Ad Agencies' Most Effective New Business Generation Tools, October 2012 [CHART]

Chart - Ad Agencies' Most Effective New Business Generation Tools

About 8 in 10 agencies surveyed by RSW/US [PDF] believe that the number of opportunities for new business are about the same as last year (34.4%) or have increased (44.8%). But, that doesn’t mean that getting new business is any easier. In fact, more than 8 in 10 say that obtaining new business is either as hard (47.6%) or harder (34.9%) than it was last year. So what has been most effective for generating new business? Asked to select their top 3 marketing tools, most agencies chose referrals (59%), networking (57.4%), and business from existing clients (57.4%).

No other marketing tactic even came close. Presentations or speaking engagements got 24.6% of the vote, and cold calls 18%. Slightly more than 1 in 10 said that social media and email marketing (each at 11.5%) was one of their top-3 most effective ways of obtaining new business. None of the other individual tactics identified cracked the 10% threshold. Read the rest at MarketingCharts.