For my next instalment in my Marketing and Sales 2017 statistics breakdown series, I am focusing on inbound marketing priorities and its challenges.
Over 70% of respondents worldwide stated that they primarily conduct inbound marketing. This shows a strong focus on inbound marketing across the globe, yet Asia showing the lowest percentage of inbound marketing priorities at 64%.
SEO and organic search presence are a higher priority, across all 5 geo-demographics surveyed, for inbound marketing projects (61%). Secondly, importance was placed on blog content creation (53%) and content distribution (47%).
It seems that companies are prioritizing SEO and content marketing in their inbound marketing projects and pushing freemium trails (6%), webinars (19%) and product how-to videos (24%) further down the priorities list.
Content creation roles (including visual, interactive and long-form) average 32% for priority.
When asked what they thought the most overrated marketing tactics were, the majority of respondents said traditional paid advertising (32%) which includes print, outdoor marketing, and broadcast. One respondent even commented:
"We are abandoning the broadcast channels era to enter and individual on-demand environment, where places and things that surround users will create more useful, relavent, and customized experiences"
Interestingly, sales enabling seems to be the least overrated tactic (3%) yet in my last article, it was one of the lowest scoring top priorities (29%) in marketing projects.
Although companies prioritize SEO and organic search traffic for inbound marketing projects, it is also one of their highest ranking challenges at 63%. Generating traffic and leads seem to be companies' top marketing challenges with proving the ROI of marketing activities next (40%) and securing enough budget (28%) in third place.
However, companies feel they are competent to train their team and hire top talent.
If you can't wait until my next Chart of the Day, you can view the full report online
By Carolanne Mangles
Carolanne Mangles Dig DipM is the Digital Marketing Executive for Click Travel, an award-winning corporate travel booking platform. She is a specialist in B2B SaaS and enjoys planning and optimizing the full customer journey across all digital channels to create brand awareness, great user experience and copy that really sells the benefits of the product. She was previously Digital Marketing Executive for Smart Insights where she was involved with multiple digital channels to manage fully integrated membership campaigns to boost new customer acquisition and current membership retention. She has spoken and given masterclasses at B2B Expo on Search and Content Marketing, holds an IDM award in GDPR and loves a glass of red wine. Connect with her on LinkedIn or follow her on Twitter.
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