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The State of
Inbound Marketing




    www.HubSpot.com

      January 2009
Table of Contents
 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................3
    Summary of Findings ............................................................................................................................................3
    Overview of Inbound Marketing ...........................................................................................................................3
    Respondent Profiles ..............................................................................................................................................4
    Sample Questions Asked .......................................................................................................................................4

 The State of Inbound Marketing .....................................................................................................5
    Inbound-Driven Businesses Report Significantly Lower Cost-Per-Lead Than Outbound ......................................5
    SEO Drives Disproportionately Higher Percent of Leads ......................................................................................7
    Blogging Leads All Social Media Channels in Importance .....................................................................................7

 B-to-B vs. B-to-C .............................................................................................................................9
    B-to-B and B-to-C Businesses Report Similar Budget Allocation ..........................................................................9
    Sales Leads Align with Budget Spend ..................................................................................................................11

 Small Businesses vs. Larg(er) Businesses ....................................................................................... 13
    Small Businesses Spend More on Blogging and SEO...........................................................................................13
    Small Businesses: Analyzing Sources of Sales Leads ...........................................................................................13

 Conclusion and Additional Resources ............................................................................................ 14
 Appendix: Online Marketing in Pictures ........................................................................................ 15




                                                                          Page 2 of 16                                                         www.HubSpot.com
Introduction

       Summary of Findings

       The State of Inbound Marketing offers readers three key findings:

       #1 Inbound marketing channels deliver a dramatically lower cost-per-sales lead than
       outbound channels.

       Respondents that spent more than 50% of their marketing budget on inbound
       marketing consistently reported a lower cost-per-sales lead than those that spent 50%
       or more on outbound marketing. In fact, inbound marketing-dominated organizations
       experience a 61% lower cost-per-lead than outbound marketing-dominated
       organizations.

       Businesses are responding by allocating a greater portion of their budget to inbound
       marketing. Currently, 37% of business’ lead-generation budget is dedicated to inbound
       marketing, whereas 30% is dedicated to outbound marketing efforts. We expect this
       gap to widen significantly over time.

       #2 Blogs lead other social media categories in terms of importance to business.

       Blogs are frequently cited as the most useful type of social media marketing, with 75%
       of those familiar with their business’ blogging efforts saying they are ‘useful,’
       ‘important,’ or ‘critical’ to their business. MySpace finished last in terms of importance
       of those that use the service for business purposes.

       #3 Small businesses are most aggressively allocating lead generation budgets to
       blogging, social media and search engine optimization.

       Realizing that inbound marketing techniques ‘level the playing field’ with the bigger
       budgets of larger competitors, small businesses are spending a 180% greater portion of
       their budgets on blogging/social media and 36% greater portion of their budgets on
       search engine optimization than businesses with 50 employees or more.




Overview of Inbound Marketing
This report is primarily designed to help businesses and marketers better understand the current usage
and results of inbound marketing. Inbound marketing is a set of marketing strategies and techniques
focused on pulling relevant prospects and customers towards a business and its products. Inbound
marketing is becoming widely accepted because it complements the way buyers make purchasing
decisions today -- using the Internet and related media to learn about the products and services that
best meet their needs.

                                               Page 3 of 16                               www.HubSpot.com
Inbound marketers offer their audiences useful information, tools and resources to attract these people
to their site, while also interacting and developing relationships with customers on the web. Inbound
marketing tools include blogging, content publishing, search engine optimization, social media and social
networks.

Inbound marketing contrasts with traditional outbound marketing, in which businesses push their
messages at consumers. With techniques that include direct mail, telemarketing and trade shows,
outbound marketing has become less effective over time as buyers have behaviorally and
technologically (e.g., TIVO, spam filters, ‘do-not-call’ lists) tuned these interruptive campaigns out.

Respondent Profiles
The State of Inbound Marketing report is based on a survey issued in late 2008. The survey was
completed by 167 professionals involved or familiar with their business’ marketing strategy. These
professionals included marketers, business owners, entrepreneurs, executives and salespeople in
businesses of all sizes. 71% of these professionals worked in business-to-business companies and
approximately one-quarter of those surveyed worked in the business or professional services sector.

