“ Which is more costly for a company: inbound or outbound marketing?”

One estimate put the cost of outbound marketing at $332 per lead versus $134 per lead for inbound. The study was commissioned by Hubspot, an inbound marketing firm, so it should be taken with a grain of salt. I do think it's fair to say that outbound marketing is more expensive on a hard dollar basis if for no other reason than content creation costs have been dropping like a rock thanks to the internet.

There are, however, two expenses to be aware of though when it comes to inbound marketing efforts. First, time to market can be much longer (years, as opposed to days or weeks) with inbound marketing. It can take a long time for content to be distributed organically in such a way that it generates inbound leads. Second, marketers have much less precision with inbound marketing and must take a portfolio approach to the content they create for inbound purposes. Some content will works and some won't so you have to over-invest.