Outbound Marketing in the Content Era Delineo June 2013

Outbound Marketing in the Content Era Delineo June 2013

Outbound marketing in the content era! The findings in this report highlight that content marketing is now an important marketing strategy due to the rising effectiveness of inbound marketing, which requires content to engage customers. Outbound marketing expenditure is decreasing but it is clear that some outbound channels still play a vital and effective role in the marketer s toolbox, particularly email.

The B2B buying process has changed! The way businesses buy has got more complex. Businesses are researching more, not just through online research, but through conversations with their peers and via content from thought leaders.! Consider these statistics, all looking at B2B buying behaviour:! 9 out of ten buyers say when they are ready to buy, they will find the company it needs.! 81% start the buying process with a web search.! Many buyers are 50-60% of the way into a buy cycle before they make contact with a company.! 84% say word of mouth recommendations influence their purchasing decisions.! 59% are engaging with their peers before making a buying decision.! 41% of businesses read content from thought leaders.! 48% follow business conversations on areas of interest.! 88% of business will consult or read a white paper the most consumed piece of content, but 60% of buyers are short of time, so concise content is key.! 75% of senior executives watch videos on business sites every week. Of these, 65% go on to visit the vendor s website after watching.! The way content is consumed is changing more content is searched via mobiles.! Not all content makes great content 75% of buyers want B2B marketers to curb the sales message.! And the numbers are worth taking into account outbound costs $364 per lead compared to $135 for inbound (see chart on next slide)! Having a robust database of your customers with actuate information is critical for B2B marketers.

Inbound vs outbound (B2B & B2C)! Inbound marketing channels are maintaining their low-cost advantage. Inbound marketing-dominated organizations experience a cost per lead 61% lower than outbound marketing-dominated organizations. (HubSpot, 2012)! The distribution of marketing budgets continues to shift to inbound channels. The difference between inbound and outbound marketing expenditures grew by 50% from 2011 to 2012. (HubSpot, 2012)

Inbound marketing is growing! A global survey from Hubspot reveals that B2B marketers are doing a lot more inbound marketing 38% more B2B firms embrace inbound strategies than B2C firms.! Main challenge for marketers is proving ROI of marketing activities, and for some there remains much difficulty in measuring the ROI of inbound marketing channels.

Inbound delivers for lead generation! Inbound marketing, led by social media and SEO, generate higher levels of lead generation, although email is not far behind.! Email, direct mail and trade shows are the most effective marketing channels when generating leads.! Telemarketing and traditional advertising generate almost half as many leads to inbound channels.

Average cost per lead: inbound vs outbound! Alongside social media, email marketing remains a highly effective tool when comparing the average cost per lead for different marketing channels.

Inbound marketing channels growing in importance for lead generation

B2B marketers leading shift to inbound

Outbound marketing channels still used! Outbound marketing can complement inbound marketing and often remains important for demand generation. Although there has undoubtedly been a clear shift to inbound methods due to the Internet, search engines and social media. A large number of major B2B inbound marketers are active outbound marketers as well.! Research suggests that email is still a highly valued outbound channels! Email:! Despite significant challenges from the likes of social media and inbox overload, email continues to be a critical weapon in the armoury of B2B marketers, according to a Benchmarking Report from B2B Marketing and Circle Research.! 70% of B2B marketers still regard email as either critical or very important while only four per cent regard it as not very important.! email is used by B2B marketers to achieve a number of different objectives although lead generation/ nurturing was the most popular, both in terms of overall use (78%) and highest priority usage (37%).! Only 17% of respondents said their email marketing was completely integrated.! Despite the extremely high level of measurability available on email marketing campaigns, only one in ten B2B marketers are able to measure ROI on all of their email activity.! For those marketers who can measure ROI on email marketing activity, 41 per cent describe it as excellent or good while a similar figure (42 per cent) regard it as average.! Although email may be a mature channel in B2B, investment in it will continue to rise, according to Circle Research.! 53% of respondents expect to increase their investment in email marketing over the next 12 months! 42% expect investment to remain constant only a small minority anticipate a decrease in spend! Increases in spend may only be modest: Only 13% said they would increase investment significantly, while 40% would increase email spend slightly.

Email delivers high ROI in B2B! US research finds that email marketing delivers the highest ROI for B2B marketers.! For customer acquisition, marketers report email (39.8%) as the tactic delivering the best ROI, followed by direct mail (19.4%), telemarketing (12.2%) and search engine marketing (9.2%).! For customer retention, respondents again cite email (53.1%) as having the best ROI. Telemarketing (14.3%) and direct mail (13.3%) are nearly tied for second.

Overall, outbound is less important! Research by HubSpot shows that outbound channels have become less important to marketers over the past few years as inbound marketing grows in adoption.

Lower spend on outbound marketing

B2B Content marketing! 91% of B2B Marketers and 86% of B2C marketers are using content marketing. (Content Marketing Institute)! Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about 3 times as many leads. (Demand Metric)! Almost three fifths (56%) of have seen content marketing boost sales (most of the remainder simply don t know the impact as measuring ROI is tough).! On average B2B marketers* use six channels to distribute content:! Most commonly this includes email (94% use), their website (87%), social media (83%), events (71%), their blog (62%) and one-on-one meetings (49%).! The two most effective channels are: one-on-one meetings (55% say this is very effective) and events (40%).! As noted earlier in the research from Earnest, B2B buyers are hungrier for information:! 78% are looking for information around their business challenge! 84% said Word of Mouth recommendations influence their purchase decisions! 58% engage with peers, 48% follow industry conversations, and 41% read research papers and postings from thought leaders

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