We compiled important notes for marketers from HubSpot’s 2015 State of Inbound Report so that you don’t have to.

1. FROM THE 2015 STATE OF
INBOUND REPORT
3
MAJOR

2. State of Inbound Report
HubSpot recently released its seventh annual State of Inbound report. The report—which is
divided into marketing and sales sections—consists of 73 pages worth of insights, emerging
trends, and data illuminating the biggest challenges and missed opportunities in the world of
inbound marketing. Including data gathered from over 4,000 survey respondents across
more than 150 countries, the report serves as an accurate representation of the inbound
industry landscape as it currently stands.
We figured you might not have the time to read through 73 pages of material, so we did it
for you. Below, we’ve listed three of the biggest takeaways to note from the marketing
section of HubSpot’s 2015 State of Inbound report.
2

3. Marketers Around The World
Prioritize Inbound Marketing
3
1

4. Marketers Around The World
Prioritize Inbound Marketing
One of the most interesting takeaways we pulled from this year’s State of Inbound report is
that a whopping 75 percent of marketers worldwide utilize and prefer inbound marketing
methods to outbound. What’s more, this preference remains consistent across company
types, with inbound marketing appealing to three out of four marketers in B2B, B2C, and
nonprofit businesses. And though larger companies with bigger budgets to spend on paid
advertising continue to prioritize inbound and outbound marketing equally, inbound
continues to remain the core strategy of small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with 0-
200 employees.
4

5. Everyone Agrees: Paid Advertising
is a Poor Investment
5
2

6. Everyone Agrees: Paid
Advertising is a Poor Investment
Inbound marketers know that traditional
outbound marketing methods—such as TV
ads and billboards—are a poor investment.
But as it turns out, so do the marketers who
actually use these tactics.
Of the survey respondents whose companies
identify as outbound organizations, 32
percent cited paid advertising as the
marketing tactic they consider the biggest
waste of time. The graph below, pulled from
the State of Inbound report, shows that paid
advertising takes a commanding lead in the
list of most overrated marketing tactics,
followed by social media and email marketing.
6

7. Demonstrating ROI is the #1
challenge marketers face
7
3

8. Demonstrating ROI is the #1
Challenge Marketers Face
The State of Inbound report also showed that the biggest obstacle facing marketers is
demonstrating ROI to company executives. However, demonstrating ROI also proved to
correlate positively with a marketing budget increase, exposing a “catch-22” in the inbound
marketing world: Marketers need a bigger budget to better fund the activities that generate
ROI, but they need to be able to demonstrate ROI to get that bigger budget approved by
higher ups.
So what can marketers do? The key is to track ROI from the beginning (or start now!), which
will provide you with the proof you need to justify a future increase in budget. The report
showed that marketing automation software can play a big role in a marketer’s inbound
success, noting that marketers who saw a higher ROI in 2014 were more likely to have used
marketing automation software than not, and to see an increase in budget the following year
as a result.
8

9. Email: info@sevenatoms.com | Phone: 415.513.0435 | Website: www.sevenatoms.com
If you need assistance unlocking your own inbound marketing potential with an innovative
strategy or quality content production, contact us at SevenAtoms Inc.
Harness The Full Power Of Inbound Marketing
Contact us today for a free consultation
Get Free Consultation