Integrations: Simple Marketing for Developers

They feel and reason that because of companies who write "blog posts" in order to generate traffic and prospects. Nothing wrong with marketing, but the majority of developers, programmers, and engineers are sold on facts and not on copy. I'm not saying you are doing this, just stating my understanding of the subject.

>An interesting thing we discovered early on when building Zapier is that lots of companies have products that do one thing great, but could use some help in other areas. If your product can help that company do other things great and in turn help their customers be more awesome, then said company has a vested interest in promoting you.

This is called collaborative marketing. It doesn't work for competing products. Note that competing products does not refer to a product in the same industry as other. Might even be something completely different, yet competes for the same money. It is very hard to use collaborative marketing without dilluting your brand.

>Usually that means blog posts, announcements on email newsletters, mentions on twitter, and generally all that marketing voodoo that developers aren't nearly as good at when compared to writing code and making useful products.

Marketing is not voodoo. People who call marketing voodoo make other people think that it is hard. Marketing is pretty simple when you get down to the facts. It is about connecting prospective buyers with sellers. No voodoo with that. You mention utilizing written marketing tools, such as sales letter disguised as blog posts, newsletter and "tweets", but you don't mention what voodoo powers them. It is not voodoo, and its not even a secret. What powers those written marketing tools is one thing: Market knowledge. If you know who you are selling to, then selling becomes so much simpler. This also has to do with your line about "...making useful products." If you don't understand an industry well enough to sell something to it, then you won't build useful products. If a developers can build an useful product, then he/she can definitely market it as well.

>So the easy thing to do is pick out a company that likes to promote other services and aligns closely with the product you are building and make something that would be both useful to your customers and their customers.

Not so easy. Companies are not standing by waiting to promote their brand alongside yours. Companies do not like to promote other services, they like and well, only function to make money. If your product will make them money, guess what? You are leaving money on the table for them. These are predators. Not saying that it may not be useful for somebody out there, but experience has taught me that more is lost in these types of "deals".

>Keep in mind this isn't a magic strategy either. Sometimes getting a marketing or biz dev persons attention can be pretty tricky. Promoting 3rd party apps doesn't always get a lot of attention and tips@company_name.com isn't the most frequently checked email address.

It is tricky because they are focused on making money.

>Instead try getting a developers attention. Ask them a question about their API. Propose a new endpoint. Get a conversation going.

Basically find people who are naive and think marketing is voodoo.

>Then by the time your integration is good and ready you can simply ask the developer if they'd be willing to put you in touch with someone in charge of promoting 3rd party apps and usually they give you a nice warm juicy intro.

In my country this is called making the bed for someone else. By the time you are done with them they are already "asleep".

>Some places that are great to do integrations with are MailChimp or Google Marketplace.

Mailchimp is good for integrations because its a marketing channel.

>If you are interested in testing the integration waters with Zapier we'd be thrilled to have you as an integration partner. Fill out this quick form and we'll make sure to get in touch with you quickly about how to get started with an integration.

What is it that you offer that makes collaborative marketing with you an advantage?

>Final Note: We haven't had much luck with integration funds. Instead building something the end users want has helped us out the most. If anyone has had better luck with integration funds and found that a viable strategy leave a note in the comments.

Basically you talk about collaborative marketing, but then confess to not having much luck with it. Yes, building what people want is the best choice, unless you want to go broke. Simple. I dont get it. You are talking about marketing but are asking for help in the last sentence of the blog post.

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I have nothing against the people at zapier, but this blog post just promotes a negative side to marketing that is just not real. When will developers wake up and realize that marketing is not voodoo? When will you acknowledge the fact that if you learn marketing you will be unstopable? Hit the books people, and start learning.