The bottom line for any lead generation strategy is that it should result in a positive return on investment. One of the principal advantages of Internet marketing is that you can measure results easily. This is a big drawback of conventional marketing, since it is often difficult to isolate and measure the effects of marketing campaigns on sales. Inbound marketing drives sales leads to your lead capture forms and can directly measure:
If you sell directly online via e-commerce, then you have a direct measurement of sales performance to contribute to the calculation of ROI. Otherwise, you can associate sales lead conversions with sales performance, preferably using some form of sales force automation software. To compute costs, you should account for the personnel involved in inbound marketing plus any external costs such as software, website fees and any third party (outsourced) marketing costs. Thus for any period of time, you can measure ROI for your inbound marketing efforts.
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