Mednet Case

1) What does an advertiser want? Sales, leads, brand awareness? What are the best metrics for measuring these?
Advertisers want to cost effectively target as many potential customers as possible ( per market segmentation) to create brand awareness, publicity etc to generate more sales. They also want to establish trust and credibility with the consumer choosing a credible (like Mednet) and suitable (a drug company wouldn’t advertise in Motorcycle world for example) media outlet is critical because they can affect your message’s credibility. The best metric is sales generated per advertising dollar spent or ROI. When choosing between different media outlets comparing the ROI is the most objective way of gauging cost effectiveness.
2) What
Does she have acceptable alternatives?
Mednet is in a unique position to legitimize advertisers and give their message credibility with consumers. Mednet is a name consumers trust and that is key to securing long term recurring business. Valuating Mednet’s services in terms of click-throughs does not take into consideration the goodwill and credibility advertisers gain translates into long term relationships, repeat customers and ultimately higher long term profitability. A short term metric like click throughs is not the right way to evaluate Mednet’s performance which is long term oriented.
Mednet visitors often have a health concern of some sort and end up accessing information on multiple conditions so the probability of an advertiser making a sale is higher on Mednet than on general interest and condition specific sites. Mednet visitors are more likely to make a purchase due to the “self-preservation state of mind” that is common when people are dealing with a health
Which is the more defensible model?
A general interest site is like a one stop shop  instead of accessing several sites the consumer has all the information available in one place which can save time. Also general sites have some entertainment value due to the eclectic mix of topics covered.
5)What steps can Mednet take to address emerging competitive threats?
Mednet can add more medical topics to the website covering the most common / chronic illnesses (Pharma’s bread and butter) e.g Cholestrol, Osteoporosis, diabetes etc that would enable them to attract more advertising dollars from diversified sources, attract more viewers and further capitalize on consumer trust more sales.
Mednet can create a sister site under a different name, different management catering only to alternative medicine.
Mednet should conduct an independent study into competitor’s performance, cost effectiveness in terms of ROI and review their own pricing strategy in light of the study’s findings. In my view Mednet are using insufficient data to compare their ROI to competitors’ and justify their