Just like any other curious marketer, I decided to a look at Hubspot’s latest “State of Inbound 2015.” This is a report that tracks the practice and adoption of inbound marketing by surveying marketers from over 150 countries. Looking through the results of the study we found a ton of interesting information. Most of the data included was in line with what the average marketer would expect, but in the spirit of Halloween, we are going to share some of the “scary” marketing stats that we found.
“Both inbound and outbound marketers rank paid advertising as the #1 most overrated marketing tactic.”
Both traditional and online advertising can fall into this category. Due to the difficulty in tracking ROI and effectiveness offline, I can see how traditional paid marketing could be overrated. In contrast, online advertising can be tracked, and when done effectively, is a very powerful tool driving new leads, reaching more customers and increasing revenue. Often companies have a difficult time with online advertising due to its challenging nature, and often give up too soon because of poor lead generation. Businesses must understand that some ad networks are inherently better for lead generation. The trick is identifying your target audience and then figuring out which platform best reaches them.
“29% of B2B marketers have challenges managing their website”
We come across this quite often at emagine and you would be surprised to learn that many companies are still not on a content management system (CMS). A CMS such as WordPress can really make managing a company’s website a breeze for marketers,because it allows marketers to focus on their content, not on the platform.
“Advancement up the corporate ladder correlates strongly with an increased favoring of inbound marketing tactics”
As much as I want to believe this, I really think this depends on the industry. Many of our client contacts that tend to fall outside the Executive position level really do see the value in inbound marketing but are constantly struggling to prove its ROI to the higher executives in their company.
“Unsuccessful sales teams are 2x more likely to use excel, outlook, or physical files to store lead and customer data.”
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? If you store your customer information in emails, excel spreadsheets and Google Docs that aren’t easily accessible, do you really have a customer base? Okay maybe that example is a little extreme, however ,without a customer relationship management system (CRMs) it can be really difficult to keep track of your company’s contacts, especially on a team with several sales people. Marketers and sales people alike are working very hard to generate leads and contacts, the last thing you want to do is lose track of them.
