www.HubSpot.

com

The State of Inbound Marketing

2010

February 2010
 THE STATE OF INBOUND MARKETING

Contents
Introduction ................................................................
................................................................................................
...............................................................3
Summary................................................................
................................................................................................
.................................................................3
Overview of Inbound Marketing ................................
................................................................................................
............................................................3
The 2010 State of Inbound Marketing ................................
................................................................................................
......................................................4
Inbound Marketing Channels Continue to Deliver Dramatically Lower Cost Per Sales Lead Than Outbound
Marketing Channels Do ................................
................................................................................................................................
..........................................4
Three Out of Four Inbound Channels Are Lower Cost Than Any Outbound Channel ............................................4
................................
The Gap Widens: Inbound Marketing Budgets Are Increasing While Outbound Marketing Budgets Are
Decreasing ................................................................
................................................................................................
..............................................................6
Inbound Marketing Channels Continue to Grow in Importance ................................................................
............................................6
Inbound Marketing Budgets Are Increasing ................................................................................................
...........................................7
Inbound Marketing Budgets Are Going Up Based on Past Success ................................................................
.......................................8
Small Companies Continue to Focus on Inbound Marketing More Than Medium & Large Companies Do ..........8
Blogs and Social Media ................................
................................................................................................................................
..............................................9
Fastest Growing Marketing Category Is Blogs/So
Blogs/Social Media - Budgets Are Up 67%..............................................9
................................
Blogs Remain Most Important Social Media Channel ................................................................
......................................................... 10
Social Media and Blogs Generate Real Customers ................................................................
.............................................................. 11
Facebook Is More Effective for B2C; LinkedIn Is More Effective for B2B............................................................
................................ 11
Customer Acquisition Through Blogs is Direct
Directly Related to Frequency of Posts ................................................
................................ 12
Blog Post Frequency Relatively Steady................................................................................................
................................................ 12
Conclusion and Additional Resources ................................
................................................................................................
.................................................... 13
Appendix ................................................................
................................................................................................................................
................................. 14
Best Things People Did in Marketing Last Year ................................................................................................
................................... 14
Worst Things People Did in Marketing Last Year ................................................................................................
................................ 14
Respondent Profiles ................................
................................................................................................................................
............................................ 15
Sample Questions Asked ................................
................................................................................................................................
..................................... 15

HubSpot.com 2
 THE STATE OF INBOUND MARKETING

Introduction
Summary
This report is based on a survey of 231 professionals involved or familiar with the
their
ir business’ marketing strategy
(for more information about the survey please see the appendix). Three of the key takeaways are:

(1) Inbound Marketing Channels Continue to Deliver Dramatically Lower Cost Per Lead Than
Outbound Channels Do
Businesses spending 50% or more of their marketing budget on inbound marketing activities spent 60%
less per lead than businesses spending 50% or more of their marketin
marketing budget on outbound channels.
This number is remarkably consistent with the 61% lower cost businesses reported a year ago. Clearly,
inbound marketing channels are maintaining their low
low-cost advantage.
(2) Social Media and Blogs Are
re the Most Rapidly Expandin
Expandingg Category in the Overall Marketing
Budget
Social media and blogs are becoming marketing powerhouses
powerhouses. They are the fastest growing category in
lead generation budgets and they continue to be ranked as the lowest cost lead
lead-generation
generation channel.
channel In
addition, more than any other channel, social media was ranked as a source of leads that has become
more important in the last six months.
(3) Businesses Are Generating Real Customers With Social Media and B
Blogs
Some organizations are still unsure about the utility of social media and blogs. Are potential customers
really reading Twitter? Does Facebook do anything more than build brand awareness? The answer is,
“Yes”! For Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and company blogs,logs, over 40% of our respondents who use those
services
ces for marketing have acquired a customer through each of those channels.. Social media is not
just for brand awareness; it can be used to directly generate leads that translate into customers.

Overview of Inbound Marketing

This report is designed to help businesses and marketers 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 mar
marketing
keting 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.

Inbound marketers offer their audiences ususeful

eful 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 med
media
ia 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
tive over time as buyers have behaviorally and technologically (e.g., TIVO, spam filters, ‘do-
‘do
not-call’
call’ lists) tuned these interruptive campaigns out.

HubSpot.com 3
 THE STATE OF INBOUND MARKETING

The 2010 State of Inbound Marketing

Inbound Marketing Channels Continue to Deliver Dramatic

Dramatically Lower Cost
ost Per Sales Lead
Than Outbound Marketing Channels
hannels Do
Respondents who spend more than 50% of their lead generation budget on inbound marketing channels report
a significantly lower cost per sales lead than those who spend 50% or more their budgets on outbound
marketing channels. Inbound marketing dominated organizations experience a 60% % lower cost per lead than
outbound marketing dominated organizations. This continues with remarkable consistency the result from the
study in 2009 that inbound marketing ng dominated businesses experienced a 61%
% lower cost per lead than
outbound marketing dominated organizations
organizations.

