Think about this: By 2020, customers will manage 85% of their relationship without talking to a human. (Gartner Research)
Inbound marketing is a sleeping giant that is quickly on the rise. Don’t believe me? The number of marketers who state they are practicing inbound rose from 60% last year to 85% this year, while the percentage of marketers who concede they don’t run inbound was nearly halved to 13% (HubSpot).
These inbound marketing statistics not only point to what you need to be doing, but are also great conversation starters around the water cooler!
Lead Nurturing
- Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales ready leads at 33% lower cost. (Forrester Research). click to tweet
- Companies who are marketing automation high performers have a lead-to-sale rate 1.6x the rate of their competitors. They also have a 1.4x better customer acquisition cost. (PR20/20) click to tweet
- Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads. (The Annuitas Group) click to tweet
- 50% of consumer time online is spent engaging with custom content. (HubSpot) click to tweet
- Nearly 70% of businesses are either using a marketing automation platform or implementing one. (Aberdeen Group) click to tweet
- 67% of B2B marketers that use lead nurturing see a 10% or greater increase in sales opportunities throughout the funnel; 15% see opportunities increase by 30% or more. (DemandGen) click to tweet
- 75% of companies using marketing automation see ROI in just 12 months. (Focus Research) click to tweet
- Companies who use marketing automation convert 53% more leads to marketing qualified leads, and report revenue growth 3.1% higher than non-users. (Aberdeen Group) click to tweet
- 63% of companies growing faster than their competition use market automation. (The Lenskold Group) click to tweet
Lead Generation
- 66% of buyers agreed that the winning vendor provided higher-quality content and 63% said the winning vendor’s content was more conducive to building a business case for the purchase. (DemandGen) click to tweet
- The top 3 content formats that B2B buyers seek out to research a purchase decision include: Whitepapers (78%), Case Studies (73%), and Webinars (67%). (DemandGen) click to tweet
- 80% of business decision makers prefer to get information in a series of articles versus an advertisement. (Exact Target). click to tweet
- Inbound marketing costs 62 percent less per lead than traditional outbound marketing. (Mashable) click to tweet
- Inbound practices produce 54% more leads than traditional outbound practices. (HubSpot) click to tweet
- 61% of consumers say they feel better about a company that delivers custom content and are also more likely to buy from that company. (Custom Content Council). click to tweet
Email Marketing
- The average email list deteriorates 25% per year. (HubSpot) click to tweet
- In 2014, email marketing was cited as the most effective digital marketing channel for customer retention in the United States. (eMarketer). click to tweet
- Saturday has the highest CTR at over 9% (Sunday is second just under 9%). (HubSpot) click to tweet
- “Click Here” gets the highest % of clicks over “Go” and “Submit.” (HubSpot) click to tweet
- Most email unsubscriptions come on Tuesdays (0.52% unsub rate). (HubSpot) click to tweet
- 6:00am has the highest email CTR of any hour. (HubSpot) click to tweet
- “Secrets” is the most clicked lead nurturing subject line word. (HubSpot) click to tweet
- 81% of US digital shoppers surveyed said they were at least somewhat likely to make additional purchases, either online or in a store, as a result of targeted emails (Harris Interactive). click to tweet
SEO
- Visitors spend only 10 seconds on your homepage before leaving if they don’t immediately connect with your marketing messages. (Microsoft Research) click to tweet
- 93% of buying cycles start with a search online. If your company shows up high in the search results, or is active on a searcher’s social networks, you’ll get free brand awareness. (Marketo) click to tweet
- 68% of all organic clicks go to the top three search results. (eConsultancy) click to tweet
- 75% of search engine users never scroll past the first page of search results (HubSpot). click to tweet
- 87% of people today use a search engine and 78% use it to do searches for products and services (HubSpot). click to tweet
- SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate whereas outbound leads have a 1.7% close rate. (HubSpot) click to tweet
- Websites with 51 to 100 pages generate 48% more traffic than websites with 1 to 50 pages (HubSpot). click to tweet
Mobile Optimization
- 54% of consumers believe that it is easier to find information on mobile-optimized sites. (ExactTarget, 2014 Mobile Behavior Report) click to tweet
- 27% of consumers will leave a site if it is not mobile-optimized. (ExactTarget, 2014 Mobile Behavior Report) click to tweet
- 37% of consumers are more likely to purchase on a mobile-optimized site. (ExactTarget, 2014 Mobile Behavior Report) click to tweet
- Mobile Googling alone will exceed over 27 billion search queries by 2016 globally (Infographic Design Team). click to tweet
- 50% of all mobile searches are conducted in hopes of finding local results, and 61% of those searches result in a purchase. (Search Engine Watch) click to tweet
Blogging
- Companies that increase blogging from 3-5x/month to 6-8x/month almost double their leads. (HubSpot) click to tweet
- B2B companies that blog only 1-2x/month generate 70% more leads than those who don’t blog. (HubSpot). click to tweet
- Brands that create 15 blog posts per month average 1,200 new leads per month. (HubSpot). click to tweet
- Blogs give websites on average 434% more indexed pages and 97% more indexed links. (Inbound Writer). click to tweet
- Marketers who have prioritized blogging are 13x more likely to enjoy positive ROI. (HubSpot) click to tweet
- 82% of marketers who blog daily acquire customers from their blog. (HubSpot) click to tweet
- 95% of small businesses view blogging as an effective marketing technology tool–second only to email marketing. 15% say blogging is most effective at engaging existing customers; 11% value it more for attracting new customers; and 69% say blogging is equally effective for both objectives. (e-Strategy Trends). click to tweet
- Companies that blog generate 126% more leads than those that don’t. (HubSpot) click to tweet
Social Media
- Tweets posted around 4 p.m. Eastern time tend to get more retweets than those posted at other times. (HubSpot) click to tweet
- 84% of B2B marketers use social media in some form. (Aberdeen) click to tweet
- 82% of buyers say they trust a company more when its CEO and senior leadership team are active in social media. (War of Words: Myth-Busting Social Media, SEO & Content Marketing) click to tweet
- 78% of small businesses attract new customers through social media. (Relevanza) click to tweet
- Tweets with images receive 18% more clicks, 89% more favorites and 150% more retweets. (Buffersocial) click to tweet
Don’t forget to tweet these 50 inbound marketing statistics! Learn more about inbound marketing with this guide to traffic, leads and sales.
Image courtesy of Brian Smithson on Flickr.