Sample Questions Asked
Respondents were asked a series of questions related to their business’ marketing programs. Most of
the questions fell within three categories:

       Marketing budget and sources of leads, including:
            o What percent of your sales leads come from each of your lead channels?
            o What percent of your lead generation budget do you spend on each of your lead
                channels?
            o Estimate the cost-per-lead for each of your lead channels.
       Trends in ‘importance’ and ‘usefulness’ of marketing channels and leads, including
            o Which sources of leads have become MORE important to you over last six months?
            o Which sources of leads have become LESS important to you over last six months?
            o How useful are social media sources to your business?
       Focus on blogs
            o Do you publish a blog?
            o How often do you publish a post?
            o What is your biggest frustration with your blog and blogging?




                                                  Page 4 of 16                                www.HubSpot.com
The State of Inbound Marketing
Inbound-Driven Businesses Report Significantly Lower Cost-Per-Lead Than Outbound
Businesses are undoubtedly spending more money and time on inbound marketing techniques – such as
blogging, social media, search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) – to generate sales
leads. Many believe this trend will continue for years to come, as buyers shift more of their time to the
digital mediums that inbound marketing primarily targets.

Respondents said they spend 37% of their lead generation budgets on inbound marketing-related
techniques. An additional 30% of lead generation budget is dedicated to outbound techniques of direct
mail, trade shows and telemarketing. (Note: Email marketing can be leveraged for either inbound or
outbound strategies, so we will not classify it in either here).


                          Lead Generation Budget Spend
                                                            Direct Mail, 8%
                                                                              Trade Shows,
                                                                                  11%
                                     Other, 23%                                        Email
                                                                                     Marketing,
                                                                                        10%
                                                                  Telemarketing,
                                                                       11%
                PPC (paid
                 search /
              AdWords), 15%

                               SEO (organic /                       Blogs/Social
                              natural search),                      Media, 10%
                                    12%




While respondents reported a fairly balanced budget across these channels on average, individual
businesses that focus more on inbound expenditures reported a dramatically lower cost-per-lead than
their outbound counterparts. Of respondents that self-reported their cost/lead, those that spend 50%
or more of their lead generation budget on inbound marketing averaged $84, whereas businesses
spending 50% or more on outbound marketing averaged $220 cost/lead.

The inbound marketing cost/lead advantage held true across businesses of all different sizes (small,
medium, large) and types (professional services, technology, etc.). Several of these are represented in
the chart below.




                                                  Page 5 of 16                                www.HubSpot.com
Reported Cost/Lead Segmented by
                       Outbound and Inbound Spend %
           $600

           $500

           $400

           $300                                                               Outbound Spend =>50%

           $200                                                               Inbound Spend =>50%

           $100

             $0




                                                                                                           .

Additional survey data suggests that inbound marketing is less expensive than outbound. When asked
to rate the relative cost of each lead channel as “below average,” “near your average,” and “above your
average,” respondents more frequently cited blogs/social media, email marketing and search engine
optimization as “below average.” Consequently, a very small percentage characterized these channels as
costing “above average.”

Trade shows were the worst offender of costing “above average” relative to other channels.


                    Estimated Relative Cost/Lead/Channel
                                  PPC           32%                   42%                25%

                                  SEO                 48%                    38%           14%

                   Blogs/Social Media                     55%                 34%          11%

                       Telemarketing            29%                   48%                22%

                      Email Marketing                 49%                    40%           11%

                         Trade Shows          18%          26%                55%

                           Direct Mail          34%                   41%                24%

                                         0%         20%         40%    60%         80%         100%
                        Below Your Average      Near Your Average       Above Your Average


                                                    Page 6 of 16                                      www.HubSpot.com
SEO Drives Disproportionately Higher Percent of Leads
In addition to comparing inbound marketing and outbound marketing from a cost/lead perspective, it is
important to understand which channels drive lead volume.




                       Percent of Leads from Each Source
                                                   Direct Mail, 7%     Trade
                                                                     Shows, 8%

                                  Other, 25%
                                                                  Email
                                                              Marketing, 14%
                           PPC 13%


                                         SEO 16%
                                                                                 Telemarketing,
                                                                                      9%
                                                                     Blogs/Social
                                                                      Media, 8%


The data shows that businesses largely receive roughly the same percentage of leads as percentage of
budget spent on each channel. The biggest disparity was in the SEO category, where businesses
averaged 12% of spend but reported 16% of their leads came from the channel – a 33% difference of
spend to actual leads. Combined with the reported lower cost/lead of inbound sources, the study
indicates that inbound marketing budget dollars are more efficient than outbound.

