Among companies with outbound marketing-dominated strategies — those that spend more than 50 percent of their lead-generation budgets on outbound marketing channels — the average CPL was $346 as of January 2012. By contrast, among inbound-centric companies (those spending over 50 percent of their lead-generation budget on inbound marketing) the average CPL was $135 — 61 percent less than the CPL of outbound-dominated businesses.
The findings are remarkably consistent with previous years: In studies conducted by HubSpot in 2010 and 2011, inbound marketing-centric organizations registered 60 percent and 62 percent lower CPL, respectively.
“Inbound marketing” is defined by HubSpot as a set of marketing strategies and tactics focused on pulling the right prospects and customers towards a business and its offerings (i.e., programs that allow customers to find the business and offerings). Common inbound marketing programs include organic search, various forms of social media, and blogging. Traditional outbound marketing techniques include direct mail, print advertising, and telemarketing.
Low-cost marketing channels
Blogging, social media and SEO (organic search) are most likely to be reported as low-cost marketing channels:
• 52% of companies that publish a blog report leads from that channel that are “below average cost.”
• 45% of companies that use social media report leads from those channels are “below average cost.”
• 38% of companies using SEO report leads from that channel are “below average cost.”
By contrast, trade shows (19%), telemarketing (33%) and direct mail (34%) are less likely to be ranked as “below average cost.”
Inbound channels produce higher quality leads
In addition to having lower average CPL, inbound leads appear more likely to become customers. Among a sample of 150 businesses using closed-loop marketing analytics, HubSpot analyzed the median lead-to-close rate of each business by lead source. Among those lead sources:
• Leads via SEO were more than seven times more likely to close than outbound-sourced leads
(15% vs. 2%).
• Leads via inbound links (or referrals) were nearly five times more likely to become customers than outbound leads (9% vs. 2%).
Source: The 2012 State of Inbound Marketing | www.HubSpot.com/SOIM
Blogs remain most important media channel
Asked to rate the services they use as “critical,” “important” or “useful,” 25 percent of marketing professionals rated their company blog as “critical” to their business; another 34 percent rated their blog as “important.” Overall, 81 percent of marketing professionals rated company blogs as “useful” or better.
Source: The 2012 State of Inbound Marketing – www.HubSpot.com/SOIM
