According a new report released on eMarketer, inbound marketing efforts are driving leads in the most cost-effective manner. The report from Hubspot shows that companies who rely mostly on inbound marketing have a 62% lower cost per lead than those that rely mostly on outbound marketing efforts.
What is inbound marketing?
Inbound marketing is the art of being found by your customers. Traditionally businesses have targeted costumers through cold-calling, e-mail marketing, advertisements, trade shows, etc. Inbound marketing instead is built around developing great content and serving as an educational resource to potential customers and making them come to you. Read more about inbound marketing here.
Why is inbound marketing so cost-effective?
One of the reasons inbound marketing proves to be so much more effective is due to the process by which the lead is acquired. In inbound marketing as well as outbound marketing, it’s all a numbers game. The more names you call or e-mail, the better your chances of finding a potential lead. Similarly with inbound marketing, the more eyes you get in front of your content, the better your chances of finding leads. The big difference? Cost, people, & time.
With outbound marketing, every potential lead has a cost associated with it. Whether its the cost of a lead-list or a dial, there is a tangible cost. On the other hand, outbound marketing relies heavily on content creation and proliferation. One piece of content can be repurposed multiple times to be seen by thousands at a very low cost.
Blogs and Social Media make it easy
Blogs make it easy and cost-effective to house tons of content and social media makes it easy to reach the masses. Instead of touching one potential customer at a time, you can reach hundreds or thousands. The better the content and more meaningful, the better the reach.
Wanted to get started on content marketing? Check out this great post by Lee Odden on building a content marketing strategy.
