20 Fresh Stats About the State of Inbound Marketing in 2012

Melissa Miller
Melissa Miller

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2012 state of inbound marketing reportintroductory3

HubSpot's 2012 State of Inbound Marketing Report is now available! The report is based on a survey conducted in January 2012 of 972 marketing professionals. The study includes data and insights about marketers' costs, budgets, lead quality, and priorities.

This is the fourth consecutive year HubSpot has conducted this study, so the latest report includes not only current data, but also trends from 2009 to 2012.

For an in-depth review of the study's findings, you can attend the upcoming 2012 State of Inbound Marketing webinar this Thursday, March 1st at 1 PM ET. Here, we'll reveal some of the most interesting statistics from the report.

Cost and Budget Statistics

1) Inbound leads cost per lead 61% less than outbound leads. Tweet This!

2) The average cost-per-lead for outbound-dominated businesses is $346. Tweet This!

3) The average cost-per-lead for inbound-dominated businesses is $135. Tweet This!

4) 89% of businesses are either maintaining or increasing their inbound marketing budgets. Tweet This!

5) The average budget spent on company blogs and social media increased from 9% in 2009 to 21% in 2012. Tweet This!

6) The average budget spent on telemarketing decreased from 10% to 5% in 2012. Tweet This!

7) In 2012, small businesses plan to spend 43% of their budgets on inbound marketing, while large businesses plan to spend 21%. Tweet This!

8) In 2012, small businesses are only giving 14% of their budget to outbound, while large businesses are allocating 33%. Tweet This!

9) In 2012, small businesses plan to spend dramatically more of their budgets on social media and blogs than large businesses. Tweet This!

Lead Quality and Sales Statistics

10) 57% of companies with a blog have acquired a customer from their blog. Tweet This!

11) 92% of companies who blog multiple times per day have acquired a customer from their blog. Tweet This!

12) 62% of companies using LinkedIn have acquired a customer from the network. Tweet This!

13) 70% of marketers indicate that they blog at least weekly. Tweet This!

14) 77% of B2C companies report that they have acquired a customer through Facebook. Tweet This!

15) 65% of B2B companies report that they have acquired a customer through LinkedIn. Tweet This!

What's Important to Marketers

16) 62% of companies report that social media has become MORE important as a source of leads. Tweet This!

17) 51% of companies reported that direct mail has become LESS important as a source of leads. Tweet This!

18) 25% of marketers report that their company blog is “critical” to their business. Tweet This!

19) Over 40% of marketers report that Google+ is useful to critical for their business. Tweet This!

20) 81% of businesses reported that their company blog is useful to critical for their business. Tweet This!

download the 2014-2015 state of inbound report
Topics: Marketing Data

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