The Agency New Business Hunt: How Does your Website Perform?
These are rites of spring: Baseball Opening Day. The Kentucky Derby. Turkey Hunting Season.
And, the Mirren – RSW/US Tools and Technology Report.
Once again we surveyed advertising executives for the latest insights on tools and technology that their firms are using effectively for their agency new business programs.
With the latest survey, it has been very interesting to read feedback on the newer tools that agencies report as being increasingly important and valuable.
It also provides healthy reminders of tools that are so ingrained in the agency new business process – or have become so – that deserve special mention, even though they may not be particularly “NEW”.
When we asked the question, “What are your three most essential agency new business tools today?”, the nearly 300 respondents provided replies that ranged from Access Confidential to ZOHO.
The top three “branded” tools cited were:
- HubSpot
- Salesforce
Receiving as many mentions as LinkedIn is an unbranded tool; actually, it’s proprietary by agency: the website.
“Our own website”.
Nowhere in the survey was any question specifically about the use of the firm’s website as an agency new business tool. Shame on us, perhaps, that the website is assumed to be such a foundational component of agency new business resources that all citations were made as write-ins!
And the website is a tool that just cannot be overlooked.
With such intense focus on their own client needs, agencies often postpone work on their own websites.
Unfortunately, an ineffective, off-message or out-of-date website will cost new business opportunities.
The Corporate Executive Board released a study through Harvard Business Review that includes a very noteworthy statistic:
Nearly 60% of a typical B2B purchasing decision is completed before a potential customer has a direct conversation with a supplier.
Certainly, supplier website information contributes to that 60%.
Think about your competition. How does your website stack up next to theirs?
What are your potential new clients learning about you and about your competition, before you even have a chance to talk with them.
Can your website help you hunt successfully through that 60% upfront portion of a “purchase” decision making process about a new agency relationship?
Mark Sneider
Mark is a 30-year veteran of the consumer packaged goods, advertising, and marketing service industry. Mark started his career at DDB Needham in Chicago prior to earning his MBA from the J.L. Kellogg Business School at Northwestern where he majored in Marketing and Economics. Prior to starting RSW/US in 2005, Mark was General Manager for AcuPOLL, a global research consultancy. Sneider worked in Marketing for S.C. Johnson and KAO Brands. Sneider has been invited to speak at numerous Agency events and network conferences domestically and internationally including the 4A’s, Magnet, NAMA, TAAN, and MCAN. Sneider has been featured in prominent industry publications including Adweek, Media Post, e-Marketer, and Forbes. When not working (which often seems like not often), Mark likes to run miles, go to church, and just chill with a hard copy issue of Fast Company.
