How to Use VIP Emails at Match.com
Published on February 19, 2010
What is a VIP email message? It stands for “Very Interested Person” and this is a new type of message that Match.com is testing at the time of this writing (right now only some users are currently able to use). You should see a “Use Your VIP Email” button when you’re writing an email if you’re in the group of users who have this feature enabled.
A VIP email has a few rules and features that make it significantly different than a normal email:
- You can only send one a week so use it wisely! VIP emails are awarded each Monday at midnight. If you don’t use that week VIP email, you will lose when the next Monday arrives. Match.com should send you an email if you’ve not used your VIP email and the week is about to end.
- You will get a notification when your email is read.
- Your VIP emails will stay at the top of their inbox until they read it and respond or until 7 days is up.
- You will be marked as a VIP in the account of the person you contact such as in their Connections page. You’ll stay in these areas for 30 days.
- If someone sends you a VIP email and you reply, your email will have the same features in their inbox as if you had send the original VIP message.
Recommended Usage of the VIP Email Feature
I met my wife using Match.com but this feature didn’t exist when I was using the service. Because of that, I don’t have any firsthand experience sending these but I do know how I would use them.
First, I should explain that normally when I was looking at a woman’s profile, I would have some guess as to how likely it was that she would write me back. A lot of this guessing was based on how much we had in common, her described personality, how she presented herself in her profile, how attractive she was, and my previous experiences sending emails. Obviously my first impressions weren’t always right but I got pretty good at guessing who would write back.
Based on this, if I were using Match.com today, I would use the VIP emails to contact the people in the group that I felt were most likely to write me back. I wouldn’t use it for someone who I thought I had little or no chance of getting a response from. I recommend this because I don’t think a VIP message is going to convince someone to reply if they wouldn’t have otherwise. My thinking here is that if someone is on the fence about writing you back, the features (and flattery) of the VIP message might be just enough encouragement to get that reply.
For the sake of argument I’m going to make up some numbers on the fly here. There’s no science here, I’m just using it to describe my thinking. Let’s assume that there’s a 10% chance that a woman will contact me when I consider her to be in the “not likely to respond to me” category. Let’s also assume that there’s a 70% chance that a woman will respond to me when they are in what I consider to be the “very likely to respond to me” category. If VIP emails increase the chance that someone will email you back by 10%, I would rather increase the second example to 80% than the first to 20%. As I talk about in my online dating guide, I’m all about the numbers of dates I can get so I want to stack the deck where my odds are the best.
VIP Messages: Particularly Good For Men?
One big complaint I have, which I also talk about in my dating guide, is that there are plenty of men who think the best way to contact women is to write one email and then spam every woman in 50 miles of them with it. This not only frustrates the women who quickly catch onto this, it also makes it more difficult for the sincere men to catch a woman’s attention. I would have liked to use this feature when I was dating online since it gives you the opportunity to say that you’re serious.
But Are VIP Emails Intimidating or Desperate?
A reader asked me this question so I wanted to address it here. I wouldn’t worry too much about being seen as desperate or worry that you might intimidate the person you contact. I’ll admit that if someone doesn’t want to respond to your email they may dislike the fact that you know they’ve opened your email but you’re in no worse situation than you would be with a normal email. As far as desperate goes…I think these emails are pretty flattering! The fact that someone out there decided that you were the most important contact for them is nice. If someone on a dating site gets scared because someone else would like to meet them and shows it, well….that sounds more like their problem than yours.
An Alternate Use of the VIP Email
These VIP emails are flattering by nature. If you’re already in a conversation with someone and your conversations are going great, it would be a huge compliment to them to use your VIP email next time you contact them. You’re taking what would normally be used to convince someone new to talk to you and instead are telling someone you are already talking to how much you appreciate talking with them. Done the right way, I believe this could win you major points with the person you’re talking to.
Overall, I really like the idea of these VIP messages. It gives users a way to pay a nice compliment as well as some opportunities to remain in the mind of the person you contact. It will also likely help Match.com since some people may fall in love with the feature that shows when someone has read your email and will end up signing for premium account (you have to pay extra for features like when they open your email). Regardless, I think this is a good idea and hopefully everyone will have access to this feature soon.
Author: Brad
Brad initially struggled with online dating but over time became quite successful using it. He met his wife using online dating and has been giving advice and helping people improve their results since 2007. He has written a Free Online Dating Guide to help others find success with online dating. You can learn more about his personal experience using online dating and running this website here.
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