Digital Pioneer Womensforum.com, Attracting A Female Audience Of 45 Million Strong, Expands Advertising Opportunities For Brand Marketers

CHICAGO, Aug. 14, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- With over 45 million unique visitors per month* and 17 years of history and experience in reaching the highly coveted female audience, Womensforum.com – one of the first and largest online communities targeting women – is expanding its resources and capabilities to deliver impactful results for marketers seeking to reach women where they live online.

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This move comes on the heels of H.I.G. Growth Partners' investment in Womensforum.com that is allowing the company to widen offerings both on its central hub site and within its extensive circle of popular blogs. New opportunities for advertisers include:

• Customized native ad experiences that scale across the Womensforum.com community
• Smartphone-optimized hub site that tailors content for on-the-go activities, emphasizing news, social media and shopping
• Mobile apps for shopping, couponing and DIY home projects
• "Womensforum TV" original video content aired daily on Womensforum.com and across its family of partner sites, including the fall launch of two new series "DIY Diaries" and "Inspiring Women"
• Expert blogger and influencer programs

In addition, Womensforum.com's recent merger with Escalate Media, one of the industry's leading consumer promotions platforms, has allowed for the establishment of the Womensforum Shopper Engagement Program, offering extensive performance-driven brand marketing and consumer promotion opportunities. Leveraging the powerful influence of its collection of popular shopping blogs, the program enables brands to reach millions of women directly in the path to purchase with a mix of native and display advertising.With the merging of operations now finalized, the Womensforum Shopper Engagement Program already generates over 5 million coupon downloads a month and 1.5 million shopping engagements. This new, unique combination of solutions enables marketers to combine achieving traditional branding objectives with high-performance consumer promotion programs in a single campaign.

"Womensforum.com has been successfully reaching women since 1996 – from the bygone days of dial-up divas to today's on-the-go mobile moms," said Mark Kaufman, co-Founder and CEO, Womensforum.com. "With the support of H.I.G. Growth Partners and the completion of our merger with Escalate Media, the company now has the assets, insights and platforms to provide our loyal audience with a greater sense of community paralleled with even more compelling and robust online content all in an environment perfect for advertisers to meet complex marketing objectives."

Acquisitions and Product Development:

With a focus on expanding the depth and breadth of client solutions through acquisition and product development, Womensforum.com has hired industry veteran Mike Meyers to lead these efforts as the company's new Senior Vice President of Corporate Development.

Meyers brings to Womensforum.com a wealth of experience in the digital arena, particularly in reaching female audiences online. Before joining Womensforum.com, Meyers was Vice President of Publisher Network Strategy at Glam Media, where he helped make them the leader in comScore's "Family" category. Meyers' first major foray into the women's digital space was with SheKnows, which he co-founded in 2003, also serving as the company's CEO.

"Womensforum.com has been a significant force in the digital ecosystem and has served as a 'secret weapon' for marketers in-the-know," said Meyers. "Advertisers are clamoring to engage with women, and Womensforum.com has already proven itself by capturing an expansive and dedicated female audience. We now offer performance capability enabled by our merger with Escalate Media, which allows Womensforum.com to provide brands with solutions that no one else in the category can match. Additionally, we plan to expand by acquiring complimentary digital media assets and developing new and exciting products. My experience in working with similar properties tells me that they can drive their market share even further – and I look forward to helping them achieve this goal."

New Sales Strategy:

Alongside a reinvigorated commitment to business development, Womensforum.com is undergoing a shift in its sales strategy, forming a comprehensive in-house sales division.  Lynn D'Alessandro will lead the new sales team, joining Womensforum.com as its new Senior Vice President of Sales. She formerly ran sales divisions at ValueClick and Traffic Marketplace.  In both roles she succeeded in driving increased year over year sales through the development of audience specific multi-channel solutions for Fortune 500 brands. 

"This is an ideal time to be joining Womensforum.com," said D'Alessandro. "After years of successfully working with top-tier brands Womenforum.com has amassed a formidable audience as a result of its interesting and engaging content.  I look forward to introducing technologies that leverage multi-channel product solutions targeted at specific audience segments within the larger overall women's category.  We will continue to grow our content within social, mobile and video channels that the company has continued to promulgate since its inception in 1996. Most of all, we look forward to a bright future with marketers having reached critical mass which is supporting targeted growth."

*(comScore/May, 2013)

About Womensforum.com:
Founded in 1996, Womensforum.com (www.womensforum.com) was the first community of sites focused on women. Since then, it has cultivated a targeted, scalable audience of over 45 million globally that appeals to marketers looking to reach women where they spend time and engage online.

SOURCE Womensforum.com