Unlike traditional marketing techniques like advertising and public relations, you can precisely measure the impact of inbound marketing tactics. Inbound marketing analytics provide the opportunity to fine-tune your process. You can do more of the tactics that work and refine or jettison tactics that aren't producing desired results. With that in mind, here are 8 inbound marketing statistics to keep in mind as you develop your integrated marketing strategy.

1. 89% of B2B and B2C purchasers use search engine queries to research purchase decisions

Source: Fleishman-Hillard/Harris Interactive 2012 Digital Influence Index

If you need a reason to start an inbound marketing program, here it is. It's the way people and companies buy today. It's important to sync your sales and marketing process to your customer's buying process to grow in today's economy. If you think that your customers aren't using search engine queries to buy your products and services, think again. A 2010 Google survey found that 42% of respondents shopping for financial products did their research exclusively online. If people are buying financial services online, I think it's safe to assume that they're looking for your solutions online. 

2. Companies spend an average of 10.6% of revenue on marketing and 2.5% of revenue on inbound marketing

Source: Gartner 2013 US Digital Marketing Spending Report

Inbound marketing budgets are up 9% in 2013. Companies are investing in digital advertising, content creation, and social media marketing. They outsourcing up to 50% of their digital marketing budgets to firms with inbound marketing expertise.

3. Companies that blog 15 times or more per month get 5 times more web traffic than companies that don't blog

Source: HubSpot's Marketing Benchmarks From 7,000+ Businesses

Blogging is the fuel that powers your inbound marketing engine. Once you've developed an inbound marketing foundation by developing ideal customer profiles, a keyword strategy and optimizing your web site for search engines, blogging is the tactic that drives traffic to your website. Successful inbound marketing programs require constant content creation. Outsourcing content creation to an inbound marketing agency is a good way to keep up with the demand when you don't have the internal resources to do so.

4. Companies that increase blogging from 3-5 times per month to 6-8 times per month almost double their leads

Source: HubSpot's Marketing Benchmarks From 7,000+ Businesses

Blogging that answers your ideal customer's questions and addresses their pain points not only increases website traffic, but it also increases inbound lead generation. Do you need any more incentive to start/increase blogging?

5. The average conversion rate of website visitors to leads is 1.6%

Source: Optify 2012 B2B Benchmarking Report

On average, B2B companies practicing inbound marketing generate 16 leads for every 1,000 website visitors. Email marketing was the most effective tactic, with a conversion rate of 2.89%. Referrals from other websites (incoming links) followed closely with a conversion rate of 2.0%. When calculating ROI goals for your inbound marketing efforts, 1.6% is a good lead conversion rate to assume. You can increase your ROI by doing more effective inbound marketing that is effectively tailored to your ideal customer profiles. For example, the 75th percentile of the Optify study produced a conversion rate of 3.34%. All things being equal, this higher conversion rate would more than double the ROI of the average.

6. Companies with 51-100 Twitter followers generate 106% more website traffic than those with less than 25 followers

Source: HubSpot's Marketing Benchmarks From 7,000+ Businesses

This is only logical - companies that are more active on social media are more successful with inbound marketing. They get more website traffic and generate more leads. The HubSpot study found that companies with less than 50 employees saw the biggest traffic gains from increasing their Facebook reach. Social media marketing is an effective equalizer for SMB companies competing with enterprise firms.

7. 24% of web traffic in Q1 2013 came from mobile devices

Source: Walker Sands Communications Quarterly Mobile Traffic Report

People are increasingly using mobile devices to research purchase decisons and make purchases. If mobile marketing isn't part of your inbound strategy, it should be. You should have a responsive website that formats properly for smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktops. Social media marketing is mobile by definition; all of the major social media channels have mobile applications that optimize your posts and content for mobile use.

8. 66% of companies don't test their inbound marketing tactics

Source: HubSpot's 2013 State of Inbound Marketing Report

Despite the fact that most internet marketing software offers A/B and multivariate testing, 2/3 of companies surveyed do not test their inbound tactics. Make sure that you measure, test and refine all of the tactics you employe in your inbound marketing. The ability to measure and refine your marketing is a key component of an effective inbound marketing program.

Summary

Statistics don't lie. The case for inbound marketing is closed: you must use inbound techniques to match your customer's buying habits. Inbound marketing enables small companies to play David to their larger competitor's Goliath. The inbound philosophy matches well with a lean, nimble strategy employed by a smaller company. Want to learn more?Schedule a free consultation with us.