Would You Swipe Right Based On Your Business’s Dating Profile?

Years ago, I picked up some experience with online dating, the kind that made for some entertaining water cooler conversations. While navigating that world, I learned something pretty quickly: the quality of your profile, and the story you told through it, had a huge impact on the quality of the connections you made.

Good photos helped, of course. But the words mattered just as much.

What did you say about yourself? What did you leave out? Did your profile actually sound like you? Did it give someone a reason to stop scrolling? Maybe most importantly, did it help the right person recognize that there might be a fit?

Looking back, my online dating experience taught me quite a bit about good marketing. Here are two lessons that stuck…

There are cat people, dog people, and people who like both.

That might sound like a strange place to start a marketing lesson, but stick with me here.

I’m a dog person. I’m also allergic to cats. I met some amazing people who loved cats, but 50% alignment isn’t the same thing as 100% alignment, and sometimes a small detail tells you something important about whether there’s really a fit. The clearer I became about who I wanted to meet, the easier the whole process became.

That clarity also changed the way I wrote my profile. Instead of trying to present a version of myself that could appeal to as many people as possible, I could simply be more specific about who I was, what mattered to me, and what I was looking for. That naturally eliminated some people, specifically, the cat people, and that was a good thing.

Marketing works the same way. Too many businesses are afraid that being specific will shrink their audience, so they broaden their message. They remove anything that might be too distinctive and use words everyone can agree with. Before long, they have messaging that could belong to them, their competitor, or 500 other businesses.

Strong marketing requires enough clarity to say, “This is who we are, who we help, and what matters to us.” Not everyone needs to see themselves in that story, but the right people do.

A generic story attracts everyone at once, or no one at all.

Early on, my dating profile was pretty generic.

That worked, sort of. It kept the pool wide, but it also created a lot of conversations with people where there simply wasn’t much of a connection. Eventually, I started leaning more heavily into what made me different, and I got more comfortable telling a story that wasn’t designed for everyone.

When I made that shift, something interesting happened. The pool got smaller, but the connections got stronger. Eventually, that helped me connect with someone who appreciated what made me different: my now wife.

There’s a marketing lesson in there that I think matters more today than ever. We have more tools than ever to help us create content, all at our fingertips. AI has made the mechanics of content creation remarkably easy. We can write a homepage, social post, email, blog article, or elevator pitch in seconds.

The challenge? Easy creation doesn’t automatically create meaningful differentiation. In fact, we’re seeing the opposite problem emerge. Businesses in completely different industries are starting to sound remarkably similar. Everyone is innovative, customer-focused, committed to quality, passionate about service, and dedicated to exceeding expectations.

Someone said it well the other day in a meeting. Everything is starting to look and sound beige.

Your Story Should Help People Decide

Those online dating lessons became part of how we think about brand messaging at OrangeBall. Whether we’re working side-by-side with an agency client or building new content writing tools like OrangeBall.ai, we’re trying to solve the same fundamental problem: How do we help a business tell its story clearly enough that the right people recognize the fit?

That starts long before you write the blog, email, website page, or social post. You need to know who you’re talking to and understand what they care about. You need language for what makes your business meaningfully different, and you need to know (really know) which parts of your story are worth telling. Then, you can create… but not before. Rushing for fast output leaves opportunity on the table.

That’s also why simply asking your AI platform to “write me a homepage” can only take you so far. The technology can generate plenty of words in seconds, but if it doesn’t understand the ingredients that make your business uniquely yours, it’s going to fill in the blanks with the same language everyone else is using.

The problem isn’t the writing. It’s the story underneath it, the foundation it’s being built on.

How Strong Is Your Business’s Dating Profile?

Take a look at your marketing content through this lens. If someone landed on your website knowing nothing about your company, would they quickly understand who you are? Would they understand what makes you different from the next three companies they find on Google? Would the right customer think, These are my people?

Possibly the most important question: On your website, could you swap your logo for a competitor’s and barely notice the difference?

Your goal is to make it easy for the right people to recognize that you’re the right fit for them. Whether you’re working with an agency, using a content tool like OrangeBall.ai, or writing everything yourself, that’s a standard worth chasing.

Give the right people a reason to stop scrolling. After all, that’s how I found my wife.