The use of the World Wide Web
for Business-to-Business Marketing

Report of a market research study carried out in Western Europe

For comments to or questions about this page or the report, please contact PRC.

Navigational aid for this page

• Background
• Objectives
• Main issues covered
• Who made it ?
• Price
• Available from / How to order
• Table of contents
• Executive Summary
• Approximate ECU rates

You will find useful information here if you are ...

• Publisher of a web site and would like to improve your site through comparison with others
• Planning to launch a web site and would like to know the key factors of success

Background

Internet and World Wide Web home pages are booming. A very large number of businesses have decided to set up home pages on the web since the start of the year, and many more are considering doing it. Still, many have questions on how to do it, what content to put in and what level of investment/resources should be devoted to this new type of communication and of doing business.

Our purpose is to offer a study that answers these important questions. It is targeted at companies selling services or products to other companies.

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Objectives

• To identify the key factors of success for web-sites targeting businesses.
• The study aims at answering the following questions :
• What are main motives for presence on the Net ?
• How are results measured ?
• What are the results obtained (No. of hits, No. of sales leads, image effect, actual revenue generated, ...) ?
• What are the different types of "offers"; ?
• What are the success factors for each of these offers ?
• How are sites promoted outside and on the Net ?
• What are the results of the different techniques used ?
• What resources/investment levels are devoted to the web site ?
• What are current web site owners' plans for the future ?
• What are the needs of the marketers (in terms of services and of information) ?

what parts of the site development and maintenance are done in-house or purchased externally (design, programming, contents, maintenance, tracking of visitors, ... ) ?

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Main issues covered

The main issues covered were:

• The content of the websites: Company presentation, catalogue, prices, feedback facilities, limited access section, company news, vacancies, etc.
• The companies' actual results of their presence on the Internet: Number of sales leads, value of direct sales, satisfaction level.
• What works and what doesn't work. Recommendations based on the observations, the e-mail survey, expert advises, and interviews with successful companies. Method The study is based on data collection using three different market research techniques :
• A typology of 1000 sites from 11 different countries through a desk research, of which 131 in Denmark. The countries were AT, BE, DK, FR, DE, IR, NL, PO, ES, CH, and UK. 4 consultants with web knowledge visited a large number of randomly selected websites.
• Personal interviewing of 26 'experts' in 6 different countries, of which in Denmark 3 experts and 3 companies with successful websites.
• E-mail survey among web site owners - the sample consists of 302 web sites from 16 different countries: AT, BE, DK, FI, FR, DE, GR, IR, IT, NL, NO, PO, ES, SE, CH, UK. 46 questionnaires were returned from Denmark.

Size: 49 pages + 27 pages annexes, total 76 pages.

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Who made it ?

The study was conducted by Yellow Window, Belgium with three partner companies:

• Datem in France;
• Wavehill in the UK;
• PRC Consultants in Denmark.

All 4 companies are members of Growth International EEIG, a formal network of international business consultancies in Europe, and specialists in international business-to-business market research.

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Price

Danish kroner:

• Paper version: Kr. 1116 + moms, total kr. 1395.
• Electronic version: MS Word 6/7 document on disk, or attached to an e-mail: Danish kr. 1060 + moms, total kr. 1325.

Other Currencies:

The local value of ECU 150 excl. VAT.

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Available from / How to order

1. Find the relevant distributor below.
2. Send an e-mail with your company name and address. For Yellow Window, click the link to Yellow Window and fill in a form.
3. VISA/MasterCard are accepted: Include your card number and expiry date with the e-mail. Otherwise you will be instructed on how to make the payment in advance or that it will be send "cash on delivery", depending of the country you live in.

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Table of contents

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

PART 1. INTRODUCTION

PART 2. OBSERVATION OF SITES

2.1 Methodology
2.2 Sample Description
2.3 Presence of a general presentation of the company/organisation
2.4 Presence of a possibility for feedback
2.5 Presence of product/service description (catalogue)
2.6 Presence of price lists
2.7 Presence of "technical support"
2.8 Presence of information on events, trade shows or participation in fairs
2.9 Presence of other information about the company
2.10 Possibility to purchase on-line
2.11 Free information - not directly linked to the company and of interest to the visitor
2.12 Presence of a secure part
2.13 Presence of job offers
2.14 Presence of site links
2.15 News - on the company
2.16 Presence of news on the business
2.17 Presence of a guest book
2.18 Possibility to register
2.19 Presence of a counter
2.20 Presence of hit watching
2.21 Positioning of the site
2.22 Presence of discussion forum

PART 3. SURVEY BY E-MAIL WITH SITE OWNERS

3.1 Methodology
3.2 Sample description
3.3 Contents of the web site
3.4 Purchasing goods or services from the site
3.5 Presence of hyperlinks
3.6 Presence of free information
3.7 Secure web
3.8 Starting the web site
3.9 Web site development and hosting
3.10 Cost of design and maintenance
3.11 Promoting the web site
3.12 Who is the web site for ?
3.13 Traffic to the site
3.14 Effect of the site on the company's corporate image
3.15 Direct revenue generated
3.16 Sales leads identified through the site
3.17 Expansion or changes planned to the web site in 1997

PART 4 EXPERT INTERVIEWS

4.1 Motivation to develop a web site
4.2 Who decides to start a web site ?
4.3 Contents of the web site
4.4 Free information on the site
4.5 On-line commerce
4.6 Use of secure parts
4.7 Developing, maintaining and managing a web site
4.8 Promoting the web site
4.9 Success and failure
4.10 Typology of web sites

ANNEXES

1. Exchange rate of the ECU
2. The questionnaire used for the E-mail survey
3. Abbreviations
4. Tables to part 2.
5. Tables to part 3.

