Commentary

Inbound Marketing Channels Deliver

by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, May 4, 2010

According to the "State of Inbound Marketing Report" from Hubspot, as reported by Marketing Charts, inbound marketing is continuing to grow in importance at the expense of outbound marketing, As a percentage of the overall lead generation budget, inbound marketing expanded slightly from 2009 to 2010, while outbound marketing contracted more significantly. The net effect is that the gap widened from inbound marketing, which had a 9% greater share of the overall marketing budget than outbound marketing in 2009, to a 15% greater share in 2010.

Lead Generation Budget (% of Total)
	*2009*	*2010*
Outbound	29%	24%
Inbound	38	39
Not classified	33	37
Source: Hubspot, April 2009

Looking at the last six months, businesses rate every inbound marketing channel as more important than any outbound channel. This is a continuing trend from 2009. In addition, no outbound channel grew in importance, with direct mail and telemarketing declining and trade shows remaining flat.

However, three of four inbound marketing channels grew in importance between 2009 and 2010: social media, blogs, and search engine optimization (SEO). PPC (paid search/ad words) significantly declined from being rated important by 32% of businesses in 2009 to 22% of businesses in 2010.

While blogs and SEO grew slightly in importance, social media dramatically increased in the percentage of businesses considering this channel important, from 46% in 2009 to 60% in 2010.

Lead Sources Considered Important (% of Respondents; Multiple Response OK)
	*2009*	*2010*
Outbound
Direct mail	11%	10%
Trade shows	10	10
Telemarketing	16	10
Not Classified
Email marketing	40	42
Other	16	19
Inbound
Paid search/ad words	32	22
Social media	46	60
Blogs	46	48
SEO (organic/natural search)	55	59
Source: Hubspot, April 2009

Slightly more than half of businesses are increasing their inbound marketing budgets this year, with 37% enacting no budgetary change.

Inbound Marketing Budgets Compared to 2009 (% of Respondents)
*Budget for 2010*	*% of Respondents*
Higher	51%
No Change	37
Lower	12
Source: Hubspot, April 2009

For businesses increasing their inbound marketing budgets, the most common reason given is past success (58%), with 31% citing the economy and 28% citing a change in management. Conversely, 92% of businesses decreasing their inbound marketing budgets gave the economy as a reason, suggesting companies lowering their inbound marketing budgets are doing so due to external pressures rather than dissatisfaction with inbound marketing's performance.

Reason for Inbound Marketing Budget Change in 2010 (% of Respondents Changing)
	*Higher Budget*	*Lower Budget*
Economy	31	92
Change in management	28	12
Past success with inbound marketing	58	0
Past success with outbound marketing	0	4
Source: Hubspot, April 2009

More than four in 10 companies overall have acquired a customer from four major social media channels, according to other findings of the Hubspot State of Inbound Marketing report. 41% of companies have acquired a customer from both Twitter and LinkedIn. That figure rises to 44% for Facebook and 46% for a company blog.

For additional information about the study, including access to the PDF file with charts and graphs, please visit Hubspot here.

lead generation, marketing, research

3 comments about "Inbound Marketing Channels Deliver".

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Karen Albritton from Capstrat, May 4, 2010 at 8:40 a.m.
I think this trend is in response to the way consumers are getting information and making purchase decisions. Budgets follow results and when something is measurable and works, clients move budgets.
Here's a short blog post on how marketers can improve their inbound results through optimizing blog posts for search. http://bit.ly/cr3Kva
Reply

Frank Reed from Marketing Pilgrim, May 4, 2010 at 10 a.m.

Strong caution. Hubspot is an inbound marketing company, not a third party researcher. They usually get their research from their client base so these numbers can be skewed a bit. I don't know that for certain but it's a reasonable concern.

Now, that is not to say that inbound marketing isn't effective because I think it is. I always caution folks to look at the source of the data and then go from there.

N Carpenter from Red Humpy Design, May 4, 2010 at 2:50 p.m.

As more and more small business owners are discovering the low cost and high return of Inbound Marketing, it seems only natural that it is gaining importance in their busy schedules.

I do agree with Mr. Reed about HubSpot. Most of the statistics I'm finding online are from their research, which seems thorough, but it would be nice to see the same stats from a firm that does not specialize in inbound marketing.