Marketing to Developers Archives

Developers Reveal Their Biggest Challenges When Learning a New Technology or Framework

It’s Like a Tough Mudder For Their BrainsLife-long learners, yes. Thrilled with every step of the process? No. Modern developers notice the hard parts of learning just like everyone else. Because of the nature of their work, they have very specific challenges. Fortunately, these are challenges that technology, tool, and framework companies are well-poised to help them overcome. Yes, YOU can help a developer.Developer Media posed a very simple question on CodeProject.com:“What are the hardest parts of learning a new technology or framework?”Survey, says...Almost as many respondents (>40%) said that getting started with new tools, library managers, and build/deploy processes [...]

Developers Reveal Their Biggest Challenges When Learning a New Technology or Framework2023-03-06T10:09:54-05:00

The Secret to Technical Content Marketing Stardom

You are a consummate professional. You can create a content marketing strategy for all occasions — go to market, incremental growth, you name it. And you know how to get it done. You are getting it done, but it is taking more of your time than you thought, and resources can be scarce or unreliable. Particularly the human kind — the writers. Because your market is a skeptical technical audience, well, you can’t get away with faking technical expertise. But, technical experts with time to write are hard to come by — in or out of your organization. Practitioner [...]

The Secret to Technical Content Marketing Stardom2023-03-06T10:09:53-05:00

How to Produce Popular Developer Tutorials

Tutorials are by far and away the most popular technical content for developers to consume and share. So, clearly, if you are marketing to developers with any hope of success, tutorials are on your content marketing playlist. But they are also on your competitors’. So what does it take to make a popular developer tutorial? Thanks to Evans Data Corporation and their Developer Marketing 2019 report, we have 3 (ok, maybe 4) hot, hot tips. Lights, Camera, ACTION! So it helps if it’s a video, not too long, and with information that’s easy to find. Their survey indicates that developers [...]

How to Produce Popular Developer Tutorials2023-03-06T10:09:52-05:00

How to Select the Best Contest Platform Partner for Your Developer Challenge

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 [...]

How to Select the Best Contest Platform Partner for Your Developer Challenge2023-03-06T10:09:51-05:00

How to Produce the Best Public Documentation

A recent CodeProject survey showed that the biggest impediment to learning a new technology was poor documentation. When Evans Data Corp asked an even wider audience of developers why they had rejected proposed and even purchased tools in the last year, as many developers cited a lack of adequate documentation as did cite poor integration with their existing environment (28%). When the modern developer, IT professional, or DevOps engineer is trying to learn or evaluate a new technology or tool, public documentation is among the content they use to inform themselves. They also use public documentation to help them [...]

How to Produce the Best Public Documentation2023-03-06T10:09:50-05:00

5 Must-Haves For Developer-Friendly Advertising

Developers look for information much in the same way as any other consumer. They use search engines, peers, and social media. But unlike the average consumer, they also rely heavily on developer-to-developer (D2D) communities, and newsletters from these communities that alert them to technical content and news. Within the context of their D2D environment, they do consume advertising like banner ads. And, the good news is, they don’t necessarily hate advertising...provided it comes in a form they appreciate with information they can use. Thanks to our own anecdotal evidence from our what the developers say series and the good [...]

5 Must-Haves For Developer-Friendly Advertising2023-03-06T10:08:48-05:00

The 5 Most Popular Technical Content Marketing Topics of 2019

The Power of “Did You Know?” Without a doubt, developer marketers really want to understand developers: who they are, what drives them, what keeps them up at night. Based on our own blog traffic, they are also very interested in answering questions about the most effective content marketing strategies. We took a look at our page visits and content campaigns, evaluated what content marketers were most curious about in 2019, and considered what it might mean for 2020. #5. Show Me the Content! Our most popular content on ContentLab is the technical content itself. Unsurprisingly, technical content marketers are [...]

The 5 Most Popular Technical Content Marketing Topics of 20192023-03-06T10:08:46-05:00

The Importance of Generational Segmentation for Successful Technical Content Marketing

The Top Challenge for Technical Content Marketers When the Content Marketing Institute asked technical content marketers what their top challenge was in 2019, 68% said: creating content for multiple roles. Even tech content marketers who consider themselves extremely successful struggle (66% of top performers compared to 68% of tech content marketers overall). Identifying multiple roles, as an issue, is still ambiguous. This encompasses different responsibilities (managers vs. individual performers); different programming skill sets (front-end vs. back-end, for example), and different levels of experience. Experience often correlates to age (not always, but assuming a typical educational trajectory, more years since [...]

The Importance of Generational Segmentation for Successful Technical Content Marketing2023-03-06T10:08:45-05:00

Developer Advertising Strategy Principles

B2B Plus D2D Developers are fundamentally consumers like anyone else. Like other B2B audiences, they look for information about the tools they need through industry media and sites, search engines, peers, and social media. Within these sites, they spend a lot of time on developer-to-developer (D2D) communities. These can include communities built around technical discussions and articles (like CodeProject), or those built around an industry influencer like Alvin Ashcraft’s blog featuring curated content (Morning Dew). For brands to advertise successfully in these environments, it’s important to employ these developer advertising strategy principles. Advertising Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint [...]

Developer Advertising Strategy Principles2023-03-06T10:08:44-05:00

Tech Content Marketing Behaviors and Motivations by Generation and Experience

Generations and Years of Experience Many developer roles wind up influencing purchases when it comes to developer tools and platforms. Both age and years of experience as a programmer shape the lens through which developers perceive technical content. Unfortunately, sometimes we only have data for one or the other. So while generations refer to age (look here for the definitions of Boomers, Millennials, Gen Xers, and Gen Z, and why you should care), years of experience refer to how long someone has been working as a programmer. The two are often linked, but not always, and that is important [...]

Tech Content Marketing Behaviors and Motivations by Generation and Experience2023-03-06T10:08:43-05:00