Nathan Parsons' Blog

HubSpot reported recently that in North America, the average cost per lead of inbound marketing is now less than 40% of what a lead generated by outbound marketing costs.  Although both inbound and outbound lead costs increased from 2010 to 2011, outbound leads increased more.  Social media increased signficantly in terms of percentage of companies marketing budgets, while outdated outbound methods like direct mail and telemarketing decreased significantly.

These are interesting stats, but what does it mean for the world of marketing?  Obviously social media will continue to rise as a means of generating revenue, as companies start to see the cost benefits.  But with social media in its hayday, and SEO growing to adulthood, where do we go from here?  Is greater adoption of social media and fewer mass marketing campaigns really the answer?  Unfortunately this study was unable to quantify any of these numbers into actual revenue. 

 Only time will tell whether inbound-only strategies will work for large consumer product companies, who have traditionally relied mostly on mass marketing.  With such companies, inbound and outbound marketing activities support each other, and it is doubtful that inbound marketing would do nearly as well without massive outbound exposure.  This study may be misleading, as it gives the impression that inbound marketing is the only way to go because it is cheaper.  Every company and every industry is different, so perhaps a more careful appoach should have been taken with this report.

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008268