Three Key Tactics for Marketing to Developers

If you ask a developer what they think of marketing, it’s unlikely you’ll get a very positive response. Why? For the most part, they’re tired of marketers telling them how awesome a product is. They have a healthy skepticism, in that they just don’t believe the messaging.

But what if your target market is developers? How do you attract them to—and keep them using—your platform? These are the questions AWS leaders Adam FitzGerald, Head of Developer Relations, and Ian Massingham, Director of Developer Evangelism, sought to answer in their talk at Web Summit on November 8th.

As a five-year veteran of AWS, Fitzgerald laid out three main things to think about when targeting the developer market.

1. Documentation

If you observe how developers work, it becomes clear why great documentation is absolutely necessary for a platform to stand a chance. While devs enjoy problem-solving, they also love efficiency, and the most efficient way of solving a problem often means finding an existing solution online and applying it. Because of this, you must offer great documentation that is easily discoverable and searchable.

2. Understand how to leverage the customer’s voice

As stated earlier, developers hate having marketers tell them how great a product is. That said, a successful marketer must realize that skepticism means devs look to their peers for recommendations. Create mechanisms (repeatable processes that you can leverage at scale) to amplify customer success stories. Fitzgerald offered how Netflix was an early proponent for AWS as a great example. The media giant publicly moved much of its streaming onto the cloud platform years ago, creating a lighthouse win that undoubtedly influenced many other potential customers to hop on board.

3. Shorten the path to success

Whatever problem your product is looking to solve, it’s likely that a developer could find a way to achieve the same result. That means the main benefit they’re looking for is time saved. This is important to keep in mind end-to-end, from creating your web experience to explaining the benefit of your product. Ways to implement this include shortening the signup flow and enabling developers to quickly experiment with your product.

Watch the full interview below: