Measuring the costs of acquiring leads through inbound and outbound marketing channels is important, but that information alone won't tell you whether inbound marketing or outbound marketing is more valuable for your business.
To get an accurate picture of how well any lead source is performing, you also need to know what quality of leads the source is producing. In this context, lead quality refers to the likelihood that a lead will actually make a purchase and become a customer. To incorporate lead quality into your evaluation, you need to use lead converstion rates to translate lead acquisition costs to the customer level.
I can illustrate how lead conversion rates impact lead costs with a simple example. The table below compares the acquisition costs of inbound vs. outbound leads at various stages of the lead-to-revenue cycle.
In this example, I'm using the lead stages defined by SiriusDecisions.
- Inquiries
- Marketing qualified leads (MQLs)
- Sales accepted leads (SALs)
- Sales qualified leads (SQLs)
- New customers
As the table shows, the cost-per-inquiry for inbound leads is significantly lower than for outbound leads. At $25.00 per inquiry vs. $41.50 per inquiry, inbound leads are about 40% cheaper than outbound leads. However, when measured on a "per new customer" basis (which is the most important number), outbound leads actually cost about 3% less than inbound leads.
I am not suggesting that outbound marketing is "better" than inbound marketing. The lead conversion rates used in my example are for illustration purposes only. In fact, research by SiriusDecisions indicates that inbound leads cost less and have higher conversion rates, on average, than outbound leads. The point here is that you can't evaluate the performance of inbound vs. outbound marketing until you measure lead acquisition costs at the customer level.
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We have many years of experience with both inbound and outbound. I suppose it depends on the end result your inbound and outbound create. In other words, our inbound creates significant per sale value and gross margin value. Our outbound produces much lower per sale value and much lower margins. This would depend on industry I suppose. Nonetheless, in our experience - with roofing leads, the inbound is manifold times better ROI, especially when combined as a referral.
ReplyDeleteDavid: Important concepts for marketers to think about here. Why did you choose to assume that outbound leads would convert at slightly higher rates? Is that simply for illustration purposes -- it COULD be the case, so marketers really need to check it out. Even though you concede that Sirius research finds that inbound leads do cost and less and convert more efficiently?
ReplyDeleteVince, Thanks for your comment. The conversion rates that I used for outbound leads in the post were for illustration purposes only. As I indicated, research by SiriusDecisions does indicate that inbound leads will usually convert at higher rates than outbound leads. The main point of the post is that lead acquisition costs must be translated to the customer level to be really meaningful.
ReplyDeleteI think it depends on the result which is provided by outbound and inbound leads.
ReplyDelete