Hubspot's 2012 State of Inbound Marketing Report found that inbound marketing campaigns produce more leads at less cost.

Businesses using inbound marketing campaigns pay far less per lead generated than organizations relying on outbound marketing. According to Hubspot’s 2012 State of Inbound Marketing report, businesses spent an average of $135 per lead generated with inbound marketing, while those using outbound marketing paid more than $345 per lead.

Each of these figures are based on current industry trends. According to the report, both of these numbers are down from the 2011 study, which demonstrates that businesses are interested in spending and investing in new products and services.

Moreover, businesses using inbound marketing found that blog content marketing, social media marketing and SEO were the three channels that generated leads at a lower average cost, according to Hubspot. Many businesses use paid search companies, which can help generate traffic and web leads. However, Hubspot found that most organizations using paid search spent more on leads than those using other channels.

Brafton recently reported that SEO‘s effectiveness for lead generation has been demonstrated by a number of studies. B2B and B2C marketers alike said that SEO did more for their companies than paid search campaigns.

Joe Meloni is Brafton's former Executive News and Content Writer. He studied journalism at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and has written for a number of print and web-based publications.