It can be difficult to prove marketing ROI, but there are ways to show that your marketing investment is resulting in greater brand awareness, increased engagement, and leads for your sales funnel. Sheetal Prieto, Strategic Marketing Manager for Epson, offers advice on how to evaluate marketing campaign performance.
DevPro Journal: How can ISVs collect and analyze data on their marketing campaigns?
Sheetal Prieto, Strategic Marketing Manager, Epson: When launching a new marketing campaign, it’s essential to first define the metrics you want to track and measure. Are you looking to increase website traffic? Improve your search engine results? Gather leads? Once your goals are defined, enlist the help of a simple service such as Google Analytics to collect and analyze data for all of your digital campaigns.
DevPro Journal: Which metrics are most important to track?
Strategic Marketing Manager,
Epson
Prieto: The end goal of every marketing initiative is to translate that initiative into sales revenue. With that in mind, a key metric to track is Cost Per Lead (CPL). To calculate your CPL, take the total amount spent on a specific campaign (i.e., social media), and divide it by the number of leads. While it is important to track CPL across the board, it is especially relevant when your campaign messaging has a call to action.
You’ll also want to keep an eye on overall customer response rate to determine how many people are responding to your company’s communication efforts.
Though less tangible to measure, brand awareness is also a significant metric for a marketer to watch. Monitor highs and lows in your website traffic, conduct customer surveys and pay attention to the buzz around your booth at tradeshows.
DevPro Journal: How do you measure success?
Prieto: To be truly successful, you will need to stay involved and keep your plan fluid. Marketing plans are constantly evolving based on their success. After launching your campaigns, take time to evaluate them on a monthly basis. If a program isn’t working, try altering your message or shift those funds elsewhere.
When it comes to measurement, follow your leads down the funnel. How many leads are converting into Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL’s)? Take it a step further and analyze your MQL to SAL (Sales Accepted Lead) conversion rate. What initiative provided the most SALs at the most effective CPL? Do more of that.
DevPro Journal: What advice can you offer ISVs that want to increase their marketing activity?
Prieto: For an ISV, the importance of collaborating with partners cannot be overstated. Work with hardware manufacturers to explore co-branding opportunities to offer an all-in-one solution. This results in a stronger message (backed by a partnership) and will likely be more economical than going at it alone.
Next, invest in content marketing. Devoting dollars to demonstrate that your company is a thought leader will go miles in building a reputable name for yourself. By providing a wide variety of educational resources to your potential customers, you are not only investing in your customers, but also yourself.
Lastly, don’t be afraid to try new things. The adage, “Throw it against the wall and see if it sticks” is completely applicable when it comes to marketing. How will you know if it works, if you don’t give it a try? 
Sheetal Prieto is the Strategic Marketing Manager for the Business Systems and Robots teams at Epson America. In her role, she sets overarching marketing strategy and helps execute implementation. Prior to her start at Epson, Sheetal spent the majority of her career in various marketing roles at Yamaha with the Professional Audio Group. Sheetal received her B.A. in Communications, with an emphasis in Advertising, from Cal State Fullerton. She is a lover of music, sports, travel and family.