Average Cost Per Lead

$350
$300
60%
% Lower Cost Per Lead!
Lead
$250
$200
$332
$150
$100
$134
$50
$0
Outbound Marketing Inbound Marketing Dominated
Dominated

Three Out of Four Inbound Channels Are Lower Cost Than

han Any Outbound Channel
Looking at lead generation channels more granularly highlights data consistent with the overall category
averages. When asked to rank each lead generation category as “below average cost”, “near average cost”, or
“above average cost”, businesses consisten
consistently ranked inbound marketing channels as having lower cost than
outbound channels (PPC was the only inbound channel that was ranked similarly to outbound channels).
channels) Social
logs maintained the slot as the most cost effective with 63% of respondents
media and blogs nts estimating the
categories as “below average cost” for lead generation
generation.

HubSpot.com 4
 THE STATE OF INBOUND MARKETING

Inbound Cost Per Lead Rating - Segmented by Channel

Social Media - 2010 63% 27% 10%

Blogs/Social Media - 2009 55% 34% 11%

Blogs - 2010 63% 27% 9%

Blogs/Social Media - 2009 55% 34% 11% Below Your Average

Near Your Average
SEO (organic / natural search) - 43% 40% 18%
2010 Above Your Average
SEO (organic / natural search) - 48% 38% 14%
2009
PPC (paid search / AdWords) - 30% 35% 35%
2010
PPC (paid search / AdWords) - 32% 42% 25%
2009

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Outbound Cost Per Lead Rating - Segmented by Channel

Telemarketing - 2010 34% 38% 28%

Telemarketing - 2009 29% 48% 22%

Trade Shows - 2010 22% 30% 48% Below Your Average

Near Your Average
Trade Shows - 2009 18% 26% 55%
Above Your Average

Direct Mail - 2010 37% 34% 29%

Direct Mail - 2009 34% 41% 24%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

HubSpot.com 5
 THE STATE OF INBOUND MARKETING

The Gap Widens:

Inbound Marketing Budgets Are Increasing While Outbound Marketing Budgets Are
Decreasing
Survey respondents were asked what percent
percentage of their lead generation budgets would be spent on each of 9
marketing channels: “direct mail”, “telemarketing”, “trade shows”, “email mar
marketing”,
keting”, “PPC (paid search /
AdWords)”,
ords)”, “SEO (organic / natural search)”, “social media”, “blogs”, and “other”. Those
ose nine channels were
grouped as follows (email marketing can be used both as an inbound or outbound marketing tool so it was not
classified) :

INBOUND CHANNELS OUTBOUND CHANNELS NOT CLASSIFIED

PPC Direct Mail Email Marketing
SEO Telemarketing Other
Social Media Trade Shows
Blogs

As a percentage of the overall lead generation budget, inbound marketing expanded slightly from 2009 to 2010
and outbound marketing contracted. The net effect is that the gap widened from inbound marketing having a
9% greater share of the overall marketing budget in 2009 to a 15% greater share in 2010.
2010

2009 Lead Generation Budget 2010 Lead Generation Budget

Not Not
Outbound Classified Outbound Classified
29% 33% 24% 37%

Inbound Inbound
38% 39%

Inbound Marketing Channels Continue to Grow in Importance

Based on the data regarding lower average costs for inbound marketing, it is not surprising that inbound
marketing channels continue to grow in importance. Looking at the last six months, businesses rate every
inbound lead generation channel as being more important than any outbound channel.. This is a continuing
trend from 2009. Here, again, social media is the dominant force in terms of gaining importance. Also of note is
the fact that Pay-Per-Click
Click (PPC) sources have gone slightly more out of favor th
than
an they were last year (perhaps
due to tighter marketing budgets). Note that the 2009 survey lumped social media and blogs into one category.

HubSpot.com 6
 THE STATE OF INBOUND MARKETING

Sources of Leads That

hat Have Become More Important in the Last 6 Months

60%

60%

59%
Inbound

55%
50% 2009 2010

48%
46%

46%
40%

42%
40%
Not Classified

32%
30% 2009 2010

22%
20% Outbound

19%
16%
2009 2010
15%
11%

10%
10%
10%

10%
10%

0%

Inbound Marketing Budgets Are

re Increasing
Businesses are not just ranking inbound marketing as important, they are also voting with their wallets. The
majority of businesses we surveyed are increasing their 2010 inbound marketing budgets from 2009 levels. Fully
88% of those surveyed are either maintaining or increasing their inbound marketing budgets.

