February 28, 2008

The Knot Gets A Bump

Erick Schonfeld

15 comments »

You know the media world has been turned upside down when Websites start buying magazines. Today, the Knot, which operates the wedding site of the same name, acquired The Bump, a group of local magazines and maternity guides in 11 cities. Terms were not disclosed.

In an effort to reduce the natural churn of its audience (who needs to check a wedding site after the big day is over?), the Knot created other bookend lifestyle sites—TheNest for newlyweds, and TheNestBaby for new parents. So what does a Website need magazines for? The Bump is distributed in OB/GYN offices and could help channel readers to TheNestBaby. The Knot can also use it to sell combined print/Web advertising packages.

It’s got to do something to drive traffic. TheNestBaby barely registers on comScore, with only 171,000 unique visitors in the U.S. in January, compared to the TheKnot’s 1.8 million (which itself shot up in January after a few months of decline). Maybe print isn’t dead after all. I wonder if we are going to see more Web-buy-print deals, especially in niche media.

CrunchBase Information

The Knot

The Bump

Information provided by CrunchBase

Sphere It

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 3:03 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Trackbacks/Pings (Trackback URL)

Dekut.com

February 28th, 2008 at 4:43 pm

Comments

RSS feed for comments on this post.

George

February 28th, 2008 at 3:10 pm

I wonder with its traffic, why theKnot.com is such a piece of garbage website?
Daniel Gibbons

February 28th, 2008 at 3:16 pm

Print isn’t close to being dead — it’s just very alive in some areas and dying in others. Business / tech / news is a tough place to be for traditional magazines, but lifestyle stuff continues to do pretty well.
Dallas J Clark

February 28th, 2008 at 3:33 pm

Daniel Gibbons: that is so true
Veronica Alvarez

February 28th, 2008 at 3:55 pm

Erick,

I definitely believe in this case it has to do with traffic. Def. an effort to bring more users to their TheNestBaby site. The magazine distributed at the OBGYN office is mostly medical so in this case driving potential users to the site becomes complimentary content for the user.

I do strongly believe however, that if they had all this contest online (both Medical and non-Medical) there wouldn’t be a need to obtain print in order to increase usage.

I’m the founder of http://www.FertilityTies.com (only launched a few months ago) and it’s the first online community for men and women trying to conceive, and going through Infertility (over 7MM in the U.S.).

Our users come for the medical and peer support that we provide, and as they become pregnant they’re still using the site as they have created a bond here with many throughout their Journey. I believe they also will stay and help others going through infertility, and come back as well when they’re expanding their families!
Christopher Finke

February 28th, 2008 at 3:58 pm

George: Tell that to the women who spend hours upon hours there while planning their wedding.
Brick Marketing

February 28th, 2008 at 4:11 pm

We agree with a comment above when it comes to print dying in some sectors but certainly not pregnancy and weddings. Women are usually very meticulous about their baby planning and bridal planning so they will read anything that comes their way - especially quality content that can lay in bed and read. We suppose that is a good move on The Knot’s part!
Vikas

February 28th, 2008 at 4:53 pm

Eric - The traffic jump in Jan for Knot seems more seasonal than a random increase, which makes sense since most weddings happen in the summer, and planning starts a few months earlier
Anna

February 28th, 2008 at 5:05 pm

@#7: …”planning starts a few months earlier.” I imagine you meant a year and a few months earlier. I also imagine that this area will be popular in print to the very end.
bo

February 28th, 2008 at 6:23 pm

Not a very wise purchase considering the Marriage Strike is about to hit critical mass. I suggest investing in cat food companies because there are going to be a lot of lonely spinster career women.
Jeff

February 28th, 2008 at 9:56 pm

I must say that there website may look horrible to us early adopters of technology. We are tainted because we see the new sites as they come out. But, my wife who comes home from work and goes onto her MacBook cuz I am reading TechCrunch, it is fine. She doesn’t need “All That Jazz” to keep her happy. Hell I have even met a couple of husbands that are now going to help me with my website becasue of the “nestie” get togethers that she goes to. And we think we get pissed at flamers in comments here? Tell a pregnant women she is too whiney on their boards and then you will see real anger.

I will say though, she has never bought one of the zines.
jenkins

February 29th, 2008 at 3:59 am

Are you guys now covering old web companies that buy other “offline” tiny media companies? Must’ve been a slow day, eh?
ryanol

February 29th, 2008 at 1:37 pm

print to drive traffic…its alive an well….why do you think Zell bought Tribune…

apartments.com and cars.com were owned in part by Tribune….Zell owned what prior to aquisition you say…..a Real Estate company with one of the largest Multihousing (apartments) portfolio???
Mr. Pez

February 29th, 2008 at 2:38 pm

I wouldn’t be surprised to see many more web-buy-print deals like this in the future. It’s a lot easier to grow an already successful company than it is to build one from scratch, and it takes years for a company like The Bump to gain access to a niche market like OB/GYNs.

My guess…with the Knots deep pockets, The Bump will have grown from 11 cities to two dozen before the end of the year. Anyone know what The Knot paid?
David Mackey

March 1st, 2008 at 7:49 pm

Seems like a good move on The Knots part. Allows them to funnel magazine readers into their website.