You Can’t Hack Marketing

Marketing is not something you hack. It’s not a silver bullet that you can purchase. And viral campaigns are not a guarantee of success. Going viral is hard enough, let alone for the right reasons.

Marketing is as much an art as it is a science. It’s how you communicate yourself to the world. This is how you share who your organization is, what your product is, and why people should trust you. It may be easy to assume that ‘if you build it, they will come.’ But if no one knows the value your product provides, let alone that it even exists, how can they be compelled to use it? 

In today’s digital landscape, marketing is a conversation. Good marketing is clear, people will understand who you are and what you do. It’s intentional, relevant narratives will be shared with appropriate audiences. And it can help your company earn trust within the community.

Marketing 101

According to dictionary.com, marketing is:

"the total of activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer or seller to the consumer or buyer, including advertising, shipping, storing, and selling."

In simple terms, marketing is how you make people aware of and interested in your products. Imagine you own a cafe and want to sell coffee…

Direct Marketing. One day you're walking down the street. You see someone and say to them, "I make really good coffee! Check out my cafe."

Advertising. You're walking down the street with a friend. Your friend tells everyone they see, "My friend makes really good coffee. You should check out their cafe!"

Public Relations. You're standing on the street and you notice someone dropped their water all over their bag of books. You help them clean up, dry their books, and offer them a new bottle of water. After you have helped them, you mention that you also make really good coffee at your cafe.

What is good marketing?

Marketing for a local cafe is one thing, engaging with software developers and getting them excited about a new tool or platform is another. In today’s digital landscape, marketing activities can be organized into three main areas: owned media, earned media, and paid media. 

Good marketing will incorporate a balanced blend of all three media types. Good marketing is intentional–it is quantity and quality, it earns and sustains trust, and supports business goals.

Even if you have an amazing website that clearly articulates the value of your product, how will people find it? Boosting your SEO can help drive curious visitors organically, but a good ad campaign can help attract an even larger number of users and buyers.

We know that software development teams value trust and transparency. Having a strong presence in the community, sharing real customer stories, and partnering with other industry leaders will help strengthen your brand so you can better differentiate. 

You don’t have to do everything, but the more ways you engage the marketplace, the more momentum you will build. And the more focused you are with your target audience and messaging, the more likely you are to achieve your business goals. 

Getting started

1. It starts with you–have a strong identity. What does your product do? How does your product provide value? How and why you built it the way you did can be a differentiator, but make sure people understand the value your product actually provides.

   
   It is important to have clear and consistent messaging and brand. Every time your product is mentioned should feel familiar–whether this is when someone sees your team at a conference, reads about you in the news, sees an ad, hears one of your partners gush about an integration, or goes to your website. Your brand and your value proposition should be unmistakable.

2. Understand your audience. Unless you have endless resources, you cannot be all things to all people. Do you know who your users are vs your buyers? Often users are individual contributors who may not be financial decision makers. They are still important, but be sure you understand the difference between the two and how you might engage them differently.
   
   It’s crucial you understand your ideal customer profile and your customer journey. This information will help you understand how to reach your audience where they are–what newsletters they read, what conferences they attend, what communities they spend time in. 

3. Develop a strategy that supports your business goals. As you can see there are many ways a company can market its products. Even if you know what you want to say and who you want to say it to, there are many ways to reach your audience.
   
   Ultimately a successful marketing campaign will have a goal. Are you promoting adoption of a new feature? Are you hosting your own user conference? Do you want to promote general awareness that your new product has just come out of stealth mode? (Hello world!) Prioritize campaigns that will support your business goals. 
   

Good marketing isn’t a random tweet or LinkedIn post that has had the good fortune to go viral. Good marketing is a collection of sustained activities that maintain the image of a brand and trust within its community. It is intentional, it is strategic, and it is on-going. It is the decision to remain engaged in conversation with your users and your community. The more you put into it, the more you’ll see come back to you. And the more focused you are, the more likely you will see results aligned with your organization’s goals. 

This is the first post in a series focused on marketing to developers. Check back soon for more posts that will dive deeper into mapping the customer journey, building and maintaining an editorial calendar, understanding the marketing funnel (yes there will be tofu), among other things.