2010 Inbound Marketing Budgets Compared to 2009

60% 51%
Percentage of Respondents

50%
37%
40%
30%
20% 12%
10%
0%
Higher No Change Lower
Change in 2010 Inbound Marketing Budget

HubSpot.com 7
 THE STATE OF INBOUND MARKETING

Inbound Marketing Budgets Are

re Going Up Based on Past Success
For respondents who are increasing inbound marketing budgets, the most common reason cited was “past
success with inbound marketing”. On the flip side, the small minority of b
businesses decreasing
ecreasing inbound budgets
are doing so almost exclusively
ively due to economic cconditions.

Why Businesses Are Changing Inbound Marketing Budgets

92%
Percentage of Respondents Citing Reason

100%
80% 58%
60%
40% 31% 28%
Higher 2010 Budget
20% 12%
0% 0% 4% Lower 2010 Budget
0%
Economy Change in Past Success With Past Success with
Management Inbound Marketing Outbound
Marketing

Reason For Changing Inbound Budget

Small Companies Continue to Focus on Inbound Marketing More Than Medium & Large
Companies Do
While comparisons between B2B and B2C companies do not reveal major differences between lead generation
budgets, companyny size does play a large role. In a continuation of a trend identified in 2009, small businesses
are attempting to level the marketing playing field by focusing on lower cost inbound lead generation
techniques. For 2010, small businesses (1(1-10 employees)) plan to spend 44% of their lead generation budgets on
inbound marketing while medium & large businesses (50 or more employees) only plan to spend 31% of their
lead generation budgets on inbound marketing. Medium & llarge arge businesses also plan to spend dramatically
more on outbound marketing in general,eral, especially trade shows. Medium & llarge
arge businesses have allocated
21% of 2010 lead generation budgets to trade shows, whereas small businesses have only allocated 6%.

HubSpot.com 8
 THE STATE OF INBOUND MARKETING

1-10 Employees 50 or More Employees

(2010 Lead Gen Budget) (2010 Lead Gen Budget)
Email Email
Marketing Telemarketing Marketing
Telemarketing 6%
5%
16% 11%
Trade Shows
Trade Shows 21%
Other
6% 25% Other
Direct Mail 21%
4%

PPC (paid Blogs Direct Mail Blogs

search / 9% 10% 4%
AdWords)
SEO (organic Social Media PPC (paid SEO (organic Social Media
9%
/ natural 11% search / / natural 4%
search) AdWords) search)
15% 13% 10%

Blogs and Social Media

Fastest
est Growing Marketing Category IIs Blogs/Social Media - Budgets Are
re Up 67%
Businesses are responding to the marketing success they are experiencing with social media and company blogs
by increasing the percentage of lead generation budgets being allocated tto
o the category. In 2009 blogs/social
media garnered 9% of the average lead generation budget. For 2010 blogs/social media has been upped to 15%
of the average budget;; the largest increase of any lead generation category. 61% of respondents reported that
they publish a company blog now compared to 48% a year ago. Also of note is the decrease in both
telemarketing (outbound) as well as the paid search (inbound) categories. Again, economic
conomic pressures may be
reducing budgets in categories that have direct ccosts.

2009 Lead Generation Budget 2010 Lead Generation Budget

Email Email
Telemarketing
10% Marketing Telemarketing Marketing
Trade Shows 12% 6% 14%
Trade Shows
11% 11%
Other Other
Direct Mail Direct Mail 23%
21%
8% 7%

PPC (paid
search /
PPC (paid Blogs
Blogs/Social Adwords)
search / 7%
SEO (organic Media 11% SEO (organic
Adwords) Social Media
natural 9% natural 8%
16%
search) search)
13% 13%

HubSpot.com 9
 THE STATE OF INBOUND MARKETING

Blogs Remain Most Important Social Media Channel

Looking at services that users ranked as “critical”, “important”, or “useful”, company blogs took the top spot for
a second year in a row. Increasing in importance from 2009, fully 85% of users rated company blogs as “useful”
or better in 2010. Twitter moved into the second spot with an astonishing gain from 39% of users rating it as
“useful” or better in 2009 to 71% of users rating it as “useful” or better in 2010. Facebook also increased in
importance
mportance to users, while StumbleUpon and Digg both had substantial drops in importance. Finally, MySpace
has virtually fallen off the radar with only 10% of users deeming the site “useful” or better.

How Important Are These Services to Your Business?

