Part 2: Marketing BioMedNet

Let's look in more detail at marketing and development. You recently redesigned and relaunched the site. Why? And how have things worked out?
We've actually had two major redesigns/relaunches since the site started. One in May 1998 and recently in May 2000. We wanted to introduce new features/sections to advance a subscription model (in the past 90% of our revenues were advertising based). The site had been growing in a haphazard way with no scalable architecture or structured branding and our users were getting confused navigating the wealth of information. We decided that we should simplify the design to an 'Amazon-style' tab model.

All redesign/relaunches are stressful times and we did experience teething problems with our new site. In retrospect we didn't communicate the changes to our users well enough. Many had to go through a new learning curve to navigate the redesigned site. Numbers dropped slightly in the first month but have consistently picked up in the following four months, hitting record page impressions/visits (5.9 million/1.1 million for September). So fingers crossed it looks to have worked.

I'd describe BioMedNet as very sticky, given the numerous services available and the level of customization and personalization possible. But there's not so much in terms of direct interaction between the members themselves - are there any plans to add interactive features such as discussion forums?
Stickiness is essential for a site like ours and you're right we have been working on personalization aspects. For interaction between members we've tried discussion groups (even virtual meeting rooms) in the past but they haven't been successful. Our market prefers to find it's information online and discuss it offline (or via email). We try to encourage this viral marketing by enabling e-mail to a friend functionality.

Although your audience is web aware, there aren't so many commercial sites and lists you could use in traditional online advertising to reach this particular niche - what are the main strategies you use to market and promote the site and what are the most effective?
There are some niche sites/opt-in email lists that we use for banner ads and permission based email alerts. However, the best promotional tool we use is the information that comes from our customers. We have a database of 800,000 registered members with details about their interests, place of work and job position. As with direct marketing we segment and target our promotions against this database and encourage members to opt-in for further alerts. Email is the most powerful method of bringing people back to the site with a response rate of up to 20%.

We also target in-house banners on BioMedNet using DoubleClick technology which proves very effective.

What has been the greatest challenge in marketing to this specialist audience?
The same as marketing any electronic product to any group. Finding the balance between overwhelming your customers with too much information and providing enough communications to keep them coming back.

And where do you see the greatest revenue potential - advertising, information services (such as journal access) or other forms of e-commerce?
As I mentioned before, the site used to be driven by ad revenue/email sponsorship with a small amount from partnership/affiliate revenues from book/content sales.

Advertising continues to rise (above GBP1 million this year) and I believe the death of the banner is much exaggerated. But we believe the lion's share of future revenue will come through subscription sales to our own (i.e. Elsevier) content. Not the traditional access to individual journals, but through customized 'virtual journals'. One thing we've discovered is that the individual users in our market will not yet pay out of their own pockets, so we will be charging at an institutional/organizational level.

Finally, Dom, what do you think are the core elements an online marketer needs to keep in mind when tackling a specialist or niche audience?
Know your customer and listen to what they want.