Blogging Leads All Social Media Channels in Importance
While search engine optimization and pay-per-click have been recognized as required lead-generation
engines for several years, blogging and social media techniques have not yet reached mainstream
status.

How do businesses currently view these channels of lead sources?

Respondents sent a clear message that blogging is currently viewed as the most ‘important’ lead
generation channel as compared to other social media, with approximately 75% of those that have tried
blogging saying it is ‘useful’ or better. Blogging was followed by StumbleUpon, YouTube, Facebook,
Delicious and Digg.




                                               Page 7 of 16                                   www.HubSpot.com
How Important Are These Services to Your
                                      Business?
        Company Blog                 31%                       21%                 23%            15%         10%

        StumbleUpon       5%         20%                      30%                      24%              21%

                Flickr 1% 13%                  18%                25%                          44%

                Digg         8%      13%                26%                       32%                   21%

            YouTube          10%          16%                26%                   26%                  22%

            MySpace 4% 10%                8%          17%                               62%

            Facebook         8%          16%                24%                  26%                  26%

            Delicious 3% 11%                          33%                         31%                   21%

          FriendFeed 3% 10%                     20%                 24%                        42%

              Twitter      6%       14%               19%                  27%                    34%

                        0%         10%     20%        30%     40%       50%      60%     70%    80%     90%     100%
                        Critical     Important          Useful         Somewhat Useful         Not Useful




With hundreds of millions of blogs on the Internet, businesses are leveraging this new communications
medium to deliver compelling content to their customers. 48 percent of survey respondents say they
publish a company blog. More than 3/4 of these company blogs publish content at least weekly. These
responses indicate that many corporate bloggers are committing to publishing content at a reasonably
consistent rate.




                                                            Page 8 of 16                                       www.HubSpot.com
Frequency of Company Blog Posts
              35%

              30%
                                                                       Multiple Times a Day
              25%
                                                                       Daily
              20%                                                      2-3 Times a Week

              15%                                                      Weekly
                                                                       Monthly
              10%
                                                                       Less Than Monthly
               5%

               0%


Corporate blogging does encounter challenges. Respondents said their biggest frustration with blogging
was “time.” We believe as companies understand the effect blogs are having on sales leads, they will
dedicate greater amounts of staff resources to blogging, helping to alleviate such problems.
Respondents said they have been publishing their blogs for 10.8 months on average, with a median of 6
months.

B-to-B vs. B-to-C
B-to-B and B-to-C Businesses Report Similar Budget Allocation
Understanding where business-to-business organizations, as compared to business-to-consumer
companies, spend their marketing dollars provides insight into how different types of buyers make
purchasing decisions. Companies must carefully answer the question: “How do my customers make
purchasing decisions and what are the most effective ways to positively influence them during the
process?”

The results of our survey show that the target customer – be it a business or a consumer – does not
make a significant difference in how organizations allocate their lead generation budget. Both types of
organizations are taking a balanced approach as each increasingly explores the best Internet marketing
strategies for their business.




                                               Page 9 of 16                                   www.HubSpot.com
% of Lead Generation Budget Spend
        30%

        25%

        20%

        15%

        10%                                                                             B-to-B
                                                                                        B-to-C
         5%

         0%




Of all categories, paid search offered the biggest discrepancy of budget allocation, with B-to-C
companies spending 75% more on PPC than any other single category. B-to-C companies may tend to
rely on paid search more frequently because it is more difficult for them to create differentiated content
to reach their target customers – particularly for mass market offerings.

While budgets are currently fairly balanced across lead generation channels, both B-to-B and B-to-C
companies say that inbound marketing techniques are becoming “more” important to their businesses.
Blogs and SEO are the two channels that respondents most frequently say are of growing importance.
On the other hand, direct mail, trade shows and telemarketing are most frequently cited as channels
becoming “less” important.




                                                Page 10 of 16                              www.HubSpot.com
Lead Channels of Growing Importance
           60%
                                                                       Direct Mail
           50%
                                                                       Trade Shows

           40%
                                                                       Email Marketing

           30%
                                                                       Telemarketing

           20%                                                         Blogs/Social Media

           10%                                                         SEO (organic / natural search)


            0%                                                         PPC (paid search / AdWords)

                    Question: Which sources of leads are becoming
                                                                       Other
                              MORE important to you?



