Technical and Marketing Communication: Content for a Convergent World

Here are some interesting statistics, from Inbound Marketing University, coordinated by HubSpot. Use these stats to make the case for inbound marketing, if you have a boss who needs convincing, or review for yourself, if you’d like to better understand what’s driving new media.

Make sure to check out these excellent resources on inbound marketing, available through HubSpot Inbound Marketing’s Presentations on SlideShare and the Inbound Marketing Wiki. HubSpot has also set up a related LinkedIn Group: Inbound Marketers – For Marketing Professionals.)

How to Blog Effectively for Business (GF101) Professors: Ann Handley & Mack Collier
Source: e-Marketer:

• In 2008, 45% of the US internet population read blogs on a monthly basis.
• In 2013, 58% of the US internet population is projected to be reading blogs on a monthly basis.
• In 2008, 13% of the US internet population created or maintained a blog.
• By 2013, 17% of the US internet population will be blogging.
• By 2013, 128 million people in the US will be reading blogs on a monthly basis. (50% increase over current levels.)
• By 2013, 38 million people in the US will be blogging. (50% increase over current levels.)

SEO Crash Course to Get Found (GF102) Professor: Lee Odden, TopRank Online Marketing

• Daily newspaper circulation 48.4 million Source: Audit Bureau of Circulations & Pew
• 285 million watched TV monthly Source: Nielsen A2/M2 Three Screen Report 
• 14 billion core searches monthly Source: comScore Media Metrix
• Market distribution of the major search engines Google 63.7% Yahoo! Sites 20.5% Microsoft Sites 8.3% Ask Network 3.8% AOL 3.7% Source: comScore April 2009
• SEO “is the most effective Online Marketing tactic for generating conversions.” Source: Forbes Ad Effectiveness Survey June 2009
• Organic Results: “These are the ranked results from Google’s index of web pages. Approx 60-70% of visitors will click on these links. Called “natural” or “free” listings because there is no direct payment to Google for them.”

Successful Business Uses for Facebook and LinkedIn (GF202), Professor: Elyse Tager, Silicon Valley American Marketing Association

• LinkedIn “Over 41 million members in over 200 countries and territories around the world.”
• “A new member joins LinkedIn approximately every second, and about half of our members are outside the U.S.”
• Facebook: “20 million active users 100 million users log on daily. 600K new users daily. 3rd most trafficked website.”
• Facebook: “Fastest growing demographic = age 35+.” 
• Facebook: “More than 4 million people become fans of pages daily.”

Viral Marketing and World Wide Raves (GF301) Professor: David Meerman Scott, author of New Rules of Marketing & PR and World Wide Rave

• Orlando Universal Resort’s Cindy Gordon started a World Wide Rave for The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, inviting seven influential Harry Potter bloggers to view a midnight webcast with Stuart Craig (set designer for Harry Potter and the Sorcer’s Stone).   7 people grew to 350,000,000 in just 24 hours.   
• Dr. Helane Smith, a Boston dentist, spent $2000 a month on yellow page advertising, prior to her viral marketing ebook, “Healthy Mouth, Healthy Sex.” Two and a half years later, her $150,000 a year business is now a million dollar annual revenue business.

Advanced SEO Tactics: On Beyond Keyword Research (GF401) Professor: Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz
SEOmoz Research on Several Hundred Search Result Sets Conducted Feb-May 2009
Expert Opinion: Relative Importance of Algorithm Components in Google

• 25% Trust and Authority of Host Domain
• 22% Link Popularity of Specific Page
• 20% Anchor Text of External Links
• 15% On-Page Keyword Usage
• 7% Traffic & CTR Data
• 6% Social Graph Metrics
• 5% Registration and Hosting Data

Calls to Action and Landing Page Best Practices (CV101) Professor: Jeanne Hopkins, MECLABS, Marketing Experiments

• By optimizing the call to action and landing page, with a focus on how the offer is displayed, Marketing Experiments measured an increase in conversions of 64%, and an increase of orders of 65%.
• In the second major test, Marketing Experiments tested the regular paid-up front offer against a 7 day free trial to see if optimizing could convert more customers to paid subscribers. By reducing anxiety, the free trial converted 541% better than the standard paid-up front offer. By removing the prepaid options and deemphasizing the paid nature of the offer, customer anxiety was reduced enough to compel more than 5X as many customers to complete the subscription process.

Inbound Lead Nurturing Professor, Brian Carroll, CEO InTouch and author of Lead Generation for the Complex Sale (McGraw-Hill 2006)

Lead Nurturing Case Study  #1

• Majority early stage leads actively nurtured – Grew from 0% to 60%.
• Improved lead-to-sales opportunity rate – Grew from 4% to 12%.
• 200% more opportunities in sales pipeline.

Lead Nurturing Case Study  #2

• 88% of early stage leads actively nurtured (none before).
• 3+ contacts engaged per company (200% Increase).
• 8 touch points per contact (300% increase).
• 89% increase of lead-to-sales pipeline conversion rate.
• 7% Lead to Sales Conversation Rate (75% increase).

Successful Email Marketing (CV301), Professor: Eric Groves, Constant Contact 

• “91% of Internet users between the ages of 18 and 64 send or read email.”
• “An even higher number of users ages 65 or older do the same.”
• “147 million people across the country use email, most use it every day.”
•  …direct mail costs 20 TIMES as much as email (Forrester Research, Inc.).
• Email ROI is the highest when compared to other internet marketing mediums (Direct Marketing Association).

Analyzing Inbound Marketing (AZ401), Professor: Marshall Sponder, Monster.com, Web Analytics Association for Social Media

• “Search engine traffic accounts for anywhere from 50-70% of an established website’s traffic.”
• 78% of search engine visitors for Marshall Sponder’s blog click the back button immediately after reading one article. Unless they feel very strongly about something in the article, they are unlikely to participate beyond that.

Related Links

• Inbound Marketing University: Kudos to HubSpot
• Inbound Marketing University: Getting Found (GF101, GF102, and GF 201)
• Inbound Marketing University: Getting Found (GF202, GF301, and GF401)
• Inbound Marketing University: Converting Leads (CV101, CV201, and CV 301)
• Inbound Marketing University: Analyzing Site Traffic (AZ401)