We call this second tier Web site sponsorship to differentiate it from the more traditional banner advertising at the premier national and regional news and information sites. While it makes sense for Schwab and Citi to advertise on Excite, Yahoo, and ESPN SportsNet, that usually won’t be cost effective for the 3,000 to 4,000 other smaller financial services companies looking to carve out a niche online.

Instead, use your browser and common sense to seek out advertising opportunities among the less traveled Web sites catering to very defined niches. For example, think about how someone contemplating a major remodel would use the Web to search for info on their project. If they are among the 87% of Web users who use search engines, one of the first steps would be searching on keywords such as “remodeling.”

To reach these prospects during their information search, you could contract with one or more of the half dozen major search engines to display a banner ad whenever the keyword “remodeling” is entered. This might set you back $30 or more per thousand impressions depending on the deal you cut.

Or you could look to establish a presence on the Web sites that score high at the search engines, thus attracting hordes of information shoppers. For example, at Excite a “remodeling” search yields 17,313 hits (i.e. Web pages that contain the word “remodeling”). But most users will only check out the first couple dozen listings. Of the first 40 listings, 30 are contractors and design firms such as Remodeling Designs (screenshot right) specializing in remodeling.

If a bank were to approach a remodeling design firm with a $10,000 check (or $5,000 or $2,000 or $500??) to become the exclusive “home improvement financing partner” for a year, we think many (all?) would say yes (after you lifted them up off the floor). It would be 100% pure profit for the design firm, and your attractive “finance now” logo might even add credibility to their Web site.

For the financial sponsor, assuming a $2,000 to $5,000 NPV per home equity loan booked (see p. 1), a positive return on the sponsorship expense could be achieved on the second loan booked. Wouldn’t that be a good way to demonstrate the power of online marketing to skeptics in senior management or on the board?

Remodeling Designs www.remodelingdesigns.com may or may not be the “premier remodeling company in Dayton, Ohio,” as they claim. But we do know they are hot in cyberspace as one of the first sites listed on a “remodeling” search at Excite. The generic-sounding Web address will be a good traffic-builder as well.