                      Lead Channels of Decreasing Importance
           50%
                                                                          Direct Mail

           40%                                                            Trade Shows


                                                                          Email Marketing
           30%

                                                                          Telemarketing
           20%
                                                                          Blogs/Social Media

           10%
                                                                          SEO (organic / natural search)


            0%                                                            PPC (paid search / AdWords)
                  Question: Which sources of leads are becoming LESS
                                  important to you?                       Other




Sales Leads Align with Budget Spend
It is not entirely surprising to assume that the distribution of lead sources mirrors budget spends. This
was the case according to respondents. The charts below break down where B-to-B and B-to-C
companies indicate their leads come from.




                                                Page 11 of 16                                      www.HubSpot.com
B-to-B: Sources of Leads
                                                              Direct Mail
                                                                  6%
                                                                                    Trade Shows
                                                                                        8%
                                      Other
                                      26%                                                   Telemarketing
                                                                                                11%


                          PPC                                                  Email Marketing
                          11%                                                        13%
                                                                Blogs/Social
                                              SEO                  Media
                                              16%                   9%




                                B-to-C: Sources of Leads
                                                                                  Trade Shows
                                                                                      5%

                                      Other                Direct Mail
                                                               9%                           Telemarketing
                                      27%                                                        7%
                                                                                                   Email
                                                                                                  Marketing
                                                                                                    10%
                                PPC
                                19%
                                                                SEO
                                                                16%
                                                                                             Blogs/Social
                                                                                                Media
                                                                                                 7%




Note that B-to-B companies receive a higher percentage of SEO leads (16%) than what they spend on
the category (13%), whereas they receive a significantly smaller portion of leads from trade shows (7%)
than what they actually spend (12%). This suggests that these businesses should consider shifting their
lead generation budget to align it with current lead sources.




                                                    Page 12 of 16                                       www.HubSpot.com
Small Businesses vs. Larg(er) Businesses
Small Businesses Spend More on Blogging and SEO
With techniques that are dramatically more inexpensive, inbound marketing affords small businesses
the opportunity to compete with large businesses like never before. Outbound marketing customer
acquisition depends largely on the size of a company’s budget, whereas inbound marketing more heavily
slants towards those businesses with the best products and services and ability to create great content.

Small businesses are capitalizing on this by spending more of their money, time and energy on inbound
marketing techniques. In fact, small businesses reported they spend nearly 3X higher percentage of
their lead generation budget on blogs and social media than medium-to-large businesses (14% and 5%,
respectively). Small businesses also spend relatively more on search engine optimization. These larger
businesses tend to allocate a greater percentage of their budget to trade shows, email marketing and
direct mail. Other categories show a nearly identical distribution of spend.


                        % of Lead Generation Budget Spend
              25%

              20%

              15%

              10%

               5%

               0%




                    Small Businesses (1-10 employees)       Medium to Large Businesses (>50 employees)


Small Businesses: Analyzing Sources of Sales Leads
Small businesses report that their leads do closely align with their budget spend, with the difference in
any one category not more than a few percentage points. We will track changes over time as small
businesses become even more efficient at generating and tracking leads from inbound marketing
sources. Again, it is notable that small businesses spending more than 50% on inbound marketing
reported a lower cost per lead than medium and large businesses.




                                                        Page 13 of 16                                    www.HubSpot.com
Distribution of Leads by Channel
                                   *Businesses with 1-10 Employees

                                                        Direct Mail 7%
                                                                         Trade Shows 5%
                                                                                 Email Marketing 11%
                                Other 29%

                                                                                      Telemarketing 7%

                                                               Blogs/Social Media
                            PPC 13%
                                                                      12%

                                                SEO 16%




Conclusion and Additional Resources
Traditional outbound marketing techniques – including direct mail, print advertising and telemarketing –
are becoming less effective. Buyers are not only finding ways to tune these messages out, but more
importantly now have the capability to evaluate the products and services they need on their own.

As a result, businesses are transforming their marketing efforts to focus more on inbound programs that
allow customers to find them. The State of Inbound Marketing report shows that businesses that more
aggressively do this are capturing leads more effectively. Given the digital nature of inbound marketing,
the marginal cost per customer acquisition is typically close to zero, meaning that as buyers continue to
shift how they make purchasing, the cost/lead for a given business will continue to decrease.

While it is clear that businesses are gravitating towards inbound marketing, some are moving more
aggressively than others. Results from next year’s report will indicate just how quickly businesses and
marketers are shifting to inbound marketing efforts. Those that move first are more likely to reap the
tremendous business benefits of this new era of marketing.



