NSPCC positive parenting website

hen charity NSPCC wanted a companion site to the award winning “Your family” magazine they turned to Compound Media to build a unique interactive resource for parents of children 0-9 years.

Your family is an award winning website aimed at parents of newborns to nine year olds.  Created for the NSPCC, it provides positive parenting advice covering all aspects of family life, from dealing with tantrums and sleep problems to bonding with your new baby and escaping domestic violence.

The problem

Redwood publishing already produced the successful “Your family” magazine, distributed through Early Learning Centre (ELC).

NSPCC were keen to extend their positive parenting message to the widest audience possible.  Whilst there is a very active on-line parenting community, most are focused on pregnancy and early years, there are few sites catering for families and children.

Recognising this, NSPCC saw the potential to launch a new website to compliment the magazine and provide cross-platform messaging to a more family oriented audience.

Objectives

The objectives were aimed at making Your Family content and NSPCC positive parenting messages more accessible to existing and potential audiences than was possible with a bi-monthly magazine.

Building relationships

Giving parents easy and approachable access to parenting support and advice from the NSPCC on a day-to-day basis – promoting NSPCC as someone that they can turn to.  Using the site to continue to build relationships with existing Your Family readers by giving them added value through additional content and functionality.

Engaging a wider audience

In particular, the site would allow NSPCC to reach out to a wider audience beyond the existing magazine readers, targeting: -

• Parents of older children
• Fathers
• Single parents
• Parents of children with disabilities
• Ethnic minorities
• Grandparents
• Young parents
• Parents with disabilities
• Non-ELC shoppers

This would mobilise parents and families by giving them practical tips and advice and showing how simple actions can contribute to ending cruelty to children.  Empowering parents by giving them more ways to interact with the NSPCC and their peers, and by giving them a wider choice of ways to access the information they need.

Our role

The project was a collaboration between, NSPCC, Razorfish (design) and Redwood (content).  Compound Media worked with all parties throughout the project and was responsible for: -

• Information architecture
• Content strategy
• Project management of the build and launch
• Build
• Managed services

Outcomes

Site

The site content incorporates real-life stories, celebrity interviews, parenting news, expert advice, activity ideas, family recipes, and forums where users can connect, share and support each other.

Video

Exclusive video content including expert advice and things to make with your child, helping to make parenting fun and interactive.

Tools

We built some exciting interactive tools to make the website stand out from its competitors in the on-line parenting sector. The ‘Digital Nanny’ offers users personalised expert advice, when they enter their child’s age and gender, on a variety of topics ranging from discipline to nutrition.

Newsletters

All visitors to the site can sign up to receive age-specific email newsletters from Your family, so that they get the most relevant positive parenting tips, news and freebies delivered straight to their inbox each month.

Community

Visitors can also register to become full ‘members’ of the site, allowing them to safely create their own profiles, show off their children’s artwork in the gallery, celebrate their achievements on the ‘Well Done Wall’, and swap thoughts and advice in the forums.

Project management

The implementation was run to very tight deadlines that involved phasing the delivery.  The main content site was launched first followed closely by the community features.  Subsequent phases saw the introduction of a News section, Polls and an integrated newsletter delivery system, all managed within the system.

Awards

The site has won several industry awards: -

• Best Digital Solution (APA Creative Awards 2009)
• Best Home Page (APA Creative Awards 2008)
• Best Integrated Marketing Solution (APA Creative Awards 2008)

As well as being shortlisted for many others including: -

• Best Digital Launch (BSME Awards 2009)
• Best Launch (AOP Awards 2009)
• Best Launch (APA Effectiveness Awards 2009)

Site statistics

Since launch, the site has been accessed by over 350,000 unique users who have viewed more than 1.25M pages.

Monthly emails are being sent to more than 8,000 newsletter subscribers.

Note

Unfortunately, due to the difficult financial situation at the start of 2010, NSPCC took the decision to close the site down.  For more information, see the attached PDF’s for screen-shots of the site and Contact us for more details.