20 statistics that prove Inbound Marketing ROI

There is no doubt that Inbound Marketing is booming, and more and more B2B marketing teams are embracing the inbound methodology to drive effective lead generation in their businesses.

Much of inbound marketing’s rise in popularity as been down to it aligning perfectly with modern day B2B customer journeys and buying habits. By positioning your business as thought leaders, providing helpful content and insights to customers and putting the customer at the heart of your business, the growth impact can be huge.

Here are 20 statistics that build the case for inbound marketing in relation to:

• Inbound marketing strategy
• Inbound content marketing
• Inbound marketing lead generation
• Inbound marketing best practice & ROI

1. 75% of inbound marketing teams believe their marketing strategy is effective (HubSpot)

Inbound marketing teams can measure effectiveness because their content production is super focused on target buyer personas. It guarantees that the right message reaches the right person at the right stage in the buyer journey. On the other hand, outbound marketing could bring in a huge range of potentially poor fit customers.

2. Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about 3 times as many leads (Demand Metric)

Inbound marketing is led by content, and the very practice of content marketing can brings in three times more leads than more traditional marketing.

3. Persona-driven content can increase the volume of Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) by 45% 

These numbers really speak for themselves. Personalisation is a huge trend in digital more generally, and inbound marketing really speaks to this by its very definition – mapping content onto personas and customer journeys is key.

4. 83% of online tech buyers found their vendor via Google search (MarketingSherpa)

Don’t underestimate the power of SEO and organic search. It’s easy to dismiss it as a channel and suggest your buyers aren’t the kind of people who find their technology vendors via SEO, but keep this statistic in mind.

5. 71% of B2B researchers start their research with a generic search (Think with Google)

If stat #4 above wasn’t enough, then check this out. Generic or non-branded Google Searches account for a staggering 71% of B2B research searches on Google. B2B researchers clearly begin very open minded – it’s your job to bring them in.

6. 63% of B2B Marketers believe video marketing is effective for their business (Top Rank)

We’re seeing video rise in popularity enormously and its a highly effective tool across the length of the buyer journey. It’s an engaging medium that allows you to get your message across with clarity and focus, and definitely is worth considering for your inbound strategy.

7. 67% of surveyed B2B companies rated Inbound Marketing as a top three or a very high priority component of their overall marketing strategy for 2015 (Kapost)

Whenever we see B2B marketers surveyed on their favourite tactics, inbound marketing regularly comes out on top and forms a continued investment within the wider marketing strategy.

8. Conversion rates are nearly 6x higher for content marketers (Aberdeen)

A solid content strategy can drive SEO acquisition and bring the right visitors to your site. But then it can support the rest of the buyer journey – including the consideration and decision making stages of the purchase journey.

9. 59% of marketers said inbound produces higher quality leads for sales (HubSpot)

We know that marketing and sales alignment is one of those hot topics, and those companies that do have marketing and sales closely aligned have been driving above average results. Turns out inbound marketing can be a real boost for your sales team too.

10. Average cost per lead drops 80% after 5 months of consistent Inbound Marketing (Eloqua)

The team at Eloqua, Oracle’s own marketing automation platform, have run the numbers and discovered a great case for inbound marketing ROI and the impact on lead generation in the medium to long term. Consistency is key.

11. 86% of highly effective organisations have someone in charge of content strategy (CMI)

We’ve already mentioned how content drives inbound marketing. Content strategy can be tricky, but it turns out that the marketers that think their marketing is most effective all rely heavily on solid content marketing strategy.

12. Mid-sized businesses save 31% on Inbound Marketing costs compared to paid search (Eloqua)

Personally we believe PPC can be part of your inbound strategy, but even still it turns out that businesses relying solely on more organic inbound marketing save 31% when compared to paid search tactics.

13. B2B companies with 250+ employees gave 55% of their marketing budget for content marketing creation (excluding promotion or paid distribution) (Kapost)

We’ve seen on a few other statistics above that the most effective marketers are continuing to invest heavily in inbound marketing. This survey found that over half of marketing budgets are being allocated to content marketing production and creation – before even considering ad spend to promote the content.

14. B2B companies that blogged 11+ times per month had almost three times more traffic than those blogging 0-1 times per month (HubSpot)

HubSpot are no doubt the kings of the Inbound Marketing Methodology, and with so many customers have some solid data at their fingertips. They found that solid content production is key to building up traffic, both from organic SEO and social media.

15. Businesses that use marketing automation to nurture prospects experience a 451% increase in qualified leads (The Annuitas Group)

Marketing automation is a hugely powerful way of scaling your marketing efforts. We’re a HubSpot Certified Partner but also work with platforms like Marketo and Pardot. They all have features which really help to drive marketing effectiveness, as we can see from this statistic.

16. 65% of marketers say link building is the most difficult part of SEO (Advanced Web Ranking)

SEO becomes ever more complex in 2019, but the inbound marketing approach means that share-worthy content is likely at the heart of your strategy. This means that if you produce useful, insightful, educational content that is genuinely of interest to your personas, you will probably be able to also start building up backlinks that benefit your SEO strategy too. Bonus!

17. 87% of B2B buyers trust industry influencer content more (DemandGen Report)

When you hear ‘influencer marketing’ you probably think of Instagram models selling tickets to Fyre Festival! But ‘influencer’ marketing can be hugely powerful in the B2B space too. Featuring industry influencer’s in your content through interviews and social media can provide a big boost in reach but also validate your business as trustworthy.

18. LinkedIn is still the favourite network for 93% of B2B marketers (Smart Insights & Clutch)

Who would have guessed it? LinkedIn is a favourite for B2B marketers. Interpret this two ways – first, it must mean they are getting results on LinkedIn. But secondly, surely that means there is lots of opportunity on other networks that have typically been considered more B2C? Time to think out side the box!

19. Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales ready leads at 33% lower cost (Forrester Research)

There is no doubt that lead nurturing is a key part of inbound marketing, and marketing automation can play an important role in making lead nurturing effective. It’s a fine balance – you don’t want to annoy people, but you want to stay in touch and front of mind whilst continually reinforcing yourselves as the thought leaders through your nurturing strategy.

20. Only 5% of adults strongly trust the content they see on social media (Pew Research Center)

We didn’t want to end on a low point, but in an age where trust is at an all time low in our world of fake news, AI and dodgy politics, inbound marketing can be your chance to break through the noise. Put the customer first and focus on providing value with well researched and credible content.

Want to know more? Read our CMO Guide to Inbound Marketing for B2B Tech Companies.