Blohm expects to add half a dozen states to the WeHelpKids.com site by the fall and others later, which will give SmarterKids.com access to many more of the 30 million children whose tests are processed by NCS. "This is the future," says Blohm. "Linking assessment with education is the Holy Grail of education, but it's not been easy to do."
The company's various attempts to create that link seem to be working -- at least, that is, when measured by the E-commerce metric of registered users (who, says Blohm, buy more products than casual visitors do). By the end of 1999, parents had entered more than 100,000 children's learning profiles into SmarterKids.com -- profiles that, not incidentally, provide valuable demographic information to the company.
Despite how useful the Web site may seem to parents, CEO Blohm must still find ways to get them to visit it in the first place. It's through the disproportionate marketing expenses typical of many E-commerce start-ups that SmarterKids.com could burn quickly through its $63 million: during the last quarter of 1999, it shelled out $18 million for marketing on sales of $4.3 million.
The company had rich fodder with which to create its marketing campaign: recommendations based on each child's needs make a strong selling point. The company sends as many as 20 million E-mail messages monthly to people who match the demographics of an average SmarterKids.com shopper. The target SmarterKids.com shopper is a woman, 25 to 49 years of age, with children ages 2 to 15, who works outside the home. In the brick-and-mortar world, a direct-mail campaign typically requires months to conclude. On the Internet, by contrast, a direct-mail campaign through E-mail produces results immediately. "Within minutes you get a response," says Blohm. "Within a day you know whether the list is working or not."
Whether the list works depends in large part on the company's home page, its most valuable real estate. Every inch must contribute to driving sales or otherwise satisfying customers. As many as eight spots on the home page change each week, in response to measurements of consumer interest. The company keeps running counts of how many times visitors hit each link on the home page, how they move through the site, and what links produce the most sales. "This is like putting a LoJack on every visitor and seeing where they go in the store," says Lisa Tanzer, vice-president of product management.
When an area of the home page isn't drawing interest, programmers replace it with something else. Tanzer has learned, for example, that products do best when they're positioned as both educational and fun. Featuring a product at the top of the page is better than putting it "below the fold," where customers must scroll down their screen to see it. Even more important than placement, however, is the size of the selection of products offered. Blohm says the company plans to expand its product offerings this year.
In the future, the company wants more parents to click through to its Parents Center, where it's adding features such as advice columns and practice tests. The idea is to increase "stickiness" -- the time a customer spends on the site, which translates into increased loyalty and repeat business.
It's here where the blend of Blohm's pragmatism and Pucci's ability to spot the next trend are at work once again. The two, watching the growing market for long-distance learning, have spotted a way to add services to the site -- services that could keep children and their parents coming back again and again and staying on the site longer. Soon, through partnerships or even acquisitions, they hope to sell enrichment courses and one-to-one tutoring. Mom's not home after school? Turn to the site for some live, on-the-spot help with homework. "Most parents are willing to spend money all day long if it will help their kids to improve," says Thomas Weisel partner Gay.
Pucci and his friends, in their third incarnation, had bet the company on electronic commerce.
At Newman Elementary School, a second-grader confides that she doesn't like a card game that she and several other children are playing. "It's kind of boring," she says. If the producers of the game were present, they would feel the dagger in their hearts.
"If we didn't reject products," says education director Susan Graham, "we wouldn't be doing our job. If it disseminates or perpetuates stereotypes, we reject it. We don't offer any Barbies." The teachers turn down 40% of the products they consider.
There is no such problem with the Monopoly game. Five kids are enthusiastically playing the game, including a girl with long brown hair who was virtually cleaned out in 15 minutes. A girl to her left has won all her money and controls the board with the confidence of the pretrial Bill Gates. Who knows -- maybe she'll start a dot-com company by seventh grade. "Monopoly is a good teaching tool," says Graham. "There are elements of math, accounting, reading, strategy, and problem solving."
Still, another five kids have decided not to test the fancy games at all. They've been playing over in a corner with plain wooden blocks -- blocks so nicked and scratched that they have probably been here as long as the school has been standing.
