Outbound Marketing The world has changed, and it’s time to take a fresh look at one of the simplest and most effective digital marketing tools in your toolbox — outbound marketing. The need is self-evident; the pandemic has effectively isolated people from normal channels of communication. It has also essentially eliminated two important avenues of communication: the trade show and the in-person sales meeting. While there are virtual trade shows and web meetings, neither replaces in-person.  With the shift away from contact marketing, outbound remains one of the best methods to reach and communicate with your audience. Outbound marketing [...]

Product Evaluation Preferences Evaluating a product for purchase is tricky business. As the cost and complexity of the product increases, so does the risk; risk of failure, embarrassment. Your reputation on the line when making a product selection, and decisions have to be made. So Code Project asked its developer community “How do you prefer to evaluate a product?” From a marketing perspective, there are a number of tactics you can use to promote a product for evaluation. In this survey, developers were presented with a list of common evaluation tactics and asked to rate them. Developers could choose [...]

Advertising Basics An advertising campaign is a primary method of delivering messages to your audience as a component of an overall marketing strategy. While advertising can mean many things, digital advertising is generally categorized as either paid or earned. Paid advertising is where you are paying someone for space and time. Earned advertising used to be called publicity — and basically, it’s “free” advertising, such as press releases or media coverage. With paid advertising, you have the advantage of controlling the duration and the frequency of opportunities for your audience to view your ad. Optimizing these two factors is [...]

So...You Are Planning A Developer Challenge Developers LOVE a challenge. New problems, new ideas, a chance for recognition, rewards, and to build something new and interesting. Giving developers a challenge that helps them learn to use your API, service, or tool is one of the most effective ways to build your brand, create buzz around a product, and foster developer community engagement. Partnership is More Than a Platform Once you’ve decided to run an online contest, the next step (and arguably one of the most important decisions you will make) is choosing the right contest platform vendor to partner [...]