The famous report produced annually by Hubspot has just been released and it's packed with information.

Every year since 2008, publisher Hubspot, inventor of the Inbound Marketing methodology, has published an extensive survey featuring responses from more than 4,500 digital marketing professionals in 132 countries.

The results of this in-depth survey provide insight into the priorities established, challenges identified, tactics developed and results achieved in the industry.

The results of this survey provide insight into the priorities established, challenges identified, tactics developed and results achieved in the industry.

The results of this in-depth survey provide insight into priorities set, challenges identified, tactics developed and results achieved in the industry. 

1 - Marketers' priorities are sometimes too far removed from consumers

In 2016, marketers' top concern (74%) is to convert the visitors they attract to their company's website into leads and customers.

This is followed by increasing traffic (57%) and increasing revenue generated from existing customers (46%) through upselling.

So the watchword seems to be "keep the lead generation engine running." 

To achieve these results, they rely mostly on heavy efforts in SEO (66%) and creating content for their blog (60%).

Yet, a Hubspot survey of consumers conducted in early 2016 would seem to indicate other priorities.

43% of Internet users say they only "skim" the content published in blogs, which only 29% read carefully. Conversely, they pay close attention to videos, publications on social-media and news. 

To meet these needs, marketers are therefore well advised to invest more resources in diversifying their content by making maximum use of multimedia.

They should also make sure to publish easy-to-consume blog posts with short, punchy information through infographics for example.

2 - The challenge of traffic acquisition in the face of the explosion of social networks

Since 2013, the first challenge for marketers was to demonstrate the ROI of their actions. Indeed, it was the unavoidable condition to obtain more budgetary and human resources. 

Good news, this concern is now only second in 2016! Now, a large majority of respondents (65%) have as their main mission to generate traffic and leads.

It would thus seem that company managements have finally understood the major strategic interest of prioritizing investments on SEO and CRO and are allocating substantial budgets in this direction.

Yet, digital marketing professionals should extend their strategy beyond just their website.

Internet users are indeed consuming more and more content via social media. According to a Hubspot Research study, the increase is 57% for Facebook, 25% for Twitter and 21% for LinkedIn over the past 2 years. 

This trend of "decentralized" content sources is therefore forcing marketers to diversify their publishing channels.

3 - Inbound Marketing, winning strategy for 2017

To the question "Do you think your organization's Marketing strategy is effective?", the 61% of respondents say no!

That's an impressive number. 

Interestingly, of the 39% who are satisfied with their Marketing strategy, they are four times more likely to be satisfied with those who have adopted an Inbound Marketing approach (81%) than those who have opted for Outbound Marketing (18%).

Here are the results we get when we cross-reference the questions "Which strategy brings the best quality leads to your salespeople?" and "Do you think your marketing is effective?"

Whether or not the respondent finds their strategy effective, they believe that Inbound Marketing is the most effective solution for generating quality leads. 

In general, respondents (66%) consider that the alignment between Marketing and Sales departments is better thanks to Inbound Marketing.  

4 - Calculating your ROI usually results in more budget

Here are the results of the question "How has your Inbound Marketing budget evolved in recent years?

There is a much clearer increase (60%) in budgets in organizations that calculate their ROI. 

When marketers in organizations that calculate their ROI are asked about the reasons for these increases, 58% say it is a direct result of results from previous years.

So it appears that the Inbound Marketing approach is increasingly winning over companies. At the same time, there is a steady weakening of Outbound techniques.

Here are the responses from organizations (working inbound or outbound) when asked which techniques are most outdated for generating leads in 2016.

Even companies working primarily in Outbound are no longer convinced by their own choice! 

We've outlined the four challenges that we felt were key in this valuable "State of Inbound 2016" report. 

We encourage you to download the entire document to draw your own conclusions!