Strong and Stable Demand, Yet Awaiting Breakthrough: Has Content-Driven Entrepreneurship in Maternal & Child Platforms Become Profitable?

This is an era in which audience expression holds more power than authorial expression. From “new media” and “self-media” to “content entrepreneurship,” what has been upgraded is not just the terminology, but the tangible reality that has enabled many people to earn their first pot of gold.

Content monetization, although a long-standing topic, has gained significant traction in recent years, particularly within the maternal and infant sector. However, when it comes to health and medical matters, audiences in this demographic tend to be relatively rational. While the market has not yet reached a point of explosive growth, it benefits from strong and stable demand.

How Popular Is Content-Driven E-Commerce? “Xiao Xiao Bao Ma Ma” is a maternal and child platform that leverages product reviews of mother-and-baby items to operate its e-commerce business, shares parenting knowledge, and employs a “content + tools” model to drive traffic to its online store.

In April 2014, the WeChat official account “Xiao Xiao Bao Ma Ma” was officially launched. Currently, Xiao Xiao Bao Ma Ma has been comprehensively upgraded into the new media matrix “Baibao New Media,” with monthly e-commerce turnover reaching RMB 70 million. Based on its communication metrics and influence, it was shortlisted among the Top 100 Companies in Content Entrepreneurship by New Rank in 2017, making it one of the few maternal and infant industry enterprises to make the list.

The importance and utility of such content are self-evident, serving as a cornerstone for science popularization in the maternal and infant sector. In broad terms, there are two primary models for content monetization: one involves pure consumer-level e-commerce, such as becoming a key opinion leader (KOL) in the maternal and infant niche; the other focuses on health science popularization by providing medical-grade knowledge services.

Maternal and infant influencers primarily recommend products from a mother’s perspective. How can one become a maternal and infant influencer or establish a related community? A post-90s key opinion leader (KOL) in the maternal and infant sector revealed to a reporter, “I missed the eras of web portals, QQ groups, and online communities, and I didn’t start with WeChat Official Accounts or Toutiao either. Instead, I began directly as an influencer on JD.com and Taobao, which are entirely different ecosystems from WeChat. This year, there has been considerable discussion about content monetization on Taobao. Many Taobao influencers have been quietly building content-driven e-commerce businesses and reaping substantial profits.”

2016 marked the boom in live streaming. In 2017, various entertainment-style live streams proliferated rapidly. Among live-streaming platforms, institutions that first sensed business opportunities flocked to Taobao, with categories such as maternal and infant products, food, women’s clothing, and beauty emerging as top revenue generators. Alibaba’s content-driven e-commerce ecosystem currently features popular offerings including Taobao Headlines, Taobao Live, Ask Everyone, as well as Wei Tao, You Hao Huo (Quality Picks), Ai Guang Jie (Love Shopping), and Must-Buy Lists.

On December 5, 2017, Taobao released the income ranking of its content creators. Viya, who topped the list, was projected to earn RMB 25 million in 2017, with ten creators expected to have annual incomes exceeding RMB 4 million.

Yet an indisputable fact remains: like other industries, self-media is characterized by concentrated traffic and a pronounced “head effect.” Taobao’s mobile platform has undergone comprehensive content integration, with an ever-growing number of content channels on the Mobile Taobao app and increasingly complex engagement mechanisms. However, severe content homogenization is steadily squeezing the space for survival, to the point that professional content operations teams are now required to compete effectively. Nevertheless, high-quality content remains a scarce resource.

However, the aforementioned maternal and infant KOL stated: “Behind the content lies a competition of professional expertise. I believe there are limited opportunities for monetizing consumer-oriented content; a 5% conversion rate is merely the baseline for live streaming, and most fail to reach this level. Nevertheless, users may be willing to pay for consultations in areas such as healthcare, general wellness, and investment, or even become members.”

Content-driven e-commerce was one of Alibaba’s strategic priorities in 2017. Alibaba partner Zeng Ming previously stated, “Internet celebrities represent the rapid digitalization of traditional marketing, particularly brand marketing. It is worth emphasizing that this domain has long been off-limits to traditional advertising and commerce. Finally, after being repeatedly battered by waves of internet fervor, this iceberg is showing signs of melting.”

Behind content-driven e-commerce lies the connection between brands and sales, imbued with social attributes. The relationship between brands and consumers is no longer a simple buyer-seller transaction; products are now endowed with demands for content and experiential value.

From WeChat to Toutiao, Where Is the Next Bonus Platform for Self-Media? E-commerce Platforms Led by Taobao Are One Visible Carrier. Content E-commerce Is Essentially an Experience Economy; Maternal and Child Care Influencers on Taobao Sell Their Experiences, Including Knowledge, Expertise, Insights, and Trust Endorsements.

This is also one of the key reasons behind the rise of Pinduoduo, a social e-commerce platform renowned for its group-buying model. Looking further back, Mia, an emerging vertical e-commerce player, initially attracted users through a brand flash-sale model, thereby positioning itself to target mid-to-high-end consumers. Beibei.com focused on distinctive non-standardized products and operated without holding inventory, capturing a segment of users outside those served by JD.com, Taobao, and Suning.com by leveraging superior user experience.

