Changing the World on Behalf of Millennial Mothers

Anne Burns
Thu, 30 Aug 2018 20:04:51 +0000

Motherly is a new media property redefining motherhood. Created by women for women, their mission is one of empowerment to support women on their unmatched journey to mommyhood. Founded in 2015 by serial entrepreneur Jill Koziol and award-winning Washington Post digital strategist Liz Tenety, Motherly leads the effort in curating female-driven content that builds strong communities through the power of dynamic, multiplatform storytelling.

But first, they needed a platform and tech team that could keep up with their vision.

Industry: Media/Motherhood

Headquarters: Menlo Park, CA

Website: Mother.ly

Motherly is a lifestyle parenting brand redefining motherhood, writing a new narrative that's powerful and feminine, as well as informed and inspiring. Motherly exists to change the world on behalf of millennial moms with expert information, an inspiring community, and thoughtfully curated products to guide them through the journey of motherhood.

The Challenge

Being a next-generation new media property, Motherly needed a CMS operating on the cutting edge of digital media. This meant a platform that could help them both keep up with every industry shift and continue to push the content envelope with every publish.

Motherly had outgrown their previous CMS provider, and were forced to either continue to be held back by a lack of features on their existing platform or spend extra cash on an entire engineering team to go fully custom. But they wanted to make sure they were investing in something new that would take their site to a new place, rather than simply following the latest trends. In all actuality, they needed more than a CMS.

“We were looking for a change, and our first call was RebelMouse because we weren't ready to build our own stack and support an engineering team. Motherly has been committed to being tech-enabled, not a tech company. RebelMouse allows us to focus on what we do best, guiding millennial mothers along their motherhood journey."

—Jill Koziol, Co-founder and CEO, Motherly

Motherly's strategy of letting go of a heavy tech investment, and instead focusing on the content they create, is the way to get ahead in the new media landscape. Instead of doubling down on an expensive team of developers, it's beneficial to divert those resources toward content curators. At RebelMouse, our deep tech stack, support, and engineering team stepped in as Motherly's tech solution, so Motherly could continue to prioritize their own voice.

Project Requirements:

Launch a next-generation new media property quickly by employing RebelMouse's dynamic layout and design features.

Empower editors to optimize each piece of content for not only on-site performance, but also SEO and social engagement using our proprietary technology.

Migrate all previous content from their previous CMS platform using a smart taxonomy strategy.

“RebelMouse doesn't just execute on our vision. They are meaningful partners in creating our vision."

—Jill Koziol, Co-founder and CEO, Motherly

Our Solution

The RebelMouse platform is highly customizable with its own robust developer program. As a result, we were able to create an aesthetic to illustrate Motherly's mission. Editorially, their previous site architecture had no SEO optimization or dynamic features in place. This changed when they started using RebelMouse's Social UX layout and Particle Assembler to amplify their content across site, search, and social.

While Motherly was able to make the most of our deep technology, they were also able to take advantage of our full-service creative agency. In addition to our publishing interface, we also took over project management, analytics, programmatic ad opportunities, and content strategy. To facilitate their strategy for long-term success, our team put together an investor analytics dashboard to help Motherly grow their relationship with investors through the help of meaningful data.

"The whole team is really amazing. Sandra is the BEST! She's super talented, lightning fast, so professional, and a pleasure to interact with."

—Liz Tenety, Co-founder and Chief Digital Officer, Motherly

By leveraging our custom tech, valuable agency support, and analytical insights, we took Motherly from 0–100 with a quick turnaround. The results enabled their content to shine like never before.

Results

Motherly launched on RebelMouse in early April 2018. Since then, they've shown explosive growth with users up 28%, sessions up 72%, and pageviews up a staggering 177%.

Using RebelMouse's built-in SEO tools, Motherly began to optimize articles at the editor level. This has helped grow their traffic from Google. Since launch, users coming in from Google are up 1,164% and pageviews are up 2,018%.

In the short time since they trusted RebelMouse with their tech, the Motherly team was able to invest in their core superpower: strengthening an army of strong millennial mothers. It's a beautiful illustration of our own mission to give publishers back time, money, and flexibility so they can focus on creating content that both supports their goals and thrives in the digital ecosystem.

You can experience extreme growth with us, too. Let us know how we can help you take your business to the next level.

Header photo featuring heydylopez_.