                              If you are interested in learning more about inbound marketing and how
                              to combine blogging, SEO and social media for results, click on the link
                              below.

                              http://www.hubspot.com/inbound-marketing-kit/




                                               Page 14 of 16                                     www.HubSpot.com
Appendix: Online Marketing in Pictures
What are the best and worst marketing moves businesses have made in the past year?

We asked respondents for their top best and worst marketing programs they’ve executed to drive leads
and sales over the past year. Represented below are their answers in a word cloud, which was created
with a very cool tool called Wordle. The word cloud sizes words based on how often they are
referenced in a given set of information.

The first word cloud represents the best marketing efforts of the past year, respondents frequently cited
“blogs,” “SEO,” “websites,” “campaigns” and “social media” in their answers.



Best Marketing Decisions




The second word cloud represents the worst marketing practices in the past year. The biggest words
here are “direct mail,” “trade shows,” “email,” and “telemarketing.”




                                               Page 15 of 16                              www.HubSpot.com
Worst Marketing Decisions




                            Page 16 of 16   www.HubSpot.com

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The State of Inbound Marketing - HubSpot Report - January 2009

  • 1. The State of Inbound Marketing www.HubSpot.com January 2009
  • 2. Table of Contents Introduction ...................................................................................................................................3 Summary of Findings ............................................................................................................................................3 Overview of Inbound Marketing ...........................................................................................................................3 Respondent Profiles ..............................................................................................................................................4 Sample Questions Asked .......................................................................................................................................4 The State of Inbound Marketing .....................................................................................................5 Inbound-Driven Businesses Report Significantly Lower Cost-Per-Lead Than Outbound ......................................5 SEO Drives Disproportionately Higher Percent of Leads ......................................................................................7 Blogging Leads All Social Media Channels in Importance .....................................................................................7 B-to-B vs. B-to-C .............................................................................................................................9 B-to-B and B-to-C Businesses Report Similar Budget Allocation ..........................................................................9 Sales Leads Align with Budget Spend ..................................................................................................................11 Small Businesses vs. Larg(er) Businesses ....................................................................................... 13 Small Businesses Spend More on Blogging and SEO...........................................................................................13 Small Businesses: Analyzing Sources of Sales Leads ...........................................................................................13 Conclusion and Additional Resources ............................................................................................ 14 Appendix: Online Marketing in Pictures ........................................................................................ 15 Page 2 of 16 www.HubSpot.com
  • 3. Introduction Summary of Findings The State of Inbound Marketing offers readers three key findings: #1 Inbound marketing channels deliver a dramatically lower cost-per-sales lead than outbound channels. Respondents that spent more than 50% of their marketing budget on inbound marketing consistently reported a lower cost-per-sales lead than those that spent 50% or more on outbound marketing. In fact, inbound marketing-dominated organizations experience a 61% lower cost-per-lead than outbound marketing-dominated organizations. Businesses are responding by allocating a greater portion of their budget to inbound marketing. Currently, 37% of business’ lead-generation budget is dedicated to inbound marketing, whereas 30% is dedicated to outbound marketing efforts. We expect this gap to widen significantly over time. #2 Blogs lead other social media categories in terms of importance to business. Blogs are frequently cited as the most useful type of social media marketing, with 75% of those familiar with their business’ blogging efforts saying they are ‘useful,’ ‘important,’ or ‘critical’ to their business. MySpace finished last in terms of importance of those that use the service for business purposes. #3 Small businesses are most aggressively allocating lead generation budgets to blogging, social media and