HubSpot's latest 2011 " State of Inbound Marketing " report is now available for download. The report is based on data from a recent survey of 644 professionals familiar with their business’ marketing strategy.
The research indicates that inbound marketing dominated organizations experience a 62% lower cost per lead than outbound marketing dominated organizations. This finding is remarkably consistent from year to year.
Previous studies conducted in 2009 and 2010 showed strikingly similar results: the 2009 survey showed that inbound marketing dominated organizations experienced a 61% lower cost per lead; in 2010 the delta was 60%.
Other key takeaways include:
- The gap between spending on inbound v. outbound continues to widen: In 2009, inbound marketing had a 9% greater share of the lead generation budget; in 2011 inbound’s share was 17% greater.
- Blogs and social media channels are generating real customers: 57% of companies using blogs reported that they acquired customers from leads generated directly from their blog.
- More and more business are blogging: Businesses are now in the minority if they do not blog. From 2009 to 2011 the percentage of businesses with a blog grew from 48% to 65%.
- Businesses are increasingly aware their blog is highly valuable: 85% of businesses rated their company blogs as “Useful”, “Important” or “Critical”; a whopping 27% rated their company blog as “Critical” to their business.
Download the 2011 State of Inbound Marketing report now .
Inbound Marketing Blog Feed
Alex Gilmore 1:41 PM on March 01, 2011
Good Stats however i develop inbound leads at 9% of the cost for outbound using SEO.
Lori Turec 2:43 PM on March 01, 2011
Interesting report. Do you have any data on the quality of the inbound leads versus other leads? In other words, how do inbound leads convert to sales versus outbound leads? Are the results true for B2B and B2C? Are any industries exempt from this benefit?
Nick Robinson 7:19 AM on March 02, 2011
This makes complete sense. Blogs are incredible for establishing trust and credibility, not to mention that you capture leads when they have intent using search engines.
phil m 12:26 PM on March 09, 2011
How exactly is cost measured. it's easy to measure the cost of PPC or an ad or a show but creating quality content has a cost as well. How is the cost of a great video or a great blog assesed in this study?
Melissa Miller 2:16 PM on March 09, 2011
Hi Phil, You bring up a good point. In this study, the costs were provided by our respondents; this was not our calculation.
Lori, the report provides some answers to you questions. We explored customer acquisition by industry and B2B v. B2C for several channels. We found that effectiveness of each channel did vary according to the business type and industry.