Defining the Target Audience Where does the developer audience fit in the B2B world? While many of the attributes of the B2B, B2C and B2D markets overlap, there are significant differences which should be taken into consideration when developing your marketing and sales strategy targeting developers. You may think that marketing to B2B consumers would be considered a more personal interaction since you are appealing to them on a highly emotional level, but because those sales are more transactional (low cost and high volume), a personal relationship is never fully developed.  In contrast, in business sales to developers, the [...]

Attention: Marketers, Content Managers, Creators On August 28, 2022, Google began rolling out a “Helpful Content Update,” which is a new method they are using to evaluate content and the way web pages are ranked. Google is using this to improve results for searchers so they can find helpful, original content, as opposed to content which is posted for the sole purpose of ranking high in search results. The rollout will start out with English language web pages, and is expected to take two weeks to complete. This new update is intended to support Google users with more original [...]

Advertising and Search Advertising and search should be viewed as complementary tactics which can be used to move your target customer from peripheral interest to purchase-ready. Using the Attention – Interest – Desire – Action (AIDA) funnel as a guide, we can see how both fit into the buyer’s journey. The AIDA funnel encapsulates a process; its steps are tunable filters designed to qualify and nurture. By customizing the four filters in the funnel for developers (as we have below), you can achieve your campaign goals and address the needs of your developer audience. Funnel Vision The function of [...]

Why Bother Advertising? Humans rely on repetition to learn, and successful advertising is all about frequency and repetition. Promoting your brand through advertising is a core function of marketing. Iconic brands like Apple, IBM, Nike, and Coca Cola earned their status by curating their brands through consistency and by maintaining a presence in front of their audience through advertising. Uber-icon brand status is achieved when the brand becomes genericized (think products like Kleenex, Xerox, and Coke).  However, genericized status is not necessarily a good thing. What’s important to recognize is that advertising is necessary for the success of your [...]

Introduction Email remains an important and effective means of connecting with your audience. Email is so ubiquitous that constructing a promotional email may seem like a no-brainer. But if you’ve fallen into a rut and your latest emails have not generated the expected results, it may be time to review some email content creation fundamentals, and consider some alternatives to what you’ve been doing. Defining Your Audience Targeting developers? Which ones? Front-end, back-end, UX, UI? While your product may be applicable to all developers, perhaps there are incremental benefits to a subset of developers who can be micro-targeted with [...]

Cutting Through the Clutter You may live with clutter in your house, garage, or cell phone (overwhelmed by notifications?), but the clutter that’s most concerning to marketers is the advertising clutter competing for the attention of the developer audience. How do we cut through the clutter? By rising above it. We rise above the clutter by offering solutions to their problems in a context which supports credibility. We create a connection with the developer that is built on trust — the essence of successful email marketing. Creating the Connection According to the Evans Data Corporation Developer Marketing Survey 2020, [...]

All Together, Now... How do you feel about harmony? Are your marketing efforts in coordination, exhibiting uniformity, and are they immediately recognizable by your developer audience? Do you end each workday in deep satisfaction knowing your systems are in balance? When you consider your advertising in the context of harmony, do the elements support each other to deliver a message that is recognized, accepted, processed, and engaging to the viewer? If the answer to any of these questions is a defeated, “No,” or if your advertising results do not meet your expectations, perhaps something is in discord. Let’s start [...]