The More Things Change, The More Things Stay the Same Many developers are finding themselves under the gun, with more being expected of them in shorter amounts of time. Everything from new tools to new processes are now on the market, with the hope of making programming more efficient, more accurate, and more cost-effective.  CodeProject asked its developer community, “Is the process of writing software becoming harder and more complicated?”Survey Says...In the context of this survey, complicated was defined as requiring more pieces (build tools, deploy tools, different languages, multiple systems); harder was defined as each piece being harder to learn, [...]

D2D Advertising and Search If you are advertising to developers in developer-to-developer (D2D) communities, you may overcome their propensity to use ad blockers. But how can you use ads in D2D community websites and newsletters to influence search behavior? Fortunately, developer habits are in your favor. Web Search May Affect Your CTR So, what if your ad click rate is low? You’ve placed a link in a D2D newsletter, and a static ad on the D2D community website your audience loves. Don’t despair. According to our developer interviews, many developers will view an ad, but won’t click on it. [...]

It’s Not Just What You Say Developers are a skeptical technical audience. Sure, you can split hairs and say truthful things that are misleading by implication. But you do so at the risk of damaging your campaign and your brand. Learn what it means to have truthful developer advertising through and through. Use Straightforward Language According to our developer interviews, many developers like storytelling in advertising. It’s engaging and fun. As long as it is not disruptive, telling a quick, interesting story is welcomed. But make sure it is accurate and easy to understand. The developers you want to [...]

What Is A Developer Community? We’re defining a developer community as a place where developers congregate to build their skills, get questions answered, and share information to help other developers. If it sells advertising, it is probably not associated with a brand or vendor, but is associated with a particular application, language, tool or technology.  Because the strength of the community is based on the interaction between community members, we like to refer to these communities as developer-to-developer (D2D) communities. The Advantage Of Reaching D2D Communities D2D communities are popular with developers because they can share and obtain information [...]

Don’t Annoy Them The first step in attention-grabbing developer advertising is avoiding becoming an annoyance. Evans Data Corporation did advertisers a solid by asking developers about their biggest pet peeves in dealing with marketing materials. And, the winner is… targeting management, not developers. Almost as irritating? Invasive ads. (Like pop-ups!) What Does Grab Their Attention? It’s such a tired trope, but it is also so true. Location, location, location. In addition to targeted search ads, developers are highly likely to notice static banner ads. They aren’t invasive, and if you place them in an environment that developers trust (like [...]

Be Seen to Survive It’s simple. Brands that cut their budget during times of financial crisis shrink. Brands that invest in advertising grow. If you are trying to recession-proof your brand you can do it one simple step. Advertise.  Be the brand that developers continue to see. Rise to Top of Mind Maybe your brand is already top of mind for the developer. But if it’s not, a recession is an opportunity to get there. While other companies meet uncertain times with budget cuts or freezes to advertising and marketing, invest yours in developer advertising and marketing. According to [...]

Actions Speak Louder Than Words Demonstrations of any product, from vacuum cleaners to tools for AI developers, are always more powerful. However, with a technical and skeptical audience like developers, campaigns designed to show (and not just say) are essential. Advertising developer tools with any success means that ad campaigns will point developers to opportunities to try a tool. You Don’t Have to Give It All Away Maybe in the end, your ad’s performance will be measured in downloads. But you might get more if you offer developers a way to try a tool before a download. Documentation that [...]

Ads With Value Ok, besides entertainment value, can brands offer valuable developer advertising? Absolutely. When you use a developer experience (DX) mindset to inspire your advertising campaigns, you pay attention to the experience across your entire campaign. The DX mindset means that your campaign inspiration is to provide value. And for developers, value translates to “useful.” Put the “Use” in “Useful” Really, this is at the center of any developer-focused campaign. Developers appreciate information they can use to become better programmers. They are naturally curious lifelong learners and problem solvers. Ad campaigns that alert developers to specific information, tools, [...]