Business-to-Business Internet Marketing, Fourth Edition - Lifecycle ...

94 BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS INTERNET MARKETING
on database, relational database, RMDB, so on. The ads can be either
banners or text ads; text ads reportedly outpull banners, but it’s worth
a test. Large search engines are expensive, so purchase space selectively.
A report in the e-newsletter B2B Marketing Biz (www.b2bmarketing
biz.com) showed just how important search engines can be. Zapdata
(www.zapdata.com), a company that provides sales leads, extensively
tested all forms of online advertising, including banners, opt-in e-mail,
newsletter sponsorships, and search engine free and paid listings. Search
engine optimization was the tactic that outperformed them all. Straightforward
banners with free offers also worked well, but Zapdata was
just as impressed with the response achieved by newsletter sponsorships.
Online buying guides and directories present additional opportunities
for marketers.
Incentive Programs: Another Form of Online Advertising
A growing area of online advertising is incentive programs. These programs
reward the prospect or customer for providing information,
taking an action, or making a purchase. This phenomenon deserves its
own section because it is proving for some marketers to be a way to
increase advertising click-throughs, acquire prospects, and even increase
customer loyalty.
Incentive programs come in a variety of flavors, with the most common
incentives being sweepstakes and contests, volume deals, and price
breaks, according to Forrester Research. Also becoming increasingly
popular on the Internet are online coupons and other forms of “instant
payback” programs.
Contests and sweepstakes are growing at a rapid rate, being legitimized
by big name marketers. For example, in December 1999, Compaq
Computer Corp. (www.compaq.com) cut a deal with Promotions.com
(formerly Webstakes) to create custom sweepstakes-style promotions to
run on Compaq’s Online Services site.
As for online coupons, Forrester Research reports that they can send
banner ad click-through rates as high as 20%. In fact, a study by NPD
Online Research released in November 1999 showed that almost a third
of the Internet population used online coupons in October, up from 23%
early that year. The top two sites where coupons were being obtained,
according to the survey, were Coolsavings (www.coolsavings.com) and
ValuePage (www.valuepage.com). There is even a place where you can