(2010 vs. 2009)

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Company Blog - 2010

Company Blog - 2009

Twitter - 2010

Twitter - 2009

Facebook - 2010

Facebook - 2009
Critical
LinkedIn - 2010
Important
YouTube - 2010
Useful
YouTube - 2009 Somewhat Useful
StumbleUpon - 2010 Not Useful
StumbleUpon - 2009

Flickr - 2010

Flickr - 2009

Digg - 2010

Digg - 2009

MySpace - 2010

MySpace - 2009

HubSpot.com
10
 THE STATE OF INBOUND MARKETING

Social Media and Blogs Generate Real Customers

Thee use of social media and company blogs as marketing tools gets your company better brand exposure, but it
also generates leads that result in real customer acquisition. 41% of companies who use Twitter for marketing
have acquired a customer from a Twitter generated lead. 41% of companies using LinkedIn for marketing
have acquired a customer from that lead generation source. 43% of companies using Facebook have acquired
a customer and 46% of those using company blog blogss have acquired a customer from a blog generated lead.
lead

Percentage of Companies Using Specific Social Media

Channels and/or Blogs Who Have Acquired a Customer From
That Channel

44% 46%
50% 41% 41%
40%

30%

20%

10%

0%
Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Company Blog

Facebook Is More Effective for B2C

B2C; LinkedIn Is More Effective for B2B
The effectiveness of a particular social media channel depend
dependss upon the type of business. While both B2B and
B2C companies are able to acquire customers through any of the four channels surveyed, Facebook is clearly
more effective for B2C businesses and LinkedIn is clearly more effective for B2B businesses.

Percentage of Companies Using Specific Social Media Channels

and/or Blogs Who Have Acquired a Customer From That
Channel

68%
70%
57%
60% 51%
45% 43%
50% 38%
40% 33%
B2B
26%
30%
B2C
20%
10%
0%
Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Company Blog

HubSpot.com
11
 THE STATE OF INBOUND MARKETING

Customer Acquisition Through

hrough Blogs is Directly Related to Frequency of Posts
An underutilized blog means customers are being left on the table. The survey this year shows a direct
correlation between blog post frequency and the chance that a company has acquired a customer through that
channel.

Blog Post Frequency vs. Customer Acquisition

100%
Acquired a Customer From Their Blog

90%
Percentage of Businesses Who Have

100%
90%
80% 69%
70% 58%
60%
50% 38%
40%
30% 13%
20%
10%
0%
Multiple Daily 2-3 Times Weekly Monthly Less Than
Times a a Week Monthly
Day

Frequency of Company Blog Posts

Blog Post Frequency Relatively

atively Steady
Despite the evidence showing that increased blogging correlates with increased customer acquisition, blogging
frequency remained relatively steady between 2009 and 2010. Weekly blogging is still the most common
update frequency.

Frequency of Blog Posts

38%
33%

40%
29%
29%

35%
30%
20%

25%
17%
13%

20%
15% 2010
8%

6%

10% 2009
3%
3%
2%

5%
0%
Multiple Daily 2-3 Weekly Monthly Less
Times a Times a Than
Day Week Monthly

HubSpot.com
12
 THE STATE OF INBOUND MARKETING

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
they 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 rep report
ort 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 ho
howw 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. 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
marketing-kit/

HubSpot.com
13
 THE STATE OF INBOUND MARKETING

Appendix
We asked respondents to name the 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, courtesy of wordle.net

Best Things People Did

id in Marketing Last Year

Worst Things People Did

id in Marketing Last Year

HubSpot.com
14
 THE STATE OF INBOUND MARKETING

Respondent Profiles
The State of Inbound Marketing report is based on a survey issued in early 2010. The survey was completed by
231 professionals involved or familiar with their business’ marketing strategy. These professionals included
marketers, business owners, entrepreneurs, executives and salespeople in businesses of all sizes. 69% of these
professionals worked in business-to-business
business companies and the range of industries varied greatly. Industries
represented in the sample included industries as diverse as real estate, higher education, healthcare
/pharmaceutical, and retail/wholesale. The largest two categorie
categoriess of respondents were professional
services/consulting at 22% and technology (software/biotech) at 15%.

Sample Questions Asked

The survey was designed to provide meaningful comparisons between the results of the survey conducted a
year ago and the currentt survey. To deliver on that goal, most survey questions were the same as in the
previous survey. Respondents were asked a series of questions related to their business’ marketing programs.
Most of the questions fell within three categories:

- Marketing budget
dget 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
lead for each of your lead channels
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 aree social media sources to your business?
- Focus on blogs and social media
o Do you publish a blog?
o How often do you publish a post?
o Have you ever acquired a customer from the following social media / blog channels?

HubSpot.com
15