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15 Facts About the State of Inbound That You Can't Miss

[fa icon="calendar"] 12-Jun-2018 10:00:00 / by Iliyana Stareva

state of inbound

Did you know that for 69% of marketers say that converting contacts/leads into customers is their top priority for the next 12 months? 

If your company is up-to-date with what's happening in our digital world, this shouldn't surprise you. 

But there are many more trends you need to be aware of and planning for if you want your business to be fit for the future.

I've said before that we at HubSpot love data and researchThe State of Inbound 2018 is our most comprehensive resource on the current state of inbound marketing, sales strategy and operations. It's designed to be your go-to resource for strategic data and in addition to the global report, it has specific reports focused on ANZ, Asia, France, DACH and LatAm. 

I went through the global report and I want to share with you today some of the most important stats in my opinion that you need to take into consideration when you're planning for the future. 

15 Facts About the State of Inbound That You Can't Miss

The State of Inbound Marketing

  • 74% of organisations globally conduct inbound marketing as their primary approach to marketing. (If you are not one of them, you should seriously ask yourself why.)
  • 69% of marketers say that converting contacts/leads into customers is their top priority for the next 12 months, followed by growing website traffic for 54% of them and increasing revenue from existing customers for 44% of them.
  • 61% of marketers mention growing SEO/organic presence as their top inbound marketing project, followed by blog content creation for 55% and marketing automation for 50% of them. 
  • 61% of marketers admit that generating traffic and leads is their biggest challenge, followed by proving the ROI of their marketing activities for 39% and securing budget for 27% of them.
  • 53% of marketers state that inbound marketing gives them higher ROI.
  • 45% of marketers are planning to invest in YouTube over the next 12 months, followed by professional networks such as LinkedIn or Xing (43%) and Facebook video (41%).
  • 30% of marketers say that paid advertising (print, outdoor, broadcast) is overrated. 

The State of Inbound Sales

  • 75% of organisations state that closing more deals is their top priority for the next 12 months. 
  • 40% of sales people admit that getting a response from a prospect has become more difficult in the last 2-3 years. 
  • 37% of sales people struggle with prospecting the most. 
  • 35% of sales people spend 31 to 60 minutes a day doing data entry or manual tasks, which most senior leaders underestimate.
  • 36% of sales people say the phone is the most successful channel to connect with a prospect followed by email for 30% of them but GDPR is going to complicate this.
  • 32% of organisations say referrals is their top source of leads which are also rated as the highest quality leads. 

The State of the Buyer 

  • 55% of organisations state that word of mouth (friends, social media) referrals is their top source of information when making business software purchase decisions, followed by customer referrals for 46% and media articles for 38%.
  • 83% of organisations prefer to communicate via email for business purposes.

I do recommend reading the full report and digging into the regional versions as well. 

 

What is your key learning from the State of Inbound 2018?

 

Topics: Inbound Marketing

Iliyana Stareva

Written by Iliyana Stareva

Iliyana Stareva is the author of Inbound PR - the book that is transforming the PR industry. She's also a keynote speaker and a consultant in inbound and digital for fast-growing companies and agencies. Currently, Iliyana is Chief of Staff to the EMEA President at ServiceNow. Before that, she held global and EMEA-wide positions at Cisco and HubSpot. She is also certified by the PMI as a Project Management Professional (PMP)®. In her free time, you can find Iliyana writing for her blog, dancing salsa or travelling the world.

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