As you likely know from reading this blog, we're huge proponents of inbound marketing over here, and we honestly believe that outbound marketing is dead. As consumers change the way they research and shop for products and services, so must we -- eliminating ineffective and expensive traditional marketing tactics like cold calling, direct mail, and print and TV advertising, and instead leveraging tactics that appeal to how the modern consumer shops, such as SEO, social media, and content creation.
So we were thrilled to come across an awesome infographic from Voltier Digital yesterday, which highlights the benefits of inbound compared to outbound marketing. If you're not yet convinced that inbound is the way to go, check out the infographic, and feel free to share some of the tweetable stats from it that we've listed below.
23 Reasons Inbound Marketing Trumps Outbound Marketing
1) 200 million Americans have registered their phone numbers on the FTC’s “Do Not Call” list. (Tweet This Stat!)
2) 91% of email users have unsubscribed from a company email they previously opted into. (Tweet This Stat!)
3) 84% of 25-34-year-olds have left a favorite website because of intrusive or irrelevant advertising. (Tweet This Stat!)
4) 86% of people skip television ads. (Tweet This Stat!)
5) 44% of direct mail is never opened. (Tweet This Stat!)
6) 61% of marketers will invest more in earned media (inbound marketing) in 2011. (Tweet This Stat!)
7) The average budget spent on company blogs and social media has nearly doubled in the last 2 years. (Tweet This Stat!)
8) The number of marketers who say Facebook is “critical” or "important” to their business has increased 83% in the last 2 years. (Tweet This Stat!)
9) 2/3 of marketers say their company blog is “critical” or “important” to their business. (Tweet This Stat!)
10) 67% of B2C companies and 41% of B2B companies have acquired a customer through Facebook. (Tweet This Stat!)
11) 57% of businesses have acquired a customer through their company blog. (Tweet This Stat!)
12) 42% of businesses have acquired a customer through Twitter. (Tweet This Stat!)
13) 57% of companies have acquired a customer through LinkedIn. (Tweet This Stat!)
14) 48% of companies have acquired a customer through Facebook. (Tweet This Stat!)
15) Inbound marketing costs 62% less per lead than traditional outbound marketing. (Tweet This Stat!)
16) 3 out of 4 inbound marketing channels cost less than any outbound channel. (Tweet This Stat!)
17) 55% of companies who blog reported leads from their blog were “below average” in cost. (Tweet This Stat!)
18) 47% of companies who use social media reported leads from social media were “below average” in cost. (Tweet This Stat!)
19) 39% of companies who leverage SEO reported leads from SEO were “below average” in cost. (Tweet This Stat!)
20) 27% of companies who use PPC reported leads from PPC were “below average” in cost. (Tweet This Stat!)
21) Trade shows were reported as being “above average” in cost by 47% of respondents. (Tweet This Stat!)
22) Direct mail was reported as being “above average” in cost by 27% of respondents. (Tweet This Stat!)
23) Telemarketing was reported as being “above average” in cost by 21% of respondents. (Tweet This Stat!)
Are you leveraging the awesome power of inbound marketing for your business?
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Matthew Minson 4:09 PM on October 31, 2011
Great comparison between the two. Really boils inbound and outbound down to their essentials.
Dino 4:25 PM on October 31, 2011
Genius how you guys do the "Tweet this stat" after each statistic. Maybe you can do a post on which plugin is used to tweet a particular sentence?
Pamela Vaughan 4:32 PM on October 31, 2011
Dino: Actually, we already did! You can use the tool right from within this post (http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/17589/default.aspx) to create tweet links. It's exactly what I used to create the links in this post!
Steven Pofcher 5:27 PM on October 31, 2011
Great information with infograaphic and 23 reasons.
1) Is there anyway to down load the infographic to a tool such as Power Point to be able to present to others.
2) While all your points are valid, it seems a little one sided (like a Michael Moore movie). There must be some points where outbound marketing beats inbound marketing such as:
- Direct Mail is tactile
- No (long) web forms to fill out
- Inbound AND outbound marketing can work in tandem to gain Customers and build sales.
Frances Richardson 6:45 PM on October 31, 2011
SEO rankings incorporates inbound marketing, this blog just embelishes the the concept. Content in your blog was insightful. Thanks
Frances Richardson
James Godes 2:30 AM on November 01, 2011
Got much of new learning from this post! thanks for sharing this to us!
Jaroop 9:19 AM on November 01, 2011
I agree that inbound marketing is the way to go, but I don't think that it should be performed at the exclusion of outbound marketing. Branding is still driven through one-way delivered messages, especially if they are behaviorally targeted. Most online content providers are now working toward delivering more appropriate one-way content through dynamic advertising. Traditional channels like television are being replaced by services like Hulu that use behavioral, demographic and geographic targeting for their advertisements.
chazzkorvex 3:07 PM on November 01, 2011
Even though I have been in the internet marketing game for many years - I often feel like I'm starting all over again - Thanks for the info - I need to start my new gameplan :)
John Cashman 8:54 AM on November 02, 2011
One of the best infographs this year.
Paul Lee 9:45 PM on November 06, 2011
To a large part of B2B marketing of the industrial products such as components and turn-key equipment industries, inbound marketing is still in the very early developing stage. Sales funnel of these industries is totally different from what we usually see for the consumer products or services. Conversion is not a problem at all for these products. Inbound marketing has been confined in probably contents, SEO and probably a very limited degree of social networking.
Emily 9:30 AM on November 08, 2011
I love the infographic in this post. I have come across it a number of times and is really interesting to see how the two work and effect people and businesses.
I personally feel that inbound marketing really is more effective than outbound. People have had enough of being contacted by organisations they have no interest in purchasing from. At least with inbound marketing, the consumer can find the business. I do think it's easier for B2B businesses though.
There another article we have on inbound marketing that may be of interest, please feel free to readhttp://www.lucidica.com/blog/emilys-corner/is-inbound-marketing-the-new-way-forward/
karen marchetti 8:57 PM on November 13, 2011
Would be very helpful to know the source for all of these claims, especially the date of each study. (like the "44% of mail is never opened" was originally from a study done maybe 15 years ago or so.)