Why Email Now? Believe it or not, email is 50 years old this year. Back in 1971, an engineer named Ray Tomlinson sent the first email, unknowingly starting a communications revolution. Billions and billions of emails later, email is still an effective advertising channel for targeted audiences. While it’s an attractive communications channel because it’s universally accepted, cheap and flexible, not long ago, email got a bad rap because of overuse. It became ubiquitous and easy to ignore (spam didn’t help). Anti-spam regulations and respect for customers now makes spamming practices less popular. Even developers respond well to direct email, [...]

Shiny, Happy Customers Close your eyes and imagine your ideal customers. Are they all the same? Are they all working on the same projects, developing the same code, and facing the same challenges and frustrations? Chances are the only thing your ideal customers have in common is that (in your mind) they need your product. The reality is that not everyone needs your product. It’s best to concentrate on those that have the need and those that have the need, but don’t know it. To bring these high-potential candidate customers into focus, you have to exploit their similarities and differences. [...]

Now, more than ever, people need to connect. In the world of software development, developer communities offer resources, forums to share code and ideas, discussions, training, reviews, and product information. They are platforms for people who share common interests, and are useful for advancing code, careers and communication. These communities enable developers to support each other, and by doing so, they enrich the community. When it comes to advertising to developers, these developer communities offer a contextual benefit on several levels. There is an element of confidence, knowing that you are improving your odds of reaching a customer because you [...]

First, Do Your Own Development Make sure you do the development involved in creating the developer persona(s) of the developers you need to attract. Understanding your audience is fundamental to successful developer advertising campaigns. Let’s look at three basic demographics using the Evans Data Developer Marketing Survey 2020 as a guide to provide baseline data. Education.  Of those surveyed, Over 70% had a bachelor’s degree or higher. While some people have a natural talent for understanding technology and software, the dynamic nature of the profession requires the developer to have a higher level of formal education to stay abreast of [...]

Developers are a particularly hard audience to capture with ads. Most of them know how digital advertising platforms work from a technical standpoint. As a result, they’re not particularly enthused when they find ads that don’t meet their standards. Yet, a truly great ad will definitely capture your target developer audience. Are your ads winning developers or losing them? You can improve your own developer ads by including these seven critical elements. 1. Authenticity  First and foremost, developers are skeptical of everything. It’s not because they’re paranoid, but because developers are usually scientifically-minded. The scientific mindset means that nothing is [...]

Go Where the Developers Are Capturing a developer audience requires first discovering where your ideal developer hangs out online, and then gaining their trust. You can accomplish both by sponsoring a developer podcast. Developers value commitment and transparency, alongside clean code (of course). You must be true to your brand and speak their language to gain their trust. There is no better way to communicate like a developer — without saying a word — than sponsoring a podcast. Why Sponsor a Developer Podcast? After a long day of squinting at code, developers welcome the break in screen time a podcast [...]

The Developer Experience Landing pages are critical to the success of your marketing campaigns, so let’s break their role in the developer experience down into stages to illustrate just how important they are. In Stage One, a developer’s attention is brought to your landing page link via an ad, or content with an embedded link. In Stage Two, the developer clicks the link and arrives at the landing page. Once they’ve safely landed, they view the content and decide whether to take the next major step, by committing with another click or giving up some personal information. In Stage Three, [...]

The Circle of Life Advertising The purpose of advertising is to motivate your audience to do something — specifically, to engage with your company and ultimately purchase your company’s products or services.  When this happens, your company will earn revenue, which will then trickle down into your paycheck, thus completing the Circle of Advertising. But that circle begins when your audience responds to your call-to-action (CTA). The CTA Your CTA is an often-overlooked imperative because it means that you need to think like a salesperson. The CTA is the digital marketing equivalent of “going for the close.” You’ve engaged your [...]

Action Equals Reaction There’s a natural tendency among marketers to have high expectations of their audience. With rose-colored glasses, and despite Newton's Third Law (for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction), we expect positive audience reactions to the content we deliver. The caveat is that it’s an equal and opposite reaction, not an equal and favorable reaction. The good news is that if you have content of value, most developers will provide their name and email, and with that, you have the opportunity to earn their trust — the first step in establishing a meaningful relationship. Let’s [...]