Birthday in a Box (www.birthdayinabox.com) is one business that has mastered the art of Internet marketing — about 80% of their customers come from their web site. The three-year-old web site has also been mentioned in two national children's magazines, Parenting and Family Life, and was the recipient of parenting awards from Parents' Choice and Dr. Toy.

Birthday in a Box sells complete children's birthday party "kits." Parents can choose from more than 30 themes geared towards kids from ages one to 13. Laurie Wrigley, the company's founder, came up with the idea in the midst of a chaotic children's party at a 'fun center.' "I thought that there had to be an easier way for parents to bring back the 'home birthday party'," she says.

Wrigley, a mother of three, was looking for a business that would allow her to work around her children's schedules. The kid's party angle also appealed to her as a way to combine her business and creative strengths, while doing something related to children.

She began by putting together a sample box and testing it on her children's playgroup. The feedback was positive, and Birthday in a Box was born. It took Wrigley six months to set up the company, decide on party themes, and find vendors.

Now Wrigley works between 50-60 hours a week, and has two partners who do the same. The business also employs three part-time employees. Wrigley's days involve making marketing calls, working on the web site, answering emails, and assisting with invoicing. To make the business a success, she works before her children wake up, while they are at school, and again after they go to bed.

It took the company nearly three years to turn a significant profit. They currently bill between $20,000 and $30,000 per month. "This is a very time-consuming business," says Wrigley.

She continues: "It requires a significant cash outlay to maintain the amount of inventory required to fulfill orders in a timely manner. We order from over 40 different vendors. Each vendor has different minimum order requirements and shipping lead times. Coordinating these elements is essential to success."

Wrigley uses a variety of methods to promote her web site. They started with the basic step of registering the site with major search engines. "Originally we were quite successful in securing top search positions," she says. "However, with an ever increasing number of competitors and our newly redesigned site, we found that we had dropped in most of the engine's rankings."

To improve their rankings, Wrigley experiments with different META tag combinations to see which work best. "A good place to start is to look at the code for the sites which hold the first several positions and determine which META tags they use," she advises.

She suggests using Infoseek and AltaVista search engines when experimenting with META tags, since she finds they usually re-rank your site fairly soon after you've resubmitted the URL. She also recommends the RankThis! web site, which provides a free tool to determine your "ranking" with several of the major search engines.

As another marketing tool, Wrigley networks with other sites by asking those that have a logical connection to Birthday in a Box to create a link. For example, since one of their birthday themes is the Wizard of Oz, they have asked a Wizard of Oz site to provide a link to their page. She also suggests building merchant partnerships with other merchant sites to exchange links.

Building this birthday-kit business, however, has not been one big party. "The hours can be long," she says, "and the struggle to keep up with products that are discontinued from manufacturers, or problems with manufacturer back-orders can be frustrating."

But overall, Wrigley has found the business to be a rewarding one. "Because we are constantly reassessing our themes and elements of each theme, speaking with new customers and creating new designs, the business remains interesting," she says. "It's great to provide a needed service."