search engine optimization. Realizing that inbound marketing techniques ‘level the playing field’ with the bigger budgets of larger competitors, small businesses are spending a 180% greater portion of their budgets on blogging/social media and 36% greater portion of their budgets on search engine optimization than businesses with 50 employees or more. Overview of Inbound Marketing This report is primarily designed to help businesses and marketers better understand the current usage and results of inbound marketing. Inbound marketing is a set of marketing strategies and techniques focused on pulling relevant prospects and customers towards a business and its products. Inbound marketing is becoming widely accepted because it complements the way buyers make purchasing decisions today -- using the Internet and related media to learn about the products and services that best meet their needs. Page 3 of 16 www.HubSpot.com
  • 4. Inbound marketers offer their audiences useful information, tools and resources to attract these people to their site, while also interacting and developing relationships with customers on the web. Inbound marketing tools include blogging, content publishing, search engine optimization, social media and social networks. Inbound marketing contrasts with traditional outbound marketing, in which businesses push their messages at consumers. With techniques that include direct mail, telemarketing and trade shows, outbound marketing has become less effective over time as buyers have behaviorally and technologically (e.g., TIVO, spam filters, ‘do-not-call’ lists) tuned these interruptive campaigns out. Respondent Profiles The State of Inbound Marketing report is based on a survey issued in late 2008. The survey was completed by 167 professionals involved or familiar with their business’ marketing strategy. These professionals included marketers, business owners, entrepreneurs, executives and salespeople in businesses of all sizes. 71% of these professionals worked in business-to-business companies and approximately one-quarter of those surveyed worked in the business or professional services sector. Sample Questions Asked Respondents were asked a series of questions related to their business’ marketing programs. Most of the questions fell within three categories:  Marketing budget and sources of leads, including: o What percent of your sales leads come from each of your lead channels? o What percent of your lead generation budget do you spend on each of your lead channels? o Estimate the cost-per-lead for each of your lead channels.  Trends in ‘importance’ and ‘usefulness’ of marketing channels and leads, including o Which sources of leads have become MORE important to you over last six months? o Which sources of leads have become LESS important to you over last six months? o How useful are social media sources to your business?  Focus on blogs o Do you publish a blog? o How often do you publish a post? o What is your biggest frustration with your blog and blogging? Page 4 of 16 www.HubSpot.com
  • 5. The State of Inbound Marketing Inbound-Driven Businesses Report Significantly Lower Cost-Per-Lead Than Outbound Businesses are undoubtedly spending more money and time on inbound marketing techniques – such as blogging, social media, search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) – to generate sales leads. Many believe this trend will continue for years to come, as buyers shift more of their time to the digital mediums that inbound marketing primarily targets. Respondents said they spend 37% of their lead generation budgets on inbound marketing-related techniques. An additional 30% of lead generation budget is dedicated to outbound techniques of direct mail, trade shows and telemarketing. (Note: Email marketing can be leveraged for either inbound or outbound strategies, so we will not classify it in either here). Lead Generation Budget Spend Direct Mail, 8% Trade Shows, 11% Other, 23% Email Marketing, 10% Telemarketing, 11% PPC (paid search / AdWords), 15% SEO (organic / Blogs/Social natural search), Media, 10% 12% While respondents reported a fairly balanced budget across these channels on average, individual businesses that focus more on inbound expenditures reported a dramatically lower cost-per-lead than their outbound counterparts. Of respondents that self-reported their cost/lead, those that spend 50% or more of their lead generation budget on inbound marketing averaged $84, whereas businesses spending 50% or more on outbound marketing averaged $220 cost/lead. The inbound marketing cost/lead advantage held true across businesses of all different sizes (small, medium, large) and types (professional services, technology, etc.). Several of these are represented in the chart below. Page 5 of 16 www.HubSpot.com
  • 6. Reported Cost/Lead Segmented by Outbound and Inbound Spend % $600 $500 $400 $300 Outbound Spend =>50% $200 Inbound Spend =>50% $100 $0 . Additional survey data suggests that inbound marketing is less expensive than outbound. When asked to rate the relative cost of each lead channel as “below average,” “near your average,” and “above your average,” respondents more frequently cited blogs/social media, email marketing and search engine optimization as “below average.” Consequently, a very small percentage characterized these channels as costing “above average.” Trade shows were the worst offender of costing “above average” relative to other channels. Estimated Relative Cost/Lead/Channel PPC 32% 42% 25% SEO 48% 38% 14% Blogs/Social Media 55% 34% 11% Telemarketing 29% 48% 22% Email Marketing 49% 40% 11% Trade Shows 18% 26% 55% Direct Mail 34% 41% 24% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Below Your Average Near Your Average Above Your Average Page 6 of 16 www.HubSpot.com
