Top 3 Cost-Efficient Inbound Marketing Strategies in 2012

  

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“Inbound consistently delivers a cost per lead dramatically lower than outbound.”  This is from the 2012 Report on Inbound Marketing Practices and Trends published by HubSpot, an internet marketing company.

Among the top cost-efficient inbound marketing strategies are blogs, social media and SEO (organic search). On the other hand, trade shows, direct mail and telemarketing are among the most expensive techniques of outbound marketing.

The report is based on a survey they conducted in January 2012.  The survey was made with 972 marketing professionals as the respondents.  It includes data and insights on marketer’s budgets, costs, quality of leads and priorities.  The findings of the study reveal the 2012 statistics on inbound marketing and also its trends from year 2009 to 2012.   Here are some of the insights taken from the report on the cost and budget statistics of inbound marketing:

1. The  average cost-per-lead for businesses that are using inbound marketing strategies is $135 while for those using outbound is $346. That is inbound cost per lead is 61% lower than outbound leads
2. 89% of the businesses are maintaining or planning to increase their inbound marketing budget
3. Company budgets for blogs and social media had increased from 9% in 2009 to 21% in 2012
4. In 2012, the average budget on telemarketing decreases from 10% to 5%
5. Large businesses are giving 21% of their budget to inbound marketing in 2012 and only 33% to outbound, while small businesses are giving 43% to inbound and 14% on outbound marketing

On lead quality and sales stats.

1. 70% of the marketers do blog at least weekly and 25% of them reported that their company blog is “critical” to their business.
2. 57% of the companies with blog have acquired a customer directly from their blog
3. Of the companies who blog multiple times per day, 92% of them have acquired a customer from their blog.
4. More than 40% of the marketers said Google+ is useful and critical to their business.
5. 62% of companies said that social media has become MORE important for them as a source of leads.
6. 77% of B2C companies said that they have acquired a customer through Facebook while 65% of B2B companies have acquired a customer from LinkedIn.
7. 62% of the companies that are using LinkedIn have acquired a customer from the network.

The report also shows that the effectiveness of inbound marketing is gaining popularity.  81% of the companies-respondents of the survey have acknowledged that their blog is useful for their business while 51% of companies have reported that direct mail has become less important as a source of leads.  Clearly, inbound marketing is not only cost-efficient but effective as well.  So there is no doubt that when you analyze its cost-benefit ratio, it will result in greater profitability.