How much does our company need to spend on Inbound Marketing and what results can you expect to see in return? And how quickly?
Below are some broad guidelines on levels of effort and budgets upon which you can base your planning. You can of course plug in your own team members for hours wherever possible and more over time as they learn the ropes.
Return on Investment depends on your products and market. Selling a $10 widget to a global marketplace is very different from selling a $100K product or service to a narrowly defined region or demographic. The markets themselves will also differ in the levels of effort and kinds of inbound marketing tactics needed to move the needle. With that disclaimer out of the way, let's dive in.
The different dollar amounts applied to inbound marketing quoted in the table below reflect different timeframes for reaching your revenue goals:
1.Maintain - Over a period of 6-12 months from start of operations, you can expect to increase your website traffic and leads steadily over time. Very few, if any, new customers from inbound marketing.
2.Growth - Over a period of 6-12 months from start of operations you can expect 300-600% growth in traffic and leads. 2-3% visitor-to-lead conversion rates, 5-20% lead-to-customer conversion rates. You can expect positive ROI towards the end of this period, depending on your product and market.
3.Explosive - Over a period of 3-6 months you can expect dramatic increases in traffic and leads, in excess of 800-1000%. Visitor-to-lead conversion rates in excess of 5%. Lead-to-customer conversion rates in excess of 30-40%. You can expect positive ROI within this period, depending on your product and market.
Inbound Marketing is the most effective and least expensive way to market today. Or you can go back to what you were doing. But how's that working out for you? Businesses today find they are losing market share to their competitors who ARE doing inbound marketing.
Sources: Dan Zarella at Hubspot and John McTigue at Kuno Creative.
Bay Area Inbound is a full-service Inbound Marketing Agency that specializes in generating the leads your company needs to significantly increase revenue. We are a proud reseller of Hubspot Inbound Marketing Software.
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