Give Mama What She Craves

No one hungers for information more than new parents – except maybe parents-to-be. That’s what BabyCenter.com is banking on by making information its stock-in-trade for building customer relationships.

The three-year-old site – operated by San Francisco-based BabyCenter Inc., a subsidiary of eToys.com – communicates with customers through newsletters geared to specific segments of its new and expectant parent database.

“The onus is on us,” says Duncan Drechsel, director of marketing. “If we’re doing a good job, they’ll buy from us.” The tone of the newsletters, he explains, is: “We’re here to give you information, but we can also help you pick the right products, and hey, by the way, we can sell them to you through our store and deliver them to you.”

The site’s audience ranges from people trying to conceive a child to parents of children up to age three. There’s an area just for fathers and a dads’ newsletter. Some 85% of the members are women with a median age of 28. Most are pregnant.

Registration is free. In return for entering her name, due date or child’s birthday, and e-mail address, a new member receives three e-mail newsletters per month, all designed to drive her to the site.

The “My Baby This Week” newsletter is customized to an expectant mother’s due date, and keeps track of what stage of pregnancy the expectant mom is at, offering salient facts about baby and mother. For example, a woman 29 weeks pregnant might receive this message: “Aim a flashlight at your expanding belly this week, and your baby will turn toward the light. It’s a sign that her eyesight is maturing.” This is followed by a number of tips ranging from exercise methods to product plugs, each accompanied by a link to an area of the site.

A expanded version of the same information, along with a picture of the developing baby, appears on the member’s personal home page when she logs on to the site. Visible at the same time on the site are suggestions about what to read and things to do at this stage, such as taking one last vacation before the baby is born. Clicking on the word “vacation” brings the reader to an article about air travel. Links to additional feature articles, chat rooms and shopping opportunities – at the site’s store and with affinity partners – are lined up in the margins.

Another newsletter, “New on BabyCenter,” is a weekly roundup of BabyCenter events, new offerings on the site and weekly specials from the Baby Store.

The third newsletter, “@The BabyCenter Store,” arrives every two weeks. It touts new products, sales and special offers, and highlights items suitable for parents or parents-to-be at various stages. Also featured are product checklists and snippets from parents commenting about products.

The company is confident that sales are driven by the newsletter. “We’re getting most of our sales through people who are engaged with BabyCenter,” observes Drechsel.

There are 1 million “unique visitors” to BabyCenter.com each month, and the company transmits more than 5 million e-mails. Click-throughs (reading newsletters and clicking through to the site) are more than 25%.

The site seems to take pains to prove it is a reliable parental fact-finder. All editorial content is original and written by experts.

In addition to new pieces in the current newsletter, there are multiple articles on a variety of topics just a click away. The site hosts appearances by such experts as baby and child care guru T. Berry Brazelton. And although banner ads and chances to buy abound, there are a host of ways a visitor can learn stuff and participate in community-centered events without spending a cent. The result is that product recommendations and sales offers seem to resonate with the same authority as articles on fetal development.

Building a relationship with these members is worth the investment. They are affluent and well-educated – annual household income is around $56,000 a year and about 75% of members are college-educated.

BabyCenter.com tries to extend the relationship by enticing members onto its sister site, eToys.com, which experienced growing pains of its own this holiday season (for more see page 1). Cross-promotional links appear on both sites.

Drechsel prospects through ads on television and in parenting publications, and with Web portals America Online, Excite, Go.com and Netscape. The e-com also markets in the offices of baby doctors and childbirth educators by distributing educational materials.

“It’s hard to find lists of e-mail addresses of people who are pregnant,” admits Drechsel. “Companies that sell e-mail lists typically don’t ask if people on the list are pregnant.”