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  • ๐Ÿ #55: Dev influencer ad playbook, big LEGO set giveaway, and a powerful Hacker News content strategy

๐Ÿ #55: Dev influencer ad playbook, big LEGO set giveaway, and a powerful Hacker News content strategy

Hey,

How did a pear convince an apple to jump on the cutting board? Idk but it was very pearsuasive ๐Ÿ ;)

This week on the agenda:

  • Developer influencer ad playbook

  • Early CockroachDB articles on Hacker News

  • Big Lego set giveaway from Sigma Computing

  • + a few bonus links at the end

Letโ€™s go!

๐Ÿชง Promo

As I got a bunch of requests for homepage/blog/website/messaging teardowns. And they didnโ€™t fit the 1-hour workshop or the longer-term advising plan.

Figured Iโ€™d create a Teardown plan:

  • You request a teardown of your homepage, website, blog, messaging, ads, socials etc

  • I run a ~90min audit and record a ~30min video with my thoughts/suggestions

  • I send you the audit doc and the video

Developer marketing insights

1. Developer influencer ad playbook

This is a simple strategy that can deliver results really quickly.

Basically, you:

  • Borrow the trust (ok buy) of the respected dev in the community.

  • Get them to present the product in a way the influencer thinks would work for their audience (which is often a solid proxy for your audience).

  • Distribute that to your target audience at the largest scale you can afford.

You can run that playbook with your tutorials too. You donโ€™t get the borrowed trust part but you can more control over the product presentation. Has itโ€™s perks too.

2. Big Lego set giveaway from Sigma Computing

Instead of giving away hundreds of small things that people will forget give away one thing that leaves an impression.

And a huge LEGO set is a great candidate for that one big thing.

There is a big overlap between devs and folks who love LEGOs. They are both builders after in their hearts.

Now, some important considerations:

  • Create a giveaway so that you can still get all your KPIs like badge scanned, social mentions, GitHub stars

  • Make the prize visible to conference participants. Put it out there. Make it obvious.

  • Make participating relatively easy to complete.

You need to commit to it too.

Don't do 3 different things like that at a conference.

Focus on one play like this at a time and try other cool ideas at another conference.

Folks from Sigma Computing ticked all these boxes.  Love it!

Btw you may want to read this amazing article on dev conferences from DX Tips. 

3. Early CockroachDB articles on Hacker News

How to create good technical content that the HN audience likes?

The general tip is simple. Create content that the HN audience finds interesting.

๐—ง๐—ต๐—ฎ๐˜ ๐˜๐˜†๐—ฝ๐—ถ๐—ฐ๐—ฎ๐—น๐—น๐˜† ๐—บ๐—ฒ๐—ฎ๐—ป๐˜€:

  • Something that feeds curiosity (how does X work, why did Y happen, what is it like to do Z)

  • Something real, transparent, and written in first person (real stories)

  • Something technical and focused on the dev or founder crowd

But how do you actually do that? Here is a lesson from CockroachDB

๐—ข๐—ป๐—ฒ ๐—ผ๐—ณ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐—ฝ๐—น๐—ฎ๐˜†๐—ฏ๐—ผ๐—ผ๐—ธ๐˜€ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฎ๐˜ ๐˜€๐—ผ๐—บ๐—ฒ ๐˜๐—ฒ๐—ฐ๐—ต๐—ป๐—ถ๐—ฐ๐—ฎ๐—น ๐—ณ๐—ผ๐˜‚๐—ป๐—ฑ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐˜€ ๐—ฑ๐—ฒ๐—ฝ๐—น๐—ผ๐˜†๐—ฒ๐—ฑ ๐˜„๐—ฎ๐˜€ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ถ๐˜€:

  • Get your technical founder or core developers to write articles

  • Those articles are focused on the technical challenges of building your product

  • Again, don't write what your product does but rather how you build it. Mistakes you made, ideas you tried, technical challenges you had to overcome.

  • Share real value with that dev audience. And to give people real value, you need to have folks who actually understand their problems. Those are typically senior devs/founders.

  • You will inevitably hint that you are building a product and the folks who are interested in your product and you will go deeper.  

That was exactly what folks from CockroachDB did at the beginning.  Heard about it on one of the episodes of the Unusual Ventures podcast with Peter Mattis from Cockroach Labs.

๐—˜๐˜…๐—ฎ๐—บ๐—ฝ๐—น๐—ฒ๐˜€ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฎ๐˜ ๐—ต๐—ถ๐˜ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐˜๐—ผ๐—ฝ ๐—ผ๐—ณ ๐—›๐—ก:

Need more developer marketing insights?

1. Work with me

Every week I have a few slots for:

  • Workshops: Whatever you can squeeze in 60 minutes.

    We can talk strategy/tactics, do brainstorms/live roasts, or debug your challenges together.

  • Teardowns: I run a ~90min audit of your homepage/messaging/blog/ads/socials. And send you a ~30min video with my thoughts/suggestions and the audit doc.

  • Advising: Weekly/biweekly coaching sessions and/or async work like reviews, audits, research, or planning.

2. Join our Slack community

1400+ dev tool CMOs, heads of growth, product marketers, and other practitioners talking about things like this:

3. Bonus links to check out

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