e-Business, e-Commerce, Online Marketing & Web Strategy

Creating the e-Business - Part 4: Marketing Strategy

Advertising - Web Portals

Creating the e-Business - Part 4: Marketing Strategy

Advertising - Web Portals

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Oct. 31st, 2008 at 10:28 AM

Marketing Strategy

ABC believes it can accomplish these strategic goals by advertising in horizontally integrated e-marketplaces and by optimizing its website for content and backward linkage to increase its web page ranking and popularity with the major search engines. ABC must answer which marketplaces will drive its target market to its website. Business-to-Business marketplaces like ThomasNet, Global Spec, Vert-Markets and similar horizontally integrated e-marketplaces could offer relevant lead generation for ABC. ABC must also answer the question of which advertising methods would offer the best brand awareness opportunities for the company.

ABC could look towards various brokerage models when determining the appropriate marketing mix. Brokerage models are used to bring buyers and sellers together in an effort to establish business connections between them in order to form a mutually agreeable transaction. One example of a brokerage model is a search agent. Search agents attempt to take the user’s query, or criteria, for a specific good or service and find the best provider or best price for the user. Examples of brokerage models are, as mentioned above, e-marketplaces. E-marketplaces have many companies that advertise on their sites. When the user enters their criteria, the system selects the best company to fulfill the needs of the user.

Another example of a brokerage model is the auction broker. Auction brokers do not get involved in the transaction, they simply take a percentage of the sales commission or require a small listing fee to list products or services on it site. An example of an auction broker would be E-bay. E-bay has a section of its website dedicated to the small business. ABC could look here in an attempt to procure auction brokerage business while getting rid of excess inventory.

A further example of a brokerage model business is the distributor. Distributor sites serve as an online catalog and lead generating tool for their advertisers. An example of a B2B online distributor would be ThomasNet’s online catalog of industrial manufacturers and distributors. ABC must also question how it wants to create brand awareness throughout the industry.

In the next post, we will discuss branding and positioning for our fictional company.

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Aug. 26th, 2008 at 2:44 PM

Web Portals

Everyone has an Advertising budget. Some are big and some are small. Internet advertising basically consists of your Website, Pay-Per-Click, Banner Ads or other online ad, and Pay-For-Placement in Web Portals. As we know, Web portals are search engines that specialize in either B2B or B2C and contain lots of companies, in which many are in direct competition with one another. The key thought here is that a Web portal is like a popular highway exit. Most of us choose highway exits that are convenient and have lots of choices for food, gas and maybe lodging. Portals work the same way. People use them because of the shear number of similar advertisers. But what is a good portal for you?

Again, look through your Website tracking stats and see what keywords your visitors are typing in on the search engines. Type these same keywords in to the search engines. Whoever is coming up on top is obviously doing a good job. If you can advertise with them it might be a good bargain. Why? Because lets say you sold lead pipe for the plumbing industry. And let’s say that even after optimizing your site you can’t get on top of the search engine natural rankings. And let’s say that you looked into pay-per-click and it’s $5 per click to be number one on Google for lead pipes with an estimated click total of 2,000 clicks per month. That would be $10,000 per month to do pay-per-click on that keyphrase alone. And let’s say that this was too much for your budget. I know it’s a far stretch isn’t it?

Now let’s say that with a portal like ThomasNet.com, you can be number one on their site for the phrase lead pipes for only $3,000 per year. So what? “So let’s dance” J So, if ThomasNet is coming up number one on Google for the search phrase lead pipes, and you are number one on ThomasNet under the category lead pipes, then it stands to reason that you can literally be number one in the world on Google under the phrase lead pipes by advertising with ThomasNet. Sure, your name is an extra click away, but you just accomplished the same basic goal for thousands less.

Why can’t you just copy the portal and become number one yourself? Because successful Web portals have thousands of advertisers spending thousands and tens of thousands of advertising dollars with it. This gives the portals lots of cash to do one thing, advertise! You see, you’re in business to make something or to provide a service. A portal is in business to advertise itself in order to get people to see your ad and eventually drive lots of people to your site. So let it. If it has a proven track record of success, it must be doing something right. And after all, if it isn’t doing the job, you can witness its performance via your Web tracking software and kick it to the curb.

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September 2009