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HOWTO Go About Marketing to Developers?

Posted by Cliff on from the where-traditional-marketing-strategies-fail dept.

byrnereese asks: "My company has finally realized that one of the keys to our success will be to create a strong developer program (IBM's Developer Works, and Palm's PalmSource come to mind as examples). It just so happens that I have been appointed to lead this program. Now I have a lot of my own ideas, but I wanted to ask a large developer community directly the one question I know I am going to have to articulate a coherent answer to at some point: 'What is the most effective way to market a toolset, or development platform, to a developer in order to encourage them to build products using your product, without turning them off at the same time?'"

13 of 267 comments (clear)

  1. The Best Way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    is to use beer and naked chicks.

    Yep.

    Other than that... having a *good* toolset would help.

    1. Re:The Best Way... by metacosm · · Score: 3, Funny

      The real best way is to target management, create a toolkit that enables managment to micro-manage everyone of the coders behaviors -- and great report generation abilities. Don't worry so much about how useful it is to the programmer, that isn't the important part..

      Market this directly to management so that they will buy it without even consulting the developers and help them create new "company policy" that makes it the only allowed development enviroment/tool-kit.

      Now, the developers will rise up against this, but do not fear, in this economy they are a dime a dozen... management can just buy some new ones, and measure their success with brightly colored graphs. :)

      (yes, I know I have an evil mind)

  2. Free T-Shirts and useless toys to sit on your desk by iforgotmyfirstlogon · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well, that's what most companies seem to think...

    - Freed

    --
    "Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love." -Turkish Proverb
  3. Re:Make it friendly by cjpez · · Score: 4, Funny
    Unlike many markets, yours isn't full of people that can't tie their shoes.
    I don't know about that one . . . Personally, I avoid the whole issue by wearing boots w/ buckles and straps and the like.
    --
    Al Qaeda has ninjas!
  4. easy by Chundra · · Score: 4, Funny

    email marketing. It works, and developers really appreciate the convenience of receiving email marketing.

  5. This is easy... by SPYvSPY · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...just make ads that disparage lawyers, Apple Computer, the government, Star Wars: Episode 1, and forego proper grammar and spelling.

    :P

  6. Hookers and Blow by teamhasnoi · · Score: 4, Funny
    have always worked for me. Our sales are up, and so are our customers!

    Luv, Bill

  7. Tried and true method of brainwashing developers by guttentag · · Score: 5, Funny
    1. Lock the developers in a large auditorium.
    2. Hire a fat, bald man to charge onto the stage and chant "DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS" nonstop for 20 minutes, or until one of the following occurs:
      • he collapses from exhaustion
      • the pulsing vein in this temple bursts
    3. Introduce your product/service/ideology.
  8. Re:Chicks & T-Shirts! by BigGreen03 · · Score: 1, Funny

    Seems to me he'd be better off with chicks without the T-Shirts.

  9. Don't Ruin it for the rest of us by sweatyboatman · · Score: 4, Funny

    Shhhhh! Man!

    It's true that t-shirts and toys don't sell didley-squat, but don't tell everyone.
    Without those free t-shirts I might have to do laundry once in a while.

    And without the toys on my desk I might have to do work!

    So mums the word.

    Sweat

    --
    It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
  10. Dancing by GuyMannDude · · Score: 3, Funny

    Don't forget that he has to be able to dance in front of the crowd!

    GMD

    --
    watch this
    1. Re:Dancing by guttentag · · Score: 3, Funny
      Don't forget that he has to be able to dance in front of the crowd!
      Ballmer wasn't "dancing," he was "having a heart attack with style."
  11. Once again you forgot... by plaa · · Score: 3, Funny

    1. Lock the developers in a large auditorium.
    2. Hire a fat, bald man to charge onto the stage and chant "DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS" nonstop for 20 minutes, or until one of the following occurs:
    * he collapses from exhaustion
    * the pulsing vein in this temple bursts
    3. Introduce your product/service/ideology.

    4. ???
    5. Profit!

    --

    I doubt, therefore I may be.