Nian Gao Mama is a content-driven e-commerce platform that has rapidly emerged in recent years, capitalizing on the boom in content entrepreneurship. Its founder, Li Danyang, is a physician by training. Leveraging over three years of deep expertise in the parenting sector, she has built a scaled operation with a content team of more than 70 professionals, focusing on integrating e-commerce with curriculum development. During the 2017 Singles’ Day shopping festival, the platform generated nearly RMB 100 million in sales. Currently, its 32-course curriculum has achieved sales exceeding RMB 30 million within six months.

In 2017, Nian Gao Mama further strengthened its supply chain management by enhancing direct collaborations with brand partners and prioritizing product quality and supply chain integrity, thereby earning a spot on Newrank’s 2017 Top 100 Content Entrepreneurship Companies list.

Let us now discuss health-focused science popularization platforms that provide medical-grade knowledge services to meet users’ needs for record-keeping, knowledge acquisition, social interaction, and shopping. The value of such content lies in empowering mothers to make informed choices regarding their family’s healthcare.

The overarching premise is that in 2017, the traffic landscape in the maternal and infant sector underwent significant changes. First, traffic conversion for the “large community + e-commerce” model became increasingly challenging and costly, intensifying calls for strategies that integrate branding with performance. Furthermore, parenting platforms have shown a greater willingness to focus on precise channels to acquire higher-quality traffic.

Finally, offline traffic gateways—such as hospitals, maternal and infant stores, early education institutions, and kindergartens—are increasingly being targeted and valued by online platforms, with the role of hospitals as a traffic gateway being particularly emphasized.

Has the bonus period for community-driven traffic already passed? Not necessarily. The primary challenge in the maternal and infant industry is customer acquisition. Users at each stage focus solely on their immediate needs; for instance, once pregnant, they no longer seek information on preconception care. Orders for confinement centers are typically placed only between 16 and 28 weeks of gestation. Products such as infant formula, diapers, and baby bottles are used exclusively by children aged 1 to 3 years.

Driven by consumption upgrades, the relaxation of the two-child policy, and the innate preference of the primary childbearing demographic (those born in the 1980s and 1990s) for online communication and emotional sharing, coupled with the highly fragmented nature of the maternal and infant industry, many long-tail needs remain underserved. For instance, leading brands account for only 4%–5% of the children's apparel market, indicating substantial growth potential when benchmarked against mature markets such as the United States and Japan.

Some procedures, such as postpartum intimate plastic surgery, had not even been previously explored; due to their high gross margins, these surgeries have become popular.

These maternal and child health platforms primarily create content along two dimensions: one is to help mothers establish correct, science-based concepts; the other is to provide online and offline channels for merchants to deliver professional-grade live-streamed courses, which offer knowledge more closely aligned with health than the e-commerce content produced by purely consumer-oriented influencers.

Generally, e-commerce and advertising are the most common revenue models for maternal and infant content platforms. In terms of content formats, there has been a transition from plain text and images to professionally produced (PGC) and variety-style short videos.

Some major platforms, such as Babytree, have begun incubating influencers in the maternal and infant content sector, empowering creators through brand building, commercial monetization, and external communications, thereby evolving into integrated MCN platforms. This trend is expected to intensify in 2018.

For maternal and infant platforms, merely examining “stickiness” during a specific period holds little significance; the key to building competitive moats lies in cultivating long-term brand strength and user acquisition capabilities.

It has been proven that simply building communities or e-commerce platforms for their own sake, and then relying on capital-intensive cash burn to acquire traffic and users through粗放 (extensive) methods, is neither a cost-effective nor a viable strategy.

In an interview with VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat), Feng Peihua, founder of Qinbaobao, stated, “I believe that community-driven traffic will still represent a relatively significant opportunity window in 2018. For instance, WeChat groups are an area where we are actively making strategic moves, particularly to capture traffic from third- and fourth-tier cities, where opportunities remain substantial. However, the operational strategies will differ somewhat. Additionally, we are quite optimistic about offline traffic.”

For maternal and infant users, their primary needs revolve around parenting advice, emotional support, and sharing moments of their children. Forcibly combining shopping with a comprehensive community platform may not yield strong conversion rates and could instead degrade the user experience. Even when selling products, it is essential to communicate effectively with users and clearly differentiate between traffic-driving items and curated, higher-margin products.

Instead, platforms that target precise maternal and infant user segments—such as Qinbaobao for baby records, Dayima and Meiyou for menstrual tracking, and BabyTree Yunyu and Haoyunbang for preconception care—first solidify their core service offerings before expanding into other monetization channels. A more ideal approach is to leverage this targeted traffic to access high-demand family services or connect with non-standard products characterized by high frequency, high average transaction value, and high gross margins, thereby achieving vertical monetization.

