Ask HN: How the Hell Do I Market to Developers? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How the Hell Do I Market to Developers?

12 pointstlong28 comments

I'm a digital marketer / growth hacker by day, and I'm used to getting great results for ecommerce and industrial b2b companies.

I usually kill it on SEM, SEO, CRO and Social advertising.

But recently I've started marketing a startup tool for developers and devops folks. I'm struggling to get traction.

I'm also a mediocre developer by night, but I find out about all of my tools from friends.

How does everyone else find new tools? How the hell do I market to you?

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1. Sell to our laziness - does this product save me X hrs of writing the same boring code for each project (e.g. creditcard.js)

2. Can I try it right now? A dev might need authorization from a manager to buy something, so a free trial will go a long way in getting the dev to try out your product.

3. How good is the quality? Detailed documentation goes a long way. Devs care a lot more than any other target market about what is under the hood.

Spend your marketing dollars creating a very high quality, targeted blog with the sole goal to capture my email. Send me regular emails (once/twice a month) about very specific things that I am interested in. Gain the trust of a dev before you start selling to him.

Thanks. Great advice. What are some of your favorite blogs now?

Developers have highly sensitive and well-tuned B$ detectors. The marketing "techniques", e.g. SEM, SEO, CRO, Social - which you mention - are seen for what they are - manipulations of perceptions for unproven value propositions.

Developers are more interested in how your product solves their real problems.

For example, instead of your question, you could have posted a link to a blog entry where you state a problem and show how your product addresses it.

Anyway, as a gross generalisation, it is hard to generate much revenue quickly by selling tools to developers. They are more inclined to try before they buy. The value proposition needs to convince us that the return on investment is significant and worthwhile. If there is a comparable open-source solution then that is likely to be adopted.

Thanks CyberFonic. I like the idea of solving problems and demonstrating the value. That seems to be a common theme.

Write blog posts about how you (or others) used the tool to solve some problem you were having.

Maybe present it at developer conferences? Just make it about solving the problem, less about the product.

You sir, just solved a problem for people. :)

Ha. Nice. Thanks guys

You should launch your product on Product Hunt. It has become the place to go to for early adopters to find new and interesting products and also to get loads and loads of users if you have something cool to share. To get listed on Product Hunt you need to find someone that is unlocked for adding new products and ideally has lots of creds on the site. There is a site called hunterlist.co - if you know anyone on page 1 of that list, get that person to submit you to PH.

Unfortunately someone submitted it very early on and we didn't get much of a lift. Maybe we can submit again when we launch the app

Having marketed to developers in the past I found that:

1) Producing quality content and examples showcasing the product's use/solving a problem are helpful. In writing that content you'll learn more about your market and what matters to them. Blogging was invaluable in helping me understand what developers needed, what they didnt, and what they responded to.

2) Clear documentation explaining how the product works. It shows that you care about your development and helps devs understand exactly how it works (which they will care about).

3) Communicate how you are either removing a pain point or removing work from their day. Most new tools are all about conveniently do X task.

Thanks. I think we can do a better job of communicating the value prop. Here's what we have so far http://www.happyapps.io/

Maybe not very clear. Working on it...

Seems pretty straightforward to me actually

What's the track record for the "startup tool?" And if it's not funding, where does the value proposition lie? By which I mean that good resources for startups are things like YC, not growth hacking and digital marketing consultants. Those may be niche, but generally don't create products and services.

That said, I wondered what you were trying to pitch so I looked at your profile. There was something about politics. And something that roughly devalued expertise. What you're selling, your SO profile, your FOSS contributions, or even that you know what problems devoperators and founders face were not to be found.

Not exactly demonstrating mastery of social media, either.

Good luck.

Ha. Great point. Don't think I have updated by HN profile since day 1. Just updated.

The app is http://www.happyapps.io/

Offering a trial period or free tier of your product may be something worth considering. This allows a developer to test the tool within their workflow and if they find enough value from it, pay for the product in full.

Thanks. We currently offer 5 free checks

As other people in this thread mentioned, I would recommend testing different messaging to see what resonates with your target group (devs and devops at startups). I would also recommend testing different online and offline channels to find this specific group.

Here's a post I wrote that lists the developer marketing channels to try: http://murtza.org/driving-the-api-adoption-funnel/

Thanks. Great post

As a developer I didn't spend a dime on dev tools in my 20 year career. The companies I worked for spent 10s of millions if not hundreds.

The general pattern is almost always a variant of a fremium model. Devs start using the free tier, someone in the hierarchy notices this and to cover companies legal risks, they buy a license. The more expensive the license, the more longer the buying process.

Thanks. That makes sense

Question: Beyond your circle of friends-- How many live conversations have you had with actual buyers/users?

That's where you'll find the insights and Big Ideas.

Great. Thanks. I'm trying to get out of the building more this week to talk to folks at meetups and coworking spaces

Have you tried BuySellAds? There are a ton of web developer websites / Twitters on there that you can target and people read.

Nope. Looks interesting. Thanks

Can you make a free version to convince the world?

As others have said, key is to empower us todo more in less time. Case studies, references, etc.

Great. Thank you

i have the same question. i wish i knew.

Thanks Justin. I'll let you know if I find the silver bullet ;)

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