This morning, Conde Nast "launched" Brides.com, a new portal that combines content from Brides, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride magazine (why a once-in-a-lifetime event has three monthly magazines from one publisher is beyond me, but most thing wedding-related are).
The news was broken via the New York Times (here) and several smaller outfits, resulting in what is sure to be a bevy of traffic and links. My question is, what is it about Brides.com's launch that deserves this publicity? Some answers:
- The publisher is a huge player - Condé Nast
- A public relations agency with great connections
- Smart marketing that let them "launch" a site that has actually been in existence (and serving up similar content) for years
- Aggregation of fairly good content from an authoritative source
- Modern fascination/obsession with wedding related information
The beautiful part is, they're already indexed, already heavily trafficked and almost sure to avoid the sandbox. NYTimes.com (and IHT.com, who also ran the article) aren't directly linking to them, but the publicity buzz generated by the article is sure to get them even higher on one of the most competitive online searches in the retail field.
Lessons to learn from Brides.com's success include:
- Hire the best PR agency you can afford
- Target a market the media loves to talk about (or angle it that way for them)
- Let a major media publication "break the news" for you
- Leverage authoritative players in the market to deliver some (or all) of your content
- Don't skimp on design - professional and beautiful sites are "newsworthy" in and of themselves
I would love to see this post made into a series and cover all SE related launching techniques and maybe a touch on launching blogs. -just my 2 cents
Actually - I have another negative take on this particular case - from the perspective of a future bride.
Ok, let it be said that I think it made sense for the three major content sources to merge.
I have a new print subscription to both Brides & Modern Bride. To be honest, all wedding magazines are 700 pages of advertising crap that the average bride could not afford in a million years, with maybe 30 pages of useful content each month. But us brides-to-be are suckers for it, no matter how non-girly you are. The tiny bit of useful content also gets endlessly recycled in print, and further, on these trad pub websites.
BUT I will tell you where Brides.com really, really screwed up - is beyond SEO - it's in the community aspect. Maybe I'm just more sensitive to it having been involved in SEO forums for years now, but what Brides/MB/Elegant did in this merger was a horrible blow to their community, which is their core business model.
And they know they screwed up - the first 24 hours of the board was screaming insanity about how things so dramatically changed w/o warning and finally, a slow request for feedback from the web team.
A synopsis of how it went: THOUSANDS of archived message boards posts were stripped, and dumped into the new format - without the attached username info. So all threads/posts were then re-labeled as "Guest". You could no longer easily find the post you just made 24 hours ago, because it had been merged with several hundred others and the forum categories had been reorganized (which I understand why in this case).
And of course, the search function doesn't work at the moment as a back up way to find the threads you were actively participating in prior to the switchover. So if they still exist, you may not know it without spending tons of time searching.
Now, it didn't really affect me all that badly, because I had literally, just joined the forums about 3 days prior and only posted 3 short messages. But if I was like the majority of users, who had hundreds, if not thousands of previous posts there - I'd be really PISSED that I couldn't access my own posting history.
Furthermore, I'm required to start a new account because my old one wasn't merged in - and now it won't even accept my email address in the signup area!
Now I don't think they are going to lose too many members in the end, but I think it's a really good example of HOW NOT TO REDESIGN/RELAUNCH something.
Wow, that is bad!
And cool, Elisabeth, I didn't know you were engaged! Congrats!
Congrats, indeed, Elisabeth! I hope that guy knows how lucky he is.
As far as Brides.com's message board fiasco... It sounds like a rookie mistake. Anyone managing a board knows how important the community is. For them to not spend the few hours it would take to keep track of message originators is really disturbing. It says something about how they value their community.
Thanks Jill & Rand! (yea he does, btw)
(please excuse temporary use of blog for personal diary- I've actually been engaged since Nov05, so people at last years vegas WMW found out right away, and then I neglected to mention it to many after that- dannyS didn't know till NYC and felt left out!)
Right... if they have any sense they should have had this on backup and could restore - if they wanted to.
Rand,
Do you know the PR firm that Brides.com worked with? Do you have any "big PR firms" that you would personally recommend for this type of launch?
Thanks.
Well, they certainly had good PR. But in terms of SEO...they pretty much suck!
Changed all their file names, use 404's to all the old pages, and heck...they're pretty much ALL graphics.
If this is how to do it right, I'd hate to see how to do it wrong!
Yeah - it's a pretty one-dimensional example. The PR kicked ass, but the search-friendliness dept. left a lot to be desired. Good call, Jill.
>>heck...they're pretty much ALL graphics
Hmmmm Nice text and links under the homepage flash though!
OK, here I am a couple of weeks out from (re) launching my wedding industry website and up pops this.
So, anyone have any pointers on how to outdo the mighty Conde Nast... with, erm, virtually no budget? Like connections at NYT?
Damn, I hate being the little guy...
Their content is driven by motives other than KW research. Attack where they are not looking.
Think about all the cool features they don't offer, then deliver. You have time and nimbleness and no corporate parent breathing down your neck. Success is still possible.
Thanks for surfacing that, Rand. That's an excellent case from which we can all learn. However unfortunately most of us don't have those connections.
That's where a great PR company comes in. Leverage their connections and get "contributors" to the project/site by asking big names in your industry (even if you have to pay for a few hours of their consulting time) and you, too, can "look" like a huge, important launch.