Jiang Wei, COO of Yu Xue Yuan, stated: “Our online business achieved profitability in 2017. The paid membership service we launched acquired nearly 150,000 paying users within one year, becoming a robust driver of profit growth and pioneering the membership-based paid knowledge model in the maternal and infant industry. This year, Yu Xue Yuan will build upon its membership system to explore additional business models centered on high-quality paying users.”

A Meiyou executive also stated to VCBeat, “We have entered the content sector and developed a personalized recommendation system leveraging the massive female user big data accumulated over more than four years. This system is an optimization of our existing e-commerce and health-care personalized recommendation engines. Currently, content reading has become the most frequently used feature module among Meiyou users.”

Paid knowledge and the demand for knowledge constitute higher-level needs within an individual’s hierarchy of needs. What drives parents to seek out maternal and child health knowledge with such strong motivation? Feng Peihua, founder of Qinbaobao, stated, “It is actually related to the desire to raise children better and ensure they do not fall behind at the starting line. Over the past 10 to 20 years, societal anxiety around parenting has been particularly intense.”

An investor in the maternal and infant industry told VCBeat, “For parents, regardless of the actual utility of a product, they have a strong drive to explore, learn about, engage with, and try it out. Their motivation for parenting and willingness to pay for knowledge exceed those of other demographic groups. Therefore, from this logical perspective, there are still opportunities in the monetization of maternal and infant knowledge.”

Where do mothers and infants currently learn about parenting? The traditional format of large, comprehensive community posts has struggled to capture user attention. Obstetricians and nurses in hospitals lack the time and manpower to systematically provide health education services. Therefore, third-party platforms and institutions are needed to improve and supplement popular science content dissemination.

For parenting or maternal-and-infant platforms, data processing, content production, merchant sourcing, and strategic planning capabilities all constitute entry barriers.

The aforementioned investors stated, “Business models in the maternal and infant sector are highly homogeneous, and the business model itself does not create a competitive moat. A business model is visible to all; competitors can replicate it with only a delay of a few months at most. At this point, core competencies become essential, primarily in content and technology. However, building core competencies through content is significantly more challenging. The influence of a physician’s personal brand (IP) diminishes across different regions, and its lifecycle is very short.”

Technical barriers are primarily reflected in data capabilities, namely the ability to clean, filter, and model data. For most hospitals, maternal and infant platforms that aggressively solicit personal information are highly objectionable. Such practices often lead to data leaks and incessant harassing calls to pregnant women. Moreover, adopting the labor-intensive “human wave” tactic traditionally used by such platforms is both time-consuming and inefficient.

A technical director at a maternal and infant care platform told VCBeat, “For instance, when promoting on WeChat Moments, we need to use technical monitoring to determine where to place trending keywords to maximize traffic. How efficient is our channel in gaining followers? During which time periods and at which hospitals do we see the best results? When anomalies are detected, we compare them with the hospital’s delivery volume and same-day registration numbers to continuously optimize placement. Our entire customer service and order management system is intelligent; currently, merchants can achieve a monthly revenue share of up to RMB 600,000.”

Serve high-quality users, then uncover their needs, and generate revenue through ad revenue sharing with merchants or via e-commerce models. The aforementioned Technical Director stated, “There is minimal technical difficulty in developing mini-programs. They currently serve as an excellent entry point for e-commerce, enabling functionalities such as consultations and payments. With comprehensive features for promotion and store data queries, mini-programs can help advertisers enhance their ad campaign monitoring capabilities and improve purchase conversion rates. This is the power of technology.”

Mini-programs are capable of capturing fragmented usage scenarios. Users can access them on demand without downloading a dedicated app, which aligns well with the fragmented attention spans characteristic of maternal and infant consumers. Usage of mini-programs is driven solely by immediate needs for purchasing or learning, significantly diluting their marketing value. Meanwhile, they help bridge the previous disconnect between online and offline scenarios within the WeChat ecosystem, although this also presents greater challenges for operators.

As a platform dedicated to providing professional maternal and child health education, Yue Health has developed and deployed its own mini-program. Currently, the official WeChat account “Yue Health 365” is linked to two educational mini-programs: “Expert Premium Courses” and “User Q&A.” Leveraging technology, the platform curates high-quality open-course content from WeChat communities, along with user-doctor Q&A interactions, into thematic collections within the mini-program, enabling users to access desired information anytime, anywhere.

Hu Min, founder of Yue Health, stated in an interview: “In the healthcare service industry, users are undoubtedly paying for value. Through content creation and science-based health education, we help users develop proper health concepts and build trust, enabling mothers to access high-quality services and experiences. This is a gradual endeavor that requires patience and sustained effort. In 2018, Yue Health will expand its presence into key cities in South China.”

Demand in the maternal and infant sector remains strong and stable, with monetization driven by knowledge and content. In 2018, it is imperative to change strategies by shifting from a traffic-centric mindset to a super-user-centric one. It is not only about how many users you have, but more importantly, how many super users you have, so that you can truly provide them with the services they need most.