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  • šŸ 44: How to prove ROI of dev marketing programs, top-notch "jobs-to-be-done" blog post, and a classic campaign

šŸ 44: How to prove ROI of dev marketing programs, top-notch "jobs-to-be-done" blog post, and a classic campaign

Author

Jakub Czakon
November 05, 2023

Hey,

My sister made me a wooden dmpšŸ NFC business card and a phone holder. How awesome is that?

This week on the agenda:

  • How to prove ROI of (developer) marketing programs

  • Top-notch ā€œjobs-to-be-doneā€ blog post from WorkOs

  • Classic "Ask your developerā€ campaign from Twilio

  • + a few bonus links at the end

Ok, letā€™s go!

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Would be super grateful if you shared your thoughts.

Be as harsh, specific, and selfish in your suggestions as you can.

Developer marketing insights

1. Waste 50% of your budget to get more value from other 50%: ROI of (developer) marketing

Came across this quote from Rand Fishkin, the founder of Moz (OG SEO tool) and SparkToro (Really cool audience research tool).

Not many people get B2B marketing like he does.

And if he is fine with ā€œwastingā€ half of your budget on things you canā€™t prove to do 100% of things you believe in having the most impact perhaps you should be too.

But you do want to:

  • optimize impact within activities.

  • justify the budget for the activity or program

  • make an argument for spending 2x or 10x on something.

Or your CEO comes and asks you the all-dreaded question of ā€œWhat is the marketing ROI of this or that?ā€.

So how do you prove that ROI?

Recently I got asked this a few times and figured Iā€™d finally organize my thoughts in an article.

Here is a tldr:

  • You treat marketing programs (or campaigns) like a ā€œproductā€. And you measure ROI at a program level.

  • You optimize activities within the programs but donā€™t report ROI on activites.

  • You estimate the lower bound of program-level ROI based on meaningful outputs of that ā€œproductā€ like signups/demos/high-intent pageviews (pricing, terms of service, contact us etc)

I go deeper into all of these in the article. Super curious to learn what you think about it/how you approach it.

2. Jobs to be done blog post from WorkOS

This is how you write dev tool JTBD blog posts.

Masterclass of writing this type of content from WorkOS IMHO.

This deep 2000-word guide explains how to add webhooks the your application.

Goes into examples, best practices, everything.

One thing it doesn't do?

It doesn't push the product left right and center.

In fact, the only CTA is hidden in the very last sentence of the very last section.

Why?

Because most likely, the reader's intent is around understanding the problem at this point.

They want to understand what adding webhooks to their app really means from the practitioner's standpoint.

And they did that beautifully.

Could you have pushed the product a bit more? Sure.

But by answering the actual questions devs came here for they managed to build trust.

And I am sure got their fair share of click-throughs and signups anyway.

3. "Ask your developer" campaign from Twillio

Just wanted to share this classic dev tool branding campaign.

There is even a book about this from Jeff Lawson at Twilio.

But I recently saw someone share on HN that it got changed to "How can I reduce acquisition costs by 65%". Made me a bit sad.

But perhaps after years and years of working it stopped delivering any additional brand awareness/affinity.

Could they have come up with another flavor of "Ask your developer."?

Maybe. But maybe at their levels of mind share you are playing a different game.

The good thing is, you are not at that stage ;)!

And if you pull off something that is 1% of the success of that famous Twilio campaign you can make your brand noticed and remembered.

I know we are in the year of doing what brings results right now. And branding campaigns may not make the cut.

But maybe we can (and should) afford to do something that helps us deliver that pipeline next year or a year after that.

Need more developer marketing insights?

1. Work with me

  • I have a few slots every week for 60-min strategy sessions and longer-term advising. We can talk strategy, tactics, brainstorming, whatever you need right now. See how it works -> 

  • You can also promote your product/service/job in this newsletter. But I want to 100% make sure this will add value for the readers soā€¦ Letā€™s talk first ->

2. Join our Slack community

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3. Bonus links to check out

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