Vendor Landscapes in 2021
Through 2021 in my work with Research in Action, I discovered many separate vendor landscapes – ALL LISTED BELOW FOR EVERYBODY TO READ. I interviewed thousands of marketers on their business processes automation and talked to well over 200 marketing software vendors – as discussed in this blog.
The vendor-marketers often respond with something like: “strange, there are vendors on your list that I do not see in deals or think I compete with”. Well, that’s because I first describe a marketing process in my interviews and ask respondents which vendors they work with on that process. I try to avoid category terms invented by other analysts or product managers because the chances are marketing people don’t think in categories (that’s more of an IT-centric trait). Also, many vendors are very specific about their target market segment and we survey companies from mid-market to enterprise and across the globe and across all industries.
Here are the vendor landscapes discovered in those global process-oriented surveys. I have taken the liberty of listing the vendors in order of their ranking in the Vendor Selection Matrix graphic.
Marketing Event Management (Dec 2021). Selecting a Marketing Event Management (MEM) platform will probably be one of the more strategic decisions for CMOs in 2022. When many companies ran virtual events during the COVID-19 crisis, their immediate goal was to cover an already-planned live event with an online alternative as a work-around. Many executives made short-term decisions about the platform — optimization wasn’t yet part of their strategy, just getting it done.
ON24 (#1 Overall, #1 Price/Value, #1 Customer Satisfaction), ZOOM (#1 Price/Value, #1 Customer Satisfaction), MEETYOO (#1 Customer Satisfaction), 6CONNEX (#1 Price/Value), VFAIRS, NOTIFIED, CERTAIN, BIZZABO, ACCELEVENTS, KALTURA, AIRMEET, RAINFOCUS, CVENT, SPOTME, CADMIUMCD, SPLASH, HOPIN, CIRCA, MICROSOFT
Partner Management Automation (Oct 2021). This is my new label for what I (and many vendors) have traditionally called Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA). The digital world has now dramatically changed these processes and made the need for a broader technology platform (PMA) inevitable as companies deal with increasing volumes and types of partners.
IMPARTNER (#1 Overall, #1 Price/Value, #1 Customer Satisfaction), IMPACT.COM (#1 Price/Value, #1 Customer Satisfaction), ZIFT SOLUTIONS, MAGENTRIX (#1 Price/Value), WEBINFINITY (#1 Customer Satisfaction), CHANNEL MECHANICS, SALESFORCE, CHANNELEXPERTS (#1 Price/Value), CHANNELTIVITY (#1 Customer Satisfaction), BRANDMAKER, COMPUTER MARKET RESEARCH, SPROUTLOUD, ORACLE
Brand Content Management (August 2021). This vendor landscape is a broad mix of vendors with a wide variety of claims: brand governance, brand portal, digital asset management, content management hubs, even marketing resource management. Hardly any vendor can cover all process within BCM, so companies are deploying software from more than one of the vendors appearing in this landscape – 76% of the respondents have more than one vendor and 24% have six or more systems installed.
CENSHARE (#1 Overall, #1 Customer Satisfaction), BRANDMAKER (#1 Customer Satisfaction), WEDIA (#1 Price/Value), BRANDMUSCLE (#1 Customer Satisfaction), BYNDER (#1 Price/Value), BRANDMASTER, CELUM, OPTIMIZELY, SITECORE, ANSIRA, ADOBE, OPENTEXT, CAPITAL ID, ACOUSTIC, MARCOMCENTRAL
Product Information Management (May 2021). The recent acceleration of digital marketing and eCommerce investments has increased the need for marketers to be involved with this. So many companies must now incorporate eCommerce into their sales strategy much more than previously, and their marketers usually discover a mix of eCommerce channels: direct on their own websites, plus third parties such as marketplaces and distributors. The only way they can optimize the customer experience through all those channels is to pay much more attention to the PIM process, previously scoped only by IT and product management.
CONTENTSERV (#1 Overall, #1 Price/Value, #1 Customer Satisfaction), RIVERSAND, INFORMATICA, STIBO SYSTEMS, SEMARCHY (#1 Customer Satisfaction), VIAMEDICI (#1 Price/Value, #1 Customer Satisfaction), PROFISEE (#1 Price/Value), TIBCO (#1 Customer Satisfaction), AKENEO, ATACCAMA, SAP, RELTIO, IBM, WINSHUTTLE, INRIVER
Account-Based Marketing (Apr 2021). ABM is a purely B2B imperative – many people would even say B2B marketing is ABM. But others would promote Account-Based Marketing and Selling. The resulting vendor landscape is a broad mix of vendors with a wide variety of claims: data collection and analytics, targeted advertising, marketing campaign orchestration, enabling intelligent engagement, and even sales enablement.
DEMANDBASE (#1 Overall, #1 Customer Satisfaction), MRP (#1 Price/Value), 6SENSE (#1 Price/Value), JABMO, TECHTARGET (#1 Price/Value), KWANZOO, MADISON LOGIC, TERMINUS, ROLLWORKS, TRIBLIO, DUN & BRADSTREET, LEADSPACE, MINTIGO, METADATA.IO, UBERFLIP
Digital Experience Management (Feb 2021). This vendor landscape contains vendors with a wide variety of claims: web content management, content management systems, digital experience, through to digital commerce. The major enterprise application software vendors also offer their own DXM platform – the market feedback in report shows that their solutions are not appreciated though. The suitability of a DXM platform varies according to whether you are a medium-sized company or a large international enterprise.
ACQUIA (#1 Overall), E-SPIRIT, CROWNPEAK (#1 Customer Satisfaction), BLOOMREACH (#1 Customer Satisfaction), OPTIMIZELY (#1 Price/Value), COREMEDIA (#1 Price/Value), SITECORE, SQUIZ, ADOBE, IBEXA, CONTENTFUL, OPENTEXT, MAGNOLIA, SALESFORCE, ORACLE, SAP
Digital Asset Management (Jan 2021). Our surveys and consulting work enables us to continually assess the maturity of marketing organizations (combination of organization, process and technology) – DAM projects mostly occur early in the maturity progression, but many companies then replace and/or consolidate their DAM projects at a later stage. The vendors listed here include some on the asset management function while others are more about the business processes around that.
SITECORE (#1 Overall, #1 Customer Satisfaction), CENSHARE (#1 Price/Value), CLOUDINARY (#1 Price/Value), ADOBE, BRANDMAKER (#1 Customer Satisfaction), APRIMO, CELUM, NUXEO, WIDEN, PICTUREPARK, CANTO, BYNDER, OPENTEXT, IMAGE RELAY, BRANDMASTER
Always keeping you informed! Peter