Why Inbound Marketing Will Own 2012 [INFOGRAPHIC]

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In business, it’s all about the bottom line. In politics, it’s the economy, stupid. Right?

Sure, I’m oversimplifying a few things here… but that doesn’t mean the statements aren’t true.

What’s more, the bottom line and the stupid economy the top two reasons that 2012 is the year of inbound marketing.

Let me explain.

A new infographic from G+ confirms what we all suspected. The average cost of acquiring a lead through inbound marketing is 61% cheaper than getting one through outbound marketing. That means that businesses that are not engaged in inbound marketing are missing out on their cheapest lead source.

Not only are they paying too much for their leads, they’re leaving money on the table…

Because research has also shown that nearly ALL inbound leads have a higher chance of CONVERTING — i.e. becoming a customer (spending MONEY).

So, whether your looking to save money in this slow-growth economy, or boost the bottom line, inbound marketing is the answer.

I could break down all of the other reasons that inbound marketing is outpacing outbound, BUT I really don’t need to. You see, for most companies small and large, it’s all about the bottom line… or the economy. That’s far more persuasive than metrics about “reach” or “engagement.”

For years, we’ve known that inbound marketing channels like blogs and social media must sorta kinda work somehow… I mean, it only makes sense that “Likes” on Facebook MUST translate into sales at some point.

While most devout social media practitioners have insisted that engagement was CRUCIAL in a “macro” sense, they also ridiculed the attempt to measure the ROI of social media.

Here’s the thing, when something gets valuable enough, people with really big brains start to pay attention to it. Enter Google Analytics and the Social Data Hub.

It may be difficult to measure the ROI of inbound marketing… but it’s far from impossible. That’s why — and this is the biggest endorsement for inbound marketing I’ve heard yet — a whopping 47% of companies plan to expand their inbound marketing budget in 2012.

The second biggest endorsement is Google’s new Social Data Hub. The people on Google’s research campus are interested in social media marketing BECAUSE they know it’s worth a TON of money — not just for marketers and GooglePlus, but also for the entire social media economy.

Google doesn’t jack around with small potatoes; Google+ and the Social Data Hub are proof that it expects inbound to continue growing for the next several years.

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