Description

Evaluating Online Advertising Opportunities @ Life Science Portals is based on a 36-question survey of more than 1,300 life scientists. This report is designed to help marketers evaluate online advertising opportunities at leading life science web portals, including web content, banner ads and email newsletters. Marketers in all segments of the life sciences recognize the importance of the World Wide Web as a means of communicating with their customers. Suppliers in this market are investing enormous resources into their web sites to promote their products, and increasingly, to deliver valuable services. To build awareness, they are also turning to online advertisements. Online advertising can take a variety of forms-from simple banner ads to paid content to electronic storefronts. The question of where to place these ads, however, is extremely complex. Commercial life science portals (e.g., Biocompare, Biofind) provide users with "one-stop" access to the information they need, and offer a wide array of content that could be of interest to life science researchers -including scientific articles and news briefs, industry news, product and supplier information, professional resources, etc. Most offer original content, exclusive access to specialized information and numerous features designed to encourage repeat usage of the site. Portals often offer visitors the ability to "opt-in" or subscribe to email newsletters that contain brief descriptions of products, articles or events with links to additional information. Never before have customers in this market been confronted with such a bewildering array of information sources. Dozens of web sites are trying to create these focused, online communities to attract advertising dollars and sponsorships. This report will help life science executives decide where to spend their advertising budget by assessing the value of a portal using the same criteria as scientific customers, rather than on the basis of "hits", "pages served" and "unique user" statistics. It will measure the level of awareness of leading life science portals and determine the key forms of content, characteristics and features most desired by life scientists. Additionally, the report will help marketers understand scientists' perceptions of and responses to online banner advertising as well as their use of email newsletters. Ultimately, the most successful portals, and therefore the most effective advertising venues, will be those that provide the greatest value to their online communities. Report Highlights Evaluating Online Advertising Opportunities @ Life Science Portals contains over 60 charts and/or tables and more than 25 cross-tabulations for the 36 survey questions. Below is a glimpse of the key findings derived from just a few of the survey questions: • Nearly one-third of respondents spend 4 to 6 hours per week on the web specifically to find information related to their research, with another 24% spending more than 10 hours per week. (Question 1) • Google (79%) is the search engine the scientists surveyed most frequently use in support of their research. (Question 3) • According to 69% of the respondents, listing the names and credentials of an editorial board increases confidence in the information offered at that portal. (Question 9) • Over 60% of the scientists surveyed cited recent, full-text articles from leading journals as the most valuable type of professional scientific information. (Question 15) • The effectiveness of the search engine and usefulness/relevance of information are two of the most important life science portal characteristics. (Question 21) • After receiving an email newsletter, 68% of the respondents only read articles of interest to them. (Question 32) (electronic copy also includes 1 print copy)

Table of Contents

Section 1 Analysis and Interpretation of Survey Results 1-1 Introduction 1-4 Web Site Preferences 1-7 Commercial Life Science Portal Preferences 1-12 Advertisement Preferences 1-16 Conclusion Section 2 Study Methodology and Demographics 2-1 Objectives 2-1 Comments 2-3 Definition of Terms 2-4 Demographics 2-5 Questionnaire Section 3 Presentation of Survey Data General Web Usage 3-1 Scientists' frequency of using the web to find information related to their research 3-2 Ways in which scientists use the web in support of their research 3-3 Search engine scientists use most often in support of their research 3-5 Scientists' frequency of using a search engine when searching for professional information related to their research 3-6 Most frequent ways scientists learn about new and interesting web sites related to their work 3-7 Adequacy of the time scientists have to stay abreast of new scientific developments in their area of research Life Science Portals 3-8 Availability of independent, non-biased information about the products, instruments and services used in scientists' research 3-9 Scientists' ability to distinguish between scientific versus promotional information 3-10 Influence of listing the names and credentials of an editorial board on scientists' confidence in the information contained on a life science portal 3-11 Scientists' frequency of visiting 17 different life science portals 3-13 Other life science portals that scientists often visit Content Preferences 3-15 Life science portal visited most often 3-17 Scientists' overall satisfaction with the life science portals they most frequently use 3-18 Relative amount of time scientists spend looking at the various forms of content typically found at a life science portal 3-20 Most valuable type of professional scientific information 3-21 Most valuable type of product information 3-22 Most valuable type of news content 3-23 Most valuable type of professional resources 3-24 Value of offering "rapid electronic publication" (i.e., publishing online prior to print) 3-25 Discounted products and services in which scientists are most interested Web Site Features & Tools 3-26 Most important life science portal characteristic 3-27 Most valuable web site features 3-28 Most valuable advanced web site features 3-29 Scientists' use of online auction systems to buy or sell any product, including personal, non-scientific items 3-30 Likelihood of scientists to use an online auction system to buy or sell a laboratory product or instrument in the next 6 months Banner Advertisements 3-31 Scientists' preference of product advertisements on the web over other traditional sources of information 3-32 Factor most likely to draw scientists' attention to an online banner ad 3-33 Scientists' frequency of "clicking" on an online banner that is of interest 3-34 Content scientists prefer to see after they "click" on an online banner ad to get more information about a product used in life science research Email Newsletter Preferences 3-35 Number of email newsletter subscriptions a scientist receives 3-37 Average number of email newsletters scientists receive per week 3-38 Actions scientists take after receiving an email newsletter 3-39 Actions scientists take after coming across a product of interest when reading an email newsletter 3-40 Overall usefulness of email newsletters to scientists and their research activities 3-41 Ways that scientists have learned about new products and services in the past 6 months Demographics 3-42 Market Segment 3-43 Job Position 3-45 Geographic Region 3-46 Area(s) of Research Profiles of Most Frequently Visited Portals 3-50 Nature 3-52 BioMedNet 3-54 Science 3-56 The Scientist 3-58 BioMed Central Section 4 Appendices 4-1 Insights & Perspectives 4-48 Cross-Tabulations of Survey Data 4-77 Other Publications 4-79 About BioInformatics 4-80 Our Valued Clients