NEWS

We were already allowed to optimize and grow a bunch of webshops for baby and children’s products: The Baby’s Corner, Oh Baby Care, BoJungle, Under Moms and Daikys. We are happy to share our observations and learnings in this article.

It remains an interesting market: children are still being born, and there are still plenty of new or experience parents, grandparents, godparents and godmothers who only have the best interests of the new sprout at heart and are happy to chip in for it.

But the competition is cutthroat! Not only from the big chains, but also from more and more SMEs in the industry developing online, but recently also more and more private moms (mostly) who create interesting content from their experience and emerge as momfluencers via social media and also manage to commercialize this model.

Some obvious things!

We won’t go into more detail about some of the themes here, they should be considered self-evident: a perfect and consistently implemented corporate identity aimed at expectant moms. Soft colors, sweet, high contrast for content and a down-to-earth copywriting style. In addition, your website should be perfectly mobile-friendly, as most moms don’t have time and browse mobile in between.

Also in terms of eCommerce optimization, there are a lot of standard things you need to provide: a ROAS strategy, flexible return policy, multitude of payment options. You can consult the following articles about this:

• How to Increase the Profitability of your eCommerce
• Mandatory commitment to accessibility for eCommerce
• Making eCommerce more sustainable!

Build maximum confidence and peace of mind

It seems obvious, yet few industry web shops already do it! Of course you have a contact page, but expectant, sometimes unknowing moms want to be absolutely sure that they can get to someone specific with all their questions about your items or creating a birth list. Your team is full of experts in the field. Play them up on your website as well. Introduce them as experts, organize a process so expectant moms can easily, virtually, connect with your team. This will also make your web shop more “human”.

Ok clearly communicating your customer service and complaint procedure gives an immense boost to trust in your online store.

Blog like hell!

Moms are looking for inspiration, information. The more you provide content from your expertise on a blog, the higher the target audience’s confidence will become in your expertise and thus the higher the likelihood of purchase. Here, definitely consider insights from a podcast or interviews in which you talk to professional experts (e.g., midwife, gynecologist, pediatrician, breastfeeding expert, etc.) about specific topics.

The more relevant content you integrate on your shop, the higher your shop will rank in Google as well.

A great example is the podcast by Sonia Pypaert of The Baby’s Corner on her community platform Among Moms.

Content hacking

You don’t always have to go create the content yourself: for example, you can create music lists on Spotify that moms can listen to while breastfeeding, or just relaxing or even just with children’s songs (possibly categorized by age).

In addition to music, you could also create a YouTube channel containing responsible videos for children. You can then integrate this channel into your Web site.

The point is not that it necessarily has to be your content, but rather that you are doing your target audience a service by aggregating this content in one place.

Involve the experiencers

What gives very good results is engaging moms in testing products and using the results of this test and the mom’s story as content on your website. Again, it increases the authenticity of your platform and your engagement with the target audience. It costs a bit of money (especially giving away free products), but the return is significant because it automatically generates ambassadors for your brand as well. Possibly you can also involve your suppliers in this.

Birth lists

The Valhalla for lead generation within the industry. But beware! There are already enough platforms for expectant moms to create their birth list. If you wish to stand out in this today you will have to strike out ferm:

• The platform must work perfectly
• Consider A.I. to offer moms product suggestions based on their profile and purchase behavior
• Give an extra benefit to moms who purchase (or have purchased) products through a birth list
• Make sure the moms-to-be can easily and frictionlessly share the birth list whenever and wherever they want. Avoid login procedures or code use to gain access.
• Work in a birth list with tiered benefits: if you add 2 more products to your list you get…
• Activate delivery from the birth list: commonly, family, friends or colleagues purchase a product from the birth list and the parents-to-be can come and pick it up … or have it all delivered at once. But also offer the “buyer” the option, when ordering from the birth list, to choose to have the product delivered immediately. And charge a delivery fee for this. This will increase your logistics efficiency and thus reduce your costs.
• Also offer bundles of multiple products in the birth lists. You can sell one bottle of baby shampoo, or also offer to choose a set sufficient to cover the first 3 months.
• Upsell! Certainly grandmas and grandpas’ of a first grandchild will be in need of the same products as their children who have just grown older. From the birth list, make it as easy as possible to order the same product for themselves as well.