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Executive summary

Method

This study is based on data collection using three different market research techniques :

• step 1 : a typology of 1000 sites from 11 different countries through a desk research;
• step 2 : personal interviewing of 26 'experts' in 6 different countries;
• step 3 : e-mail survey among web site owners - the sample consists of 302 web sites from 16 different countries.

Motives to start a web site

The main motives at the moment are :

• to test the Web, to learn from the experience what is possible or not, to allow managers to try out something new, new ways to market the company's products or services;
• the "me too" motivation, the obligation because the competitors are there;
• image-related motives : the wish to create or strengthen the "innovative" dimension of the company's image;
• to generate sales leads : get in touch through the Web with new customers, to access new market segments (worldwide, the US, ...) or simply a larger audience;
• to develop a new sales channel and/or to avoid intermediaries. The big difference with the previous type of motivation is that actual transactions are feasible from the site.

The 3 first motives are the most frequently mentioned (by 25 % of the respondents each).

Contents

A standard web site usually consists of a number of main elements. The table hereunder shows for some important elements the percentage of sites where we found this element present. The basis for these results are the 1000 sites observed.

Based on the experience gained in observing 1000 business-to-business sites and on the 302 answers received to our questionnaire, we consider there are 3 main 'dimensions' to categorise business-to-business sites :

• the contents of the site : from simple to very complete;
• the degree of inter-activity : from no possiblities for inter-active communication at all to the use of the latest techniques for purchasing on-line;
• the overall positioning and targeting, where we differentiate between three main types of sites : 'image' sites, 'extranet' sites and 'free service sites'.

Presence of free information

Just over 60 % of the respondents to the survey consider they offer 'free information' on their site. ('Free information' is information of interest to the visitor which is offered for free in addition to the information provided on the company and its product or services.)

This compares with the 20 % of the web sites observed by our team (see table above).

On-line commerce

The actual selling of products or services through web sites is at the moment still limited, but the trend is growing : · 16 % of the respondents to our survey said to offer the possibility of purchasing at the site, but only 1 in 4 of them have the actual payment done at the site (via credit card). The others confirm the transaction by fax or send an invoice by normal mail; · 26 % of the respondents said they would certainly or probably have direct purchasing from their site in the future.

Promoting the site

The two promotion techniques that are most often used are : · mentioning the web site on all existing communication means (letterhead, business cards, brochures, ... ); · registering with search engines.

Still, there is a lack of knowledge about what actually works to promote a web site. Registration with search engines seems to be the most efficient technique according to our sample of respondents; followed by adding the URL address on all sales and promotional literature; and advertising through other media than the Net.

It is clear from the survey that many site publishers have actually done very little to promote their site.

Budgets invested

The large majority of web sites is developed and maintained completely in-house (75 %). The use of external services is, however, more common with the largest companies (50 % of companies with more than 500 employees).

The financial barrier to a web site is very low as was confirmed by all experts. It is possible to be on-line with a decent web site hosted externally for budgets below 5000 ECU. The responses to our survey confirm this fact as a majority of budgets for the design of a site was below 2500 ECU and as investment in person-days of personnel was less than 10 for 47 % of the sample.

Budgets for maintaining the site during one year are probably higher than for the development. Out of pocket expenses and depreciation seem to be lower but the time spent is significantly higher than for the development.

Results

For 35.4 % of the sample the site has generated a direct revenue. For the majority (52.3 %) of those 107 respondents, however, the site generated in '96 less than 5000 ECU, which is not very much. Still, 14 % of the sample (which corresponds to 15 companies) answered that the site generated more than 25.000 ECU for their company in 1996.

Asked whether sales leads were identified through the site in 1996, a small majority (54.3 % of the sample) answered positively. For 71.2 % of these 164 respondents less than 25 sales leads were identified; for 46.8 % even less than 10 which is not an important number. 3.8 % (or 6 companies), however, reported that more than 500 sales leads were generated through the site in 1996.

Satisfaction levels for the quality of these sales leads are clearly higher than for the quantity of the sales leads.

Conclusions

Learning to use the WWWeb as a new tool for B-to-B marketing starts slowly.

• A majority of B-to-B sites are 'low budget' (<2500 ECU) and lack ambition. Their main motive is to be there and test the ground.
• Results are extremely poor for a majority of sites, but results are there as te site generated a direct revenue for 1 in 3 of the respondents to the survey and more than 50 % identified sales leads through the site.
• Discovering the specificities and possibilities of the medium is a slow process.

Significant expansion and improvements are planned.

The future looks however much better as the B-to-B site owners are using their experience to expand and will not quit the Web.

• Using the site for inter-active applications will grow significantly : the number of sites where actual 'selling' is possible should be multiplied in 1997.
• Using secure parts or 'extranets' will explode : company data-bases will more and more be made available through the web site to clients, suppliers, dealers to reduce costs and improve the services.
• More time and resources are invested in the maintenance of the site than in its development.
• Nearly all respondents to the survey said they would change, redesign and / or expand their site in 1997.

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Approximate ECU rates:

1 ECU = 0,47 UKL
1 ECU = 2,2 NLG
1 ECU = 40BEF
1 ECU = 8,4 SEK
1 ECU = 8,1 NOK
1 ECU = 7,4 DKK
1 ECU = 200 ESC
1 ECU = 1900 ITL
1 ECU = 163 PTA
1 ECU = 6,5 FRF
1 ECU = 2 DEM
1 ECU = 1,18 USD

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