New Comm Biz

This is amazing! I’m obviously a huge believer that the Web is the ultimate disintermediator, but I never thought of something like this.

Over the course of 3 posts, Michele Nachum tells the story of how her and her husband used social media to reach out directly to pregnant teens in search for a baby to adopt.

(Note Michele points out that independent adoptions are not better or worse than traditional, agency mediated adoptions just a different choice.)

Thanks to Digital Media, We Adopted a Baby! Part 1 of 3 Part 2 of 3 Part 3 of 3

In part one Michele talks about why they decided to take this approach:

The Internet is partially responsible for the advent of “independent” adoptions in the past few years; birth mothers like to search out their own potential adoptive parents and not depend on an agency to do it for them.

The fact is, though, birth mothers are generally young – anywhere between 15-35 years old – and most likely reading and connecting online (like nearly everyone) and searching for answers online. It’s funny, though; you still hear many adoption experts telling prospective adoptive parents to advertise themselves in community newspapers. We did some print advertising – but with no results. Birth parents are on Facebook and MySpace – not reading the Nickel.

In part two she discuss the digital tactics they used. They set up a free site on Microsoft Office Live as well as targeted adds on Facebook (Michele and her husband were the first but not the last to start doing this). There story also got a write up in AdFreak.com.

In part 3 Michele talks about the happy ending.

In mid-January 2009, just as my husband and I were getting ready restart all our “marketing” efforts, we suddenly received a slew of traffic to our adoption Web site. We figured that the New Year had motivated people to take a fresh look at their lives.

And then came OUR birth mother. In mid-January, just shy of a year after starting our adoption outreach, a young woman found our Web site and told us it really resonated with her and she wanted to work with us on an adoption plan.

I thought this was a great example of targeting your “customer” using the tools they need.

To close an adoption in just a little over a year is amazing. Having family members who have gone through this process many times it can be really painful, long and disappointing. I don’t know enough about adoption agencies and the “value” they bring but if I worked at an adoption agency I’d be scared to death right now.

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