AM: Direct sales vs. branding

[Mitch Arnowitz <marnowitz@morino.org>]

All:

An interesting comment and site follows on business-business 
web sales vs. marketing. As the outlook for the ad model is 
questionable, I'm wondering if anyone in the group has a 
business-business direct response sucess story to share. 

I've been told lately that the only companies "making money"
transactionally are business-business direct marketers. Agree?



Using the Net: Direct sales vs. branding 
By Mollie Neal and Kate Maddox
taken from: http://www.netb2b.com

PROBLEMATIC PROPOSITION

Lucent Technologies is splitting Web ad money between branding and 
direct sales campaigns, says Kent Miller, corporate advertising director 
for Lucent. But brand-building remains a problematic proposition. 

"Part of the difficulty is that we don't have a good feeling for how
effective [Web advertising] has been," Mr. Miller says. While Lucent has 
placed banner ads on some business technology publication sites to create 
brand awareness, it is spearheading some new direct sales campaigns that 
are specific to certain areas of the company, such as Bell Labs.

These companies' plans echo the intentions of a handful of high-tech Web 
advertisers contacted by Business Marketing, all of whom said driving 
direct response sales is the most important goal of their Web advertising 
efforts.

Copyright June 1997, Crain Communications