According to the ‘State of Inbound Marketing Report’ reported by HubSpot, inbound marketing is increasing at the expense of outbound marketing for 2010. Social Media, PPC, Organic SEO, and blogs, all part of the online media mix, seem to be increasing in value for lead generation for marketers more so, due to the increased success of the inbound marketing programs. Unfortunately, offline outbound marketing programs, which constitute trade shows, telemarketing, and direct mail are decreasing in budgets, due to the successes of online marketing generating quantifiable leads.
For 2010, outbound marketing budget expectations will be decreasing from 29% to 24%, but inbound marketing will be increasing from 38% to 34%. This is an important shift for lead generation channels, since the change marks a strong shift to online from offline. To see what works best for your marketing strategies, make sure that before you run out and spend a lot of money on social media and the other outbound marketing programs, make sure that your target audience is there and test each channel, before making a large investment.