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Comment by caseysoftware | Hacker News Reader

I think it goes back to what Rob highlights in the post.. the bad marketing is what sticks out. When we think of marketing, we think of booth babes, commercials with bad actors saying awkward things, and airheads who don't understand their business or product.

The best "sales" guy I ever met was a guy who just stopped and listened. He would ask a few questions, work to understand the underlying problems, and if he couldn't help directly, he'd put you in touch with someone who could.. and then buy a beer the next time he saw you.

I believe marketing should be the same way.

(Disclosure: I report to the OP at Twilio.)

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When we think of marketing, we think of booth babes, commercials with bad actors saying awkward things, and airheads who don't understand their business or product.

That's covered under points 1 and 2 in the article. I found GoDaddy's "informational" videos to be even worse than the ads (at least the ads were just driving traffic, but the videos were incredibly condescending and treated the models as furniture). But I know that those were A/B tested with a lot of variations, and conversion is highest with "booth babes" and saying awkward things.

What's more--bad software marketing is SOOOO bad! Think of all that "cloud" marketing that is full of empty lies. Developers don't want to see that. It's such a frustration. I agree with the sentiment-- if you're a marketer, try to code something --or better yet, just download your product you're trying to sell. You need to empathize with your customers a bit to understand how they can get to your product.

You're entirely right, the good sales person and the good marketer spark the conversation and keep it going. They shouldn't be the dominant voice. See my reply below as it pertains to this.

Sidenote: I love Twilio as a company and have ever since you guys sponsored a Startup Weekend in Chicago about 3 years ago. I wish y'all were hiring.

They are hiring! http://www.jobscore.com/jobs/twilio/list

You're right! I actually checked before submitting that comment, I should have said, "I wish you guys were hiring IN CHICAGO."

If you're interested in Developer Evangelism in Chicago, email me. We make it there but not nearly often enough.

I'm Austin based.. and it's way better than SF. ;)

Austin is a town I want to live in some day! I'm emailing you now.

This applies to so many fields. IT and security are two common examples from more technical areas. Both are invisible unless they screw up. Programmers get this a lot, too. Good software is often invisible to its users, and programmers mostly get attention when users hit bugs or bad design.

The way we see marketing is often the way a lot of people will see us, so it's something worth learning more about.

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