How are portals changing B2B marketing for lead generation?
A Web portal, in the traditional sense, is a super site that serves as a broad gateway to other information on the Web. Portals include a variety of services such as Web searching, news, white and yellow pages directories, free e-mail, discussion groups, online shopping, links to other sites and more. Portals are changing. They are becoming tailored to specific areas of interest and industries. There are three types of portals: • General-purpose portal – a consumer-focused super site usually used as a jumping off point to the Web such as Business.com • Corporate portal – usually an internal Web site (or Intranet) that is specific to a particular company and works as a centralized communication hub for its employees around the world. • Vertical portal – a Web site that provides information and services to a particular industry or interest. Some examples are Globalspec.com (for engineers) and Fool.com (for investors). Vertical portals are extremely helpful for B2B marketing. The Web site
