Review of Mirren-RSW/US Annual Report 2016 – What Inbound Marketing Platforms

Will Come to Provenance in 2017?

Online Business Review 9th

January 2017, Emarkable.ie Blog (Bronze Awards Blog 2015)

Michelle B. Cowley – Account Manager at Emarkable.ie

For anyone involved in Agency New Business the ‘Mirren-RSW/US 2016 New Business

Tools Annual Report’ is a must-read resource. RSW/US is an independent market research

agency, specializing in advising companies and marketing service teams on new business

development for sales lead generation. The purpose of the report is to generate from business

leaders critical assessment of new technology success in generating qualified leads and

technology-based business solutions of interest to: international markets, regional companies,

and local SME business. An understanding of the report better facilitates competitive

business decision-making in the adoption of new technologies,

ensuring profitable return on investment and optimal concurrent

market positioning year on year. Most pertinent to key marketing

decision makers this year is which platform to adopt for an

inbound methodology application to marketing automation.

Marketing automation remains a key strategy for attracting,

converting, closing, and individuating marketing success for

market segmentation drives for the digital channel. Marketing

automation success is more often than not a life or death situation for a modern day business.

So, how does a company chose which marketing automation platform to adopt? This report

presents the main findings per category, and in particular reference to marketing automation

platforms of choice for 2017.

The Annual Mirren-RSW/US Report summarizes this information gleaned from a

survey of more than 200 senior agency executives from SMEs to medium and large sized

companies. The executives are surveyed on their thoughts and insights about the

effectiveness of new business tools put in place in their business in the last twelve months.

The report’s reference to the ‘Use of Agency New Media Tools’ refers to the uses of the

following tools: Media Platforms (e.g., LinkedIn), Social Media Monitoring (e.g., Hootsuite),

Research Services (e.g., Nielsen), Marketing Automation/Inbound Marketing Tools (e.g.,

HubSpot), CRM and Contact Management Tools (e.g., Salesforce), SEO Tools (e.g., Google

AdWords), Meeting/Web Software (e.g., GoToMeeting), Project Management Tools (e.g.,

Asana) amongst others. The executives completed the survey in reference to the following

three main categories of questions:

(Q1) What Are Your Three Most Essential Agency Tools Today?

(Q2) Did You Add Any New Business Tools / Services in the Past Year?

(Q3) What’s The Most Overrated New Business Tool?

The survey then includes a list of channel specific questions to uncover more detailed

executive insights about the specific tools.

Review of Core Findings Relevant to Businesses in 2016/17

For four years running social media tools are continuing to be the highest ranked, that is, the

most used new business tool for agencies across the board. Almost 93% of agencies reported

that they used social tools for driving new business growth. That said, SEO Tools usage

which is essential in driving social media success to target markets in which greatest business

growth in market share is predicated, has surprisingly decreased by double-digits two years

running. Finally, the new business tools category Meeting / Web Conference Software was

added for the first time this year 2016, with 84% of agencies adopting business online

meeting tool software, such as GoToMeeting, which happened to receive the highest approval

rating in its category. Let us take a look then at the findings in each of the three main question

categories.

(Q1) What Are Your Three Most Essential Agency Tools Today?

So, what three tools are most essential for driving new business growth in the run up to the

present report? Of the 100 business agency tools tracked in this year’s survey, LinkedIn and

Salesforce continued to be cited as two of the most essential tools for driving new business.

In third place, and new to the top five this year, is Winmo, described as the “largest resource

for advertiser-agency relationships and decision-maker contact information” (p.8). HubSpot

and The List featured in fourth and fifth place respectively. Other significant tools of note

included Access Confidential, Daily Vista, Email and CRM systems more generally.

(Q2) Did You Add Any New Business Tools / Services in the Past Year?

More than 70% of executives reported adding a new tool or service to their new business

efforts in 2016. While they mentioned 51 different tools or services, over 25% of them

reported adding Winmo and/or HubSpot to their tool kit specifically. Of the group of

respondents 13% added Salesforce and/or Lead Forensics.

(Q3) What’s The Most Overrated New Business Tool?

It turns out that Salesforce is a clear winner with executives this year. Half of respondents

indicated they are using CRM tool Salesforce as their leading platform, and its reported usage

has grown substantially year on year from 41% in 2015 to 66% in 2016. Sales tools aside,

there are marketing specific tools that have a channel specific analysis given over to them

amongst which those pertinent to inbound methodologies feature. Let us take a detailed look

at the breakdown of inbound marketing tools specific effectiveness rating:

Inbound Methodologies: Marketing Automation Channel Specific Analysis

On a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 = not effective, and 5 = very effective, respondents rated

HubSpot as most effective at driving an agency’s new business efforts. The chart below

represents the average rating of effectiveness given to each Prospect Contact / List Building

Service. Let us take a look at how the other tools compared to HubSpot’s effectiveness rating

in this period:

Fig. 1: Inbound Marketing Automation Tool Effectiveness – Channel Specific Results

As Figure 1 shows, HubSpot remains a comfortable first place (1st

Mean rating: 3.81/5), but

the less expensive SharpSpring maintains a steady competitive contender (2nd

Mean rating:

3.23/5) with Marketo (3rd

Mean rating: 3.17/5) and Act-On behind (4th

Mean rating: 3.10/5).

For Effectiveness HubSpot is likely to remain an optimal choice for inbound marketing

platform competency for 2016/17. That said, remaining in 2nd Place ahead of Marketo and

just behind HubSpot, SharpSpring remains almost as effective, and therefore competitive, due

to its cost effectiveness for SMEs and large companies alike. Pardot, Silverpop, Velocify,

Eloqua, and Salesfusion remain just about or barely effective (# < 3/5) compared to the top

three, but time will tell.

A Look Ahead

In summary, the report presents some attempts to garner what the respondents predict for the

coming year 2017. Categorically, agencies selected Lead Generation tools, such as marketing

automation platforms, as a priority. From an individual tool standpoint, Winmo and HubSpot

were most frequently mentioned for increased usage in 2016, followed by LinkedIn, The List

and MailChimp. It remains clear however, that from the 133 responses, the report

overwhelmingly concludes that the overarching need for a tool that coordinates operations

through a single platform is what is most desired by business leaders for efficiency-laden

solutions to day-to-day operational issues. That said, the report concludes that there is an

increasing awareness amongst executive level leaders that the market has reached business

tool saturation point because of the exponential increase in the number of tools released each

year. One respondent sums executives’ fears and hopes for 2017 in one prediction; that most

companies will realize the need to be better about using what they have first and adopt new

business tools further along the line. Well – it remains to be seen in next year’s report. For

now, it appears that marketing automation platforms will become increasingly important for

integrating business marketing activity.

You can access the report by clicking on the link below.

Michelle B. Cowley, Account Manager at Emarkable.ie, 9th

January 2017

Reference Report:

Mirren-RSW/US (2016). New Business Tools Annual Report 2016.A Review of the Most

Important Tools Your Agency Should Be Using for New Business. See download at:

http://www.rswus.com/survey/rswus-mirren-agency-new-business-tools-2016-annual-report/