Phased product offerings

Moms orient their purchase according to the course of pregnancy and the first 6 months after birth. Child & family, as well as the pediatrician talk about the first weeks, 3 months, 6 months … in short milestones after birth.

Organize your product offerings by milestone so the expectant mom can easily find products according to the stage she is or will be in with her child.

And why should it stop after a few months? A child has a birthday, makes a communion or spring festival, goes to school, etc.

Email marketing & remarketing based on the Baby Journey

You know perfectly what the needs are for each milestone in the new sprout’s life. Use this knowledge to proactively communicate with your target audience. Develop a flow campaign in which you communicate with moms, but personalized according to the stage you know they are in. It makes no sense to promote a walker to a mom who gave birth two weeks ago.

Difficult! No, because you have this data. Thanks to your CRM and birth records, you know when your customer gave birth. And from that data, you can create this journey.

Catch them early!

The early you can get expectant moms or even already moms with a desire to have children on your platform, the more likely they will also purchase and likely submit their birth list to you. For Among Moms, we developed an ovulation tool that allows women to chart their menstrual cycle and thus predict their ovulation to determine when they are most fertile.

What’s in a name?

Early on in pregnancy, the topic of name comes up. This is a topic that concerns both moms and dads. For Among Moms we developed a tool that allows expectant parents to consult a list of the most common names based on parameters such as length, sound and ethnicity. Again, this provides a rewarding marketing tool that can be used in mailings and social media.

Secondhand

Complete the circle. Many parents, especially of a second and third child, are left afterwards with a lot of products they no longer need. Agreed, they can sell this on social media or sometimes still on eBay, but there is certainly still potential to develop a marketplace on your web shop that allows individuals to sell their baby items they no longer need. This way you increase your offerings online and develop an additional service and opportunity to interact with existing customers.

Gift Certificate

Seems obvious, but make sure consumers can easily purchase a valid gift certificate through your website. How many people are looking for last-minute gifts before a maternity visit or baby shower?

Guerilla marketing

Now it’s getting a little more aggressive and technical. You can advertise hyperlocal today on social media and in Google. So advertise in places where you are sure your target audience is. Consider baby fairs (that’s where a lot of moms walk around together and so you don’t have to pay for an expensive booth), but also hospitals. You can target visitors to a hospital by the location of the hospital. This way you reach all the moms who are currently sitting in the waiting room waiting for their ultrasound or examination.

Through growth hacking, you can also simply buy interesting terms in Google. Have your webshop appear when a mom searches for a baby fair, or well-known brand of baby products, or e.g. the name of a gynecologist or pediatrician.

Omnichannel

Do you also have a physical location in addition to your online store? If so, let moms make an appointment in your store through your website. They love a private moment, a personal contact … they want you to make time for them. Do you wish to make it complete? Provide a daddy corner in your store where dads can have a coffee (or a beer) and read a newspaper.

If you have a physical store, you can use the login to your, hopefully, free wifi to retarget all your store visitors online later. That way, you may still send the doubters to your online store to purchase.

Outlet

Not everyone is a fan of outlet. It forces you to sell certain items at virtually no margin. But you can also do it smarter. You undoubtedly have a supplier from whom you do not purchase certain (cheaper) products. See if you can buy these products anyway, but only to organize an outlet. An outlet easily serves as a ‘trigger’ to bring people to your webshop. Usually they will also order some products from your regular offer.

Make them feel good

Moms-to-be are sensitive(er) to the problems in the world. Especially when it concerns children. Why not offer during the check-out process on your webshop to pay an extra euro to support an organization that makes the lives of some of the world’s children more pleasant? This way you give a very positive twist to a rather ‘cold’ purchase.