Search engine launched to help mothers-to-be

By Giselle Abramovich
May 25th, 2007

Kevin Burke, a marketing professional launched www.lightiris.com, a Web site designed specifically to enable expectant and new moms to get information and questions answered on motherhood.

New motherhood means new challenges, uncertainty and many decisions that could often be overwhelming for new mothers. The site is meant to address the challenges of new motherhood.

“Our approach has three prime elements all constructed around generating word of mouth on the topic of motherhood and the Light Iris brand,” Mr. Burke said. “[We will] start a blog one month prior discussing motherhood from a “new” perspective.

“[We will also] send a surprise and delight Mother’s Day gift to influential moms and moms who helped shape the brand,” Mr. Burke said. “They received a card, iris flower bulb and a sneak peek at the new Web site prior to launch. [Lastly we will] engage mom bloggers and introduce the Light Iris brand.”

Mr. Burke founded Lucid Marketing, a marketing and media services company specializing in connecting moms with such brands as Disney, eHarmony, AOL and Quicken, created Light Iris as the place to get fast, accurate, relevant answers in record time.

“Of more than 32 million Internet-savvy moms with kids under age 18, 87 percent use search engines to save time and find answers to their daily challenges,” Mr. Burke said. “Unfortunately, 56 percent say Internet search engines don’t produce the relevant choices they are looking for. And moms don’t have a lot of time to spend trying to sift through all the results.”

Due to this, Mr. Burke felt it was his job to help mothers-to-be.

“As a person who founded a marketing to moms agency, Lucid Marketing

(www.lucidmarketing.com ), I’ve had the opportunity to see the world through the eyes of many women,” Mr. Burke said. “One of the conclusions that I came to was that there are a lack of tools for expectant and new moms.

“There are plenty of articles, advice and wealth of information from a wide variety of sources for moms, but even as good as Google is, sometimes they often can be difficult to find,” he said. “As we continue to grow and build, we will release new tools that new moms will find helpful.”

The site’s phased launch begins with one of its most useful features: a Google-powered search engine tailored to new mom content.

Early visitors to Light Iris get an opportunity to participate in the Celebration of Today’s Moms Sweepstakes, which is awarding more than $3,000 in gift cards from Crate & Barrel, Pottery Barn, AnnTaylor, Gap, SpaFinder and Apple.

Mr. Burke worked with 400 U.S. mothers to shape the site’s mission, style and content. He even took his drive to understand the female point of view to the extreme by wearing a pregnancy suit at home and at the office for the entire month leading up to Mother’s Day. He shares the story at blog.lightiris.com.