Today parents are worried about the online activities of their kids and their online security. Parents are going online and visiting social networking websites to monitor the activities of their children. The Internet has caught the fancy of the parents and they are performing activities like communicating with their kids’ school teachers, searching for homework material, or for colleges for their kids online.
More and more parents are shifting from watching and reading parenting information in traditional media to the Internet. Research shows that more mothers are online than fathers and most of the parenting websites are visited by moms. In fact they constitute over 85% of all visits to parenting websites. 81% of the visitors are aged 25 – 44, with a median household income of over $60k annually. 66% of them surf the Internet daily.
Parenting websites like BabyCenter, KidsHealth, and ClubMom are some of the popular websites that have caught the fancy of parents. Below is a list of the popular parenting websites as per Alexa rankings.
Parents’ Online Activities
Parents perform various obvious activities online, like, shopping, researching children’s health related issues, educational institutions for their kids. According to Pew Internet and American Life Project over 42% of the parents feel that Internet has improved the way they shop. Most parents with young children are concerned about how the kids use the Internet and their activities on the social networking space has become a major concern. Single parents often use the Internet mostly to communicate, even look for dates. Research reveals that single parents use the Internet less than married parents because of less time and often, lower income.
Moms Socializing and Shopping Online
Today, there are more than 32 million mothers online in the US and growing. According to ComScore Media Metrix over 85% of the women with children in the US, in the age group 25 – 54 shop online and for majority of them it is a common activity. These moms take vital purchase decisions for their kids and the family, and the Internet is a great way of getting in touch with them.
Below is a list of the top online activities of US females with children.
Moms seem to be following in their children’s footsteps and signing up for social networking websites. Seventy percent of moms who are online visit social networking websites. The only difference being these networking websites are specially designed for the moms. For the moms these social networking websites gives them the opportunity to connect with other moms, share, discuss and seek information regarding their kids’ health, education and other parenting concerns.
These websites also provide an opportunity to the new age mothers to spend time and have fun with likeminded mothers. Social networking websites like MothersClick, Clubmom, ParentsConnect, MomsNetwork and MomJunction are increasingly becoming popular among the new age moms. Over 50,000 stay-at-home mothers have signed up for Meetup, a website that facilitates in-person meetings among people with similar interests.
According to BSM Media moms control over 85% of household expenditure, amounting to over $1.7 trillion and marketers want to take this opportunity to tap into them. Moms chat with each other regarding a host of things and when they opt to talk about a particular category, product or brand, marketers can use it as an opportunity to communicate with them directly. This makes direct marketing easier, productive and meaningful. Moms can also be very effective in word-of-mouth advertising. Such is the craze among marketers to attract moms that McDonald’s is planning a networking website for moms, tentatively called McMoms.
The opportunity
“There is now a recognized need for a new generation of parenting sites that tap into the social power of consumer-generated content and word-of-mouth information sharing”.
- Debra Aho Williamson, senior analyst, eMarketer.com.
According to eMarketer, mothers’ awareness of advertisement on community sites and gaming websites is much greater than on family websites. However advertisers need to be careful of not being intrusive and should design their campaigns to be helpful. A good example of targeted advertising will be when a parent seeking online advice for the best brand of baby food from other parents online is informed by a marketer about its latest brand of baby food and its nutritional value, and it can offer samples and coupons.
Business Model
Advertising and e-commerce are the main source of revenue for these websites. However many social networking and parenting websites offer premium content on subscription services. Companies like Johnson & Johnson, Proctor & Gamble, Home Depot, Google, etc are the main advertisers on these parenting and social networking websites targeted at moms.
Kaboose a collection of websites focused on mothers, generated revenues of $11.8 million for the nine months ended September, 2006 an increase of 206% from its revenues of $3.8 million recorded in the corresponding period in 2005. These websites are witnessing an exponential growth in revenues driven by increasing number of unique visitors, advertising revenues and e-commerce transactions. Websites like Mothering allow focused advertisements and accepts only ads that are targeted to their core audience.
Following are the advertisement rates of Mothering a popular website among the mothers.
VC and M&A activity
The parenting space was not a hot favorite with the Venture Capital firms.MomJunction recently raised $1.5 million in Series A.
Kaboose acquired BabyZone in June, 2006 for a total of $22 million and 1.9 million Kaboose warrants. BabyCenter was acquired by eToys.com in 1999 for $652 million. IndiaParenting is a parenting website formed by former Boston Consulting Group consultant Nirali Sanghi to cater to Indian mothers. The website has received VC funding from ICICI Ventures and Infinity Venture Funds.
Conclusion
2007 could well be the year of the networked parents. Only other parents have the patience to listen to the endless details of kids’ stories that every parent has and wants to share, making this is a terrific social networking category! And given how much retail revenue moms drive, it’s certainly a segment to watch for entrepreneurial and venture activity.
