your mom has gotten involved in this process.
Family Support and Promotion
00:18:38
Speaker
Yeah. we Yeah.
00:18:39
Speaker
yeah So I think it kind of started as this, like this, dare sort of thing as I was working on it. I told her, I came to make this site and she goes, if you make it, I'm going to promote it. And I'm like, you know, maybe I'll mail you some of the business cards or something. And she's like, I'm going to get a shirt made.
00:18:58
Speaker
i She got a shirt made and she got a custom shirt and it's got my face on it and a QR code to the website. And it says, my son is single and all caps across the top. And she's got it on the front.
00:19:13
Speaker
and back of the shirt. Right. And she wore that thing before going on a cruise. So I know, I know the old term in marketing is there's no such thing as bad publicity.
00:19:25
Speaker
Okay. Now I feel like we may have like started to like go into an area where possibly, you know, my son is single where we've possibly gone into the bad publicity area.
00:19:37
Speaker
um How do you feel about Yeah. I think um from just the sake of general acceptance, yeah, I think it moves into the bad publicity area.
00:19:49
Speaker
But for what I'm personally looking for, the person that I want to date, you better find it funny. And so I think yeah from the general acceptance, yeah, I think it might be.
00:20:00
Speaker
you know, on the downhill side, but I really like the people that find it funny. And if they yeah don't love the shirt and, you know, i show off photos of the shirt. It's like, here's the business card.
00:20:11
Speaker
And this is my mom wearing this shirt. And if you If you don't find it funny, then again, we're not going to get along. Yeah. And again, you're filtering out. And yeah and that that filtering out, it makes you paradoxically stand out as more distinctive in what you're doing.
00:20:27
Speaker
and And you're also like, hey, it's not just me. Like I come from a long family line. of people who act this way. So, you know, like you're going to feel really uncomfortable Thanksgiving if we end up being boyfriend, girlfriend, I bring you home and you're not down to wear whatever weird thing we're doing.
00:20:46
Speaker
Yeah, you're just maybe not meant for this this relationship. Yeah. Cool. Awesome. So, um, so are you going to keep this up until, uh, until any particular thing, do any, any plans on maybe, you know, um, taking it from a single profile into some sort of like interesting, um, I don't know, SEO based publicly available thing, like ah turning this into some kind of a business is because,
00:21:15
Speaker
um I would say I haven't thought about turning it into a business, but I've had a couple people ask me like, well, what happens when you find someone?
Expanding DateJD and Community Building
00:21:22
Speaker
What does date J.D. do? And I started thinking about that already. And realized there, you know, dating is not as much of a head on head competition between guys because everybody's looking for something different.
00:21:39
Speaker
They find a different kind of person attractive. And so i really want to start promoting other people as well. Because as I'm sitting here meeting all these people, you know, I want to start taking you know a photo with them and saying, you know, hey, I met Jeff at this event today. This is what he's like. He's also single. Here's his Instagram tag. Right.
00:21:59
Speaker
Same thing. You know, here's Sarah. I met her at this event, you know, because if you're going to sit down and talk with someone for 15, 20 minutes you know to try to figure out if you're compatible, you're going to learn a lot about that person.
00:22:12
Speaker
And like i you know Like I said, most people already have dating profiles. They're already sharing this stuff. So if you want to get out there and give it a test, I don't think you have to build a whole new website and I'd love for you to come up to me and I'll post a few on there. So there might so there might be JD and friends at a certain point on the website and you just sort of like create separate pages and you know let them piggyback on your SEO budget.
00:22:37
Speaker
to, to sort of help themselves. And again, a certain type of person that's drawn to that. um i could imagine, I could imagine possibly, you know, you're, you're talking about singles events that you go to, you know, you know, date JD singles events, you know, where only people that are really have this particular personality are going to show up, you know um that could be, that could be pretty fun. Yeah.
00:23:00
Speaker
i said and It would help, ah you know, collect the people that you want to be around. Yeah.
Media Ambitions and Exposure
00:23:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Has, um has this picked up any traction with the media at all? Has anybody noticed it? I think I remember you saying something.
00:23:12
Speaker
i haven't gotten any media traction. I also haven't spent a lot of time promoting it yet. It's kind of a back burner project basically now now it's mostly me like, Oh crap. That's right. I forgot to get ready for this dating event. and yeah But yeah when we get some more free time, then yeah, I'd love to start promoting it. and my goal is, you know, by the end of the year,
00:23:35
Speaker
I either want to start getting, you know, at least three tickets to all these dating events or make it on the news or both. Uh-huh. Yeah. Come to this dating event. You know, JD is going to be there.
00:23:47
Speaker
Yeah. You become, you become the, uh, you the celebrity that shows up at the party known, known for his singleness. Yeah, exactly. Yes. yeah Please. Yeah. You're handing out the cards like they're confetti. Yeah.
00:23:59
Speaker
Yeah. As you walk in the room.
00:24:02
Speaker
Awesome. Okay. Well, yes, we, we all, we all have, we all have our own goals in life. We all have our own dreams and, and that is, that's a pretty cool one. um Cool. So ah before we wrap up here, is there anything like you've just learned through this process that maybe a guy that's a little more shy that, you know, you know, it was like, I'd never do that. And you know, myself, if you're, if you're shy and you're not able to do this kind of stuff, you don't want to do this.
00:24:28
Speaker
Don't be that person. You're, You're not going to get along with a girl that enjoys this kind of thing. So you don't have to push yourself out there to do this stuff.
00:24:39
Speaker
There's plenty of guys that steer clear of me. When I start talking about it, I can see them just run away and because they don't want the... When ah people like circle up around me or something like that, they don't like that environment.
00:24:51
Speaker
And that's fine. they I see it happen with women as well. They're like, oh no. And they run away too. And guess what? Those people that ran away, go collect in their own corner and talk to each other over there. So, I mean, it's actively helping people that are the exact opposite.
00:25:07
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That's awesome. That is awesome. Yeah. Cool. um Okay. So if people want to get in touch with you, if they want to show up at an event where you're going to be, um where do they go?
Engagement and Personalized Marketing
00:25:21
Speaker
How do they do this? Datejd.com. Okay. Awesome. All right. Thank you, JD. I've really appreciated you having on the show. um This has been super fun. um A whole new angle of approach.
00:25:33
Speaker
Rather than taking your money and putting it into a matchmaking service, consider some private marketing and SEO funding instead. Well, that I guess that is a question. Would you be willing to potentially you know put these skills to work for somebody else? If a client came to you and said, I want you to optimize for me, would that be something you'd be willing to do?
00:25:51
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. There's no such thing as competition in the dating game. Okay. I'm not sure all guys would agree would would agree with that, but but we'll we'll we'll go along with you on it for now.
00:26:02
Speaker
Awesome. Okay. Thank you, JD. Pleasure having you on and um we'll talk to you again soon. All right. Take care.