  • 7. SEO Drives Disproportionately Higher Percent of Leads In addition to comparing inbound marketing and outbound marketing from a cost/lead perspective, it is important to understand which channels drive lead volume. Percent of Leads from Each Source Direct Mail, 7% Trade Shows, 8% Other, 25% Email Marketing, 14% PPC 13% SEO 16% Telemarketing, 9% Blogs/Social Media, 8% The data shows that businesses largely receive roughly the same percentage of leads as percentage of budget spent on each channel. The biggest disparity was in the SEO category, where businesses averaged 12% of spend but reported 16% of their leads came from the channel – a 33% difference of spend to actual leads. Combined with the reported lower cost/lead of inbound sources, the study indicates that inbound marketing budget dollars are more efficient than outbound. Blogging Leads All Social Media Channels in Importance While search engine optimization and pay-per-click have been recognized as required lead-generation engines for several years, blogging and social media techniques have not yet reached mainstream status. How do businesses currently view these channels of lead sources? Respondents sent a clear message that blogging is currently viewed as the most ‘important’ lead generation channel as compared to other social media, with approximately 75% of those that have tried blogging saying it is ‘useful’ or better. Blogging was followed by StumbleUpon, YouTube, Facebook, Delicious and Digg. Page 7 of 16 www.HubSpot.com
  • 8. How Important Are These Services to Your Business? Company Blog 31% 21% 23% 15% 10% StumbleUpon 5% 20% 30% 24% 21% Flickr 1% 13% 18% 25% 44% Digg 8% 13% 26% 32% 21% YouTube 10% 16% 26% 26% 22% MySpace 4% 10% 8% 17% 62% Facebook 8% 16% 24% 26% 26% Delicious 3% 11% 33% 31% 21% FriendFeed 3% 10% 20% 24% 42% Twitter 6% 14% 19% 27% 34% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Critical Important Useful Somewhat Useful Not Useful With hundreds of millions of blogs on the Internet, businesses are leveraging this new communications medium to deliver compelling content to their customers. 48 percent of survey respondents say they publish a company blog. More than 3/4 of these company blogs publish content at least weekly. These responses indicate that many corporate bloggers are committing to publishing content at a reasonably consistent rate. Page 8 of 16 www.HubSpot.com
  • 9. Frequency of Company Blog Posts 35% 30% Multiple Times a Day 25% Daily 20% 2-3 Times a Week 15% Weekly Monthly 10% Less Than Monthly 5% 0% Corporate blogging does encounter challenges. Respondents said their biggest frustration with blogging was “time.” We believe as companies understand the effect blogs are having on sales leads, they will dedicate greater amounts of staff resources to blogging, helping to alleviate such problems. Respondents said they have been publishing their blogs for 10.8 months on average, with a median of 6 months. B-to-B vs. B-to-C B-to-B and B-to-C Businesses Report Similar Budget Allocation Understanding where business-to-business organizations, as compared to business-to-consumer companies, spend their marketing dollars provides insight into how different types of buyers make purchasing decisions. Companies must carefully answer the question: “How do my customers make purchasing decisions and what are the most effective ways to positively influence them during the process?” The results of our survey show that the target customer – be it a business or a consumer – does not make a significant difference in how organizations allocate their lead generation budget. Both types of organizations are taking a balanced approach as each increasingly explores the best Internet marketing strategies for their business. Page 9 of 16 www.HubSpot.com
  • 10. % of Lead Generation Budget Spend 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% B-to-B B-to-C 5% 0% Of all categories, paid search offered the biggest discrepancy of budget allocation, with B-to-C companies spending 75% more on PPC than any other single category. B-to-C companies may tend to rely on paid search more frequently because it is more difficult for them to create differentiated content to reach their target customers – particularly for mass market offerings. While budgets are currently fairly balanced across lead generation channels, both B-to-B and B-to-C companies say that inbound marketing techniques are becoming “more” important to their businesses. Blogs and SEO are the two channels that respondents most frequently say are of growing importance. On the other hand, direct mail, trade shows and telemarketing are most frequently cited as channels becoming “less” important. Page 10 of 16 www.HubSpot.com
  • 11. Lead Channels of Growing Importance 60% Direct Mail 50% Trade Shows 40% Email Marketing 30% Telemarketing 20% Blogs/Social Media 10% SEO (organic / natural search) 0% PPC (paid search / AdWords) Question: Which sources of leads are becoming Other MORE important to you? Lead Channels of Decreasing Importance 50% Direct Mail 40% Trade Shows Email Marketing 30% Telemarketing 20% Blogs/Social Media 10% SEO (organic / natural search) 0% PPC (paid search / AdWords) Question: Which sources of leads are becoming LESS important to you? Other Sales Leads Align with Budget Spend It is not entirely surprising to assume that the distribution of lead sources mirrors budget spends. This was the case according to respondents. The charts below break down where B-to-B and B-to-C companies indicate their leads come from. Page 11 of 16 www.HubSpot.com
  • 12. B-to-B: Sources of Leads Direct Mail 6% Trade Shows 8% Other 26% Telemarketing 11% PPC Email Marketing 11% 13% Blogs/Social SEO Media 16% 9% B-to-C: Sources of Leads Trade Shows 5% Other Direct Mail 9% Telemarketing 27% 7% Email Marketing 10% PPC 19% SEO 16% Blogs/Social Media 7% Note that B-to-B companies receive a higher percentage of SEO leads (16%) than what they spend on the category (13%), whereas they receive a significantly smaller portion of leads from trade shows (7%) than what they actually spend (12%). This suggests that these businesses should consider shifting their lead generation budget to align it with current lead sources. Page 12 of 16 www.HubSpot.com
  • 13. Small Businesses vs. Larg(er) Businesses Small Businesses Spend More on Blogging and SEO With techniques that are dramatically more inexpensive, inbound marketing affords small businesses the opportunity to compete with large businesses like never before. Outbound marketing customer acquisition depends largely on the size of a company’s budget, whereas inbound marketing more heavily slants towards those businesses with the best products and services and ability to create great content. Small businesses are capitalizing on this by spending more of their money, time and energy on inbound marketing techniques. In fact, small businesses reported they spend nearly 3X higher percentage of their lead generation budget on blogs and social media than medium-to-large businesses (14% and 5%, respectively). Small businesses also spend relatively more on search engine optimization. These larger businesses tend to allocate a greater percentage of their budget to trade shows, email marketing and direct mail. Other categories show a nearly identical distribution of spend. % of Lead Generation Budget Spend 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% Small Businesses (1-10 employees) Medium to Large Businesses (>50 employees) Small Businesses: Analyzing Sources of Sales Leads Small businesses report that their leads do closely align with their budget spend, with the difference in any one category not more than a few percentage points. We will track changes over time as small businesses become even more efficient at generating and tracking leads from inbound marketing sources. Again, it is notable that small businesses spending more than 50% on inbound marketing reported a lower cost per lead than medium and large businesses. Page 13 of 16 www.HubSpot.com
  • 14. Distribution of Leads by Channel *Businesses with 1-10 Employees Direct Mail 7% Trade Shows 5% Email Marketing 11% Other 29% Telemarketing 7% Blogs/Social Media PPC 13% 12% SEO 16% Conclusion and Additional Resources Traditional outbound marketing techniques – including direct mail, print advertising and telemarketing – are becoming less effective. Buyers are not only finding ways to tune these messages out, but more importantly now have the capability to evaluate the products and services they need on their own. As a result, businesses are transforming their marketing efforts to focus more on inbound programs that allow customers to find them. The State of Inbound Marketing report shows that businesses that more aggressively do this are capturing leads more effectively. Given the digital nature of inbound marketing, the marginal cost per customer acquisition is typically close to zero, meaning that as buyers continue to shift how they make purchasing, the cost/lead for a given business will continue to decrease. While it is clear that businesses are gravitating towards inbound marketing, some are moving more aggressively than others. Results from next year’s report will indicate just how quickly businesses and marketers are shifting to inbound marketing efforts. Those that move first are more likely to reap the tremendous business benefits of this new era of marketing. If you are interested in learning more about inbound marketing and how to combine blogging, SEO and social media for results, click on the link below. http://www.hubspot.com/inbound-marketing-kit/ Page 14 of 16 www.HubSpot.com
  • 15. Appendix: Online Marketing in Pictures What are the best and worst marketing moves businesses have made in the past year? We asked respondents for their top best and worst marketing programs they’ve executed to drive leads and sales over the past year. Represented below are their answers in a word cloud, which was created with a very cool tool called Wordle. The word cloud sizes words based on how often they are referenced in a given set of information. The first word cloud represents the best marketing efforts of the past year, respondents frequently cited “blogs,” “SEO,” “websites,” “campaigns” and “social media” in their answers. Best Marketing Decisions The second word cloud represents the worst marketing practices in the past year. The biggest words here are “direct mail,” “trade shows,” “email,” and “telemarketing.” Page 15 of 16 www.HubSpot.com
  • 16. Worst Marketing Decisions Page 16 of 16